The bigos is being cooked. No words can tell
The wonder of its colour, taste and smell.
Mere words and rhymes are jingling sounds, whose sense
No city stomach really comprehends.
For Lithuanian food and song you ought
To have good health and country life and sport.
But bigos e'en without such sauce is good,
Of vegetables curiously brewed.
The basis of it is sliced sauerkraut,
Which, as they say, just walks into the mouth;
Enclosed within a cauldron, its moist breast
Lies on the choicest meat in slices pressed.
There it is parboiled till the heat draws out
The living juices from the cauldron's spout,
And all the air is fragrant with the smell.
'Twas ready now. With thrice repeated yell
The huntsmen armed with spoons attacked the stew.
The copper roared and forth the vapour flew.
The bigos disappeared like camphor oil;
Only the pots were left to seethe and boil
Like craters of extinct volcanoes still.
- Pan Tedeusz
Because my house smells of it right now. And it beats watching Red blame Pete Buttigieg for Southwest Airlines having route and staffing policies that leave it unprepared for severe winter weather in December.
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