I did not grow up with Polish food around me. I grew up in a small Pennsylvania town made up of largely Italian, Irish population. Polish food was very foreign to me. It wasn’t served in the local restaurant and most assuredly not in our home.

So when in 1970 I married into a Polish family, my culinary education began. My first dinner with my in-laws included a delicacy called “Czernina”. For those of you who don’t know what it is here is an short history.

Czernina is a Polish soup made of duck blood and clear poultry broth. In English it is referred to as Duck Blood Soup.