Szczecin paprikash

Szczecin paprikash(Polish:Paprykarz szczeciński), also known asPolish paprikash, is a Polish canned fishspreadmade from ground fish,rice,tomato pasteand vegetable oil, seasoned withonion,saltand spices. It has the form of a reddish-brown paste with visible rice grains. The recipe, inspired by a West African dish sampled by Polish fishermen, was developed in the 1960s at a state-owned far-sea fishing and fish processing company based in the port city ofSzczecin, in northwestern Poland. It is a popular snack, especially with students, and remains a symbol of Szczecin's local identity.
The termpaprykarz szczecińskiisPolish. The wordpaprykarzrefers to a spicy stew seasoned withpaprikaor powderedchili pepper. It derives fromHungarianpaprikás, which denotes a dish of meat (beef, veal, pork or chicken) stewed with onions, paprika and sour cream, known outside of Hungary as a variant ofgoulash.The adjectiveszczecińskidenotes anything coming from or related toSzczecin, a port city inWest Pomerania, northwestern Poland.
The ingredients ofpaprykarz szczecińskidiffer by producer, but they typically include ground fish of various kinds, tomato paste, rice, onion, vegetable oil and spices. A Polish standard introduced in 1967 specifies "Nigerian pepper"as the principal spice. The spread is a uniform paste of light to dark red or reddish-brown color, with visible grains of rice. The consistency is firm, ranging from slightly dry to juicy with a possible thin layer of oil on the surface. The product is sterilized and packed into steel or aluminum cans.
The original recipe forpaprykarz szczecińskiis attributed toWojciech Jakacki(1924–1987), deputy director and production manager atPPDiUR Gryf("Griffin"), a state-owned far-sea fishing and fish processing company based inSzczecin.Its invention was a result of an efficiency improvement project whose goal was to find a way to use up fish scraps left over from cutting blocks of frozen fish onGryf'sfishing trawlers.The recipe was developed inGryflaboratories between 1965 and 1967.The company's far-sea fishing activity at that time was located off the coast ofWest Africa. According toBogusław Borysowicz, a co-founder and long-time employee ofGryf, the recipe was inspired by "chop-chop",a West African delicacy sampled byGryf's fishermen in one of the local ports. The dish contained fish, rice and a hot spice called "pima".In 1967, Jakacki and his colleagues were issued a certificate for rationalization proposal,which, under communist intellectual property law, awarded them limited property rights to their improvement idea and allowed to put it in place.The first cans ofpaprykarz szczecińskiwere manufactured in the same year.
Originally,paprykarz szczecińskicontained scraps of various kinds of fish caught off the West African coast, such asred porgy, as well as tomato pulp imported from the southern countries of theEastern Bloc– Bulgaria, Hungary and Romania – and a spice imported from Nigeria.The fish component changed with time, asGryfmoved its fishing fleet to new locations; at various points, the paste containedAlaska pollockandblue grenadierfrom the Pacific Oceanorsouthern blue whitingfrom the waters around theFalkland Islands.By the end of the 1960s, the company had left the West African waters due to theNigerian Civil War; in 1977, it moved out of the northern Pacific Ocean when Canada and the United States claimed theirexclusive economic zones; and in 1982, it had to abandon the Falkland waters because of theArgentine-British war.
Due to its low price and long shelf life, the spread quickly gained popularity among Polish students, artists and hikers.At the turn of the 1980s,paprykarz szczecińskiamounted to about 50 percent ofGryf's total annual canned fish output of 22,000 tonnes (24,000 short tons). The product became Poland's export hit that was sold to 32 countries, including Côte d'Ivoire, Denmark, Hungary, Japan, Jordan, Liberia, theSoviet Union, Togo and the United States. According toGryf's internal report, the recipe was copied in Colombia, which exported its own version of the fish spread to neighboring countries.
An economic downturn, which hit Poland in the 1980s, resulted in inferior quality of the product. The Nigerian spice was replaced with cheaper Hungarian paprika and the original fish content of 50 percent was reduced in favor of rice. It was common to find fragments of fins, scales and bones in the paste. A slump in the sales ofpaprykarz szczecińskiin the mid-1980s was brought about by a public revelation that the meat of the southern blue whiting was heavily infested withKudoa alliaria, amyxozoanparasite infecting marine fish. Consumers feared that the infected fish, rather than being recalled from the market, was ground and mixed into thepaprykarz; some people took grains of rice visible in the paste for parasite cysts. During the food shortages of the time, cans of the fish paste often remained on grocery shelves along with vinegar as the only food products available.
With Poland's transition from command to market economy in the early 1990s, Polish far-sea fishing business became economically unsustainable, bringing Gryf to bankruptcy.According to Borysowicz,paprykarz szczecińskiwas protected by a patent, but the documents were lost during the company's liquidation. Several other Polish companies tried, without success, to obtain a patent for the same product in the 1990s and 2000s. As a result, both the recipe and the name ofpaprykarz szczecińskiare legally unprotected, allowing various producers throughout Poland (all outside Szczecin) to manufacture their own versions of the paste, often using freshwater fish, under the same name.In 2010, thePolish Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Developmentplacedpaprykarz szczecińskion an official list of traditional products, per request from the West Pomeranian regional authorities. While this recognition itself does not grant the recipe any legal protection, it is considered a first step for Szczecin towards having the paste's name and geographic indication protected underEuropean Union law.
Paprykarz szczecińskiwas one of the most recognizable brands in socialist Poland. Due to its popularity and association with the main city of West Pomerania, it has become a part of Szczecin's post-war local identity even though it is no longer produced in this city. Thepaprykarzshares this status with another local food product, a meat-filled pastry known aspasztecik szczeciński. The wordPaprykarzis sometimes humorously used by people from other parts of Poland to refer to inhabitants of Szczecin and particularly to the players and fans ofPogoń Szczecin, the local soccer club.