Breakfast, Second Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner and Supper in Poland

 

Roger wasn’t the first to make this mistake. Many British business people are caught out by the Polish second breakfast tradition. They decline the first because it’s too early and are ‘faint with lack of nourishment’ by the second. It’s just the Polish way of doing things. After a light breakfast, called śniadanie, before leaving home for work in the early morning, Poles eat a second breakfast any time between 10 am and 1 pm, which replaces the British lunch, and then work straight through until they finish work.

 

In fact, most people stay at the office during the British lunch hour and are not in the habit of going out to buy something to eat; they bring whatever they fancy eating for ‘second breakfast’ from home. The lunch culture is spreading more widely now, because there are more representatives of foreign businesses, particularly in large cities, where business culture is changing and more people work with foreigners.

 

Lunch, in fact called “obiad” (more like high tea), is usually eaten at home with family any time between 4 pm and 5.30 pm, and the hours depend on how quickly one gets back home. Some non-Polish business people admit to being caught out by this. The answer, when you know it, is simple. Have a good breakfast and take a piece of fruit or a snack to keep you going. In addition, if you are at meetings or trade fairs in the summer, take a bottle of water to keep you from becoming dehydrated. Poland can get quite hot in the summer. Poles have another meal after their lunch / “obiad” meal, called “kolacja”, which means supper. It is a light meal, usually a small sandwich or snack with tea any time in the evening.

 

So, in fact, if you are invited to a restaurant for a meal it could be either “obiad”, a midday meal ( a substitute for a late lunch) or “kolacja”, supper in the evening , both of which will be very elaborate and rich, as Poles are known for their hospitality not only at their homes but also when inviting guests to restaurants.

 

Don’t Forget my Name Day!

 

Poland, don’t forget, is largely a Catholic country. The late Pope John Paul II was born in Poland and known as Cardinal Karol Wojtyła from Kraków. Most Poles in the past were named after saints, and in the Catholic Church each saint has a feast day named after them. Many Polish calendars list not only the date but also the name of the saint or saints honoured on that date. So if your name is Paweł, you are named after St Paul the Apostle, and one feast day associated with him is 29 June. That date is your name day, and in Poland it is a cause for celebration just as much as your birthday, particularly for middle-aged people and the older generation. Young people, however, prefer to celebrate their birthdays. Young parents also sometimes choose foreign names, such as Nicola, Angelika and Jessika, for their babies. Polish calendars also adjusted to this trend, and an increasing number of foreign names have been incorporated into calendars. The latest fashion in Poland is to give a child an old-fashioned Slavonic name such as Stanisław or Mirosława.

 

 It is common for people to take cakes and a bottle of champagne into the office to celebrate their name day. To give you an idea of how significant name days are, in the early days of Polish immigration to the United States, it was common for immigrants to give their name day as their birth date, rather than their actual date of birth.

 

Do I Take a Gift?

 

Speaking of presents reminds us of Martin and his bottle of vodka. Poles like presents. It’s common to present gifts to business partners when meeting or at the end of a visit. Pushed for time at the airport, Martin grabbed a bottle of vodka on his way through duty free and stuffed it into his hand-luggage. At his first business meeting he proudly got it out and presented it to his Polish host. Russian vodka!

 

Poles are proud and they react very quickly to what they think is a slight. Not only was Martin guilty of carrying coals to Newcastle, by taking vodka to the Poles who have plenty of fine vodka of their own, to add insult to injury he’d given them Russian vodka. Martin managed to put the business at risk within ten minutes of walking into the room. Luckily, his hosts were experienced at dealing with foreigners and were amused rather than annoyed by the gaffe.

 

Gift giving can be a minefield. It’s expected, but what do you take? Traditional British food and drink is always welcome, so take a couple of bottles of malt whisky for your more important hosts and stock up on shortbread and chocolates for everyone else. If you can buy them, in a decorative tin, even better. If you are invited to a home, buy some pastries and take them as a gift for the hostess. Like many countries, Poland has its own gift-giving shibboleths, honoured as much in the breach as in the observance. Always take a small gift if you are invited to someone’s home, and if it is flowers, try to make sure that it is an odd number: avoid half a dozen or a dozen of anything, present your flowers unwrapped and keep away from chrysanthemums, which are associated with funerals. Your attention to getting it right will be appreciated as a sign of interest in and empathy with Polish culture and traditions. Poles may give you a small gift in return, and it will often be a hand-crafted, beautifully decorated piece of folk art.

 

Hospitality

 

Ah! At last, it’s time for lunch. Five o’clock, and we’re starving. Hang on, though. Isn’t it a little early for a full meal? Giving hospitality to guests is a Polish tradition and very common. We were taken to a very special restaurant, where the barszcz (beetroot soup) was deep, smooth and tasty, and followed by Polish savoury pancakes and then a meat dish followed by dessert and thick black coffee. At five we were starving. By six we couldn’t eat another thing. Poles will tend to have a main meal around five and a snack later on in the evening. Once again, if you are in your hotel room and your stomach is working overtime, make sure you have access to room service or at least a snack to prevent you from going through the night feeling hungry. Poles prefer to do their business entertaining out and at restaurants, and “obiad” or high tea is the time they do it. Evenings, as at least three guide books will tell you, are for romance...

 

Whatever your drinking habits, be prepared for multiple toasts, which may be in vodka rather than wine. The first one, initiated by the host will be “to the health of the guests”, the second, by you, to the health of the host, and from then on people toast anything that takes their fancy. The important thing is to pace yourself; the better the evening, the more toasts there will be. We are no longer in the age of downing shots of vodka in one go, but glasses will be raised and clinked each time a toast is proposed and you may not notice the effects of alcohol creeping up on you. By the way, get the word for “Cheers” in Polish right. It’s “Na Zdrowie”, not to be confused with the Russian “Na Zdorovie”.

 

Guest in the Home, God in the Home!

 

“Oh my God, the English are so stingy”, complained Effie, after her first visit for dinner at an English friend’s home. “They had only one starter and one dessert. We Poles would have had three”, she explained. It is true that the Poles take entertaining very seriously and really push the boat out. The old proverb, “Guest in the home, God in the home”, reflects the traditional Polish attitude toward entertaining and hospitality. It’s important to allow the academic quarter hour before turning up and you may be asked in some houses to remove your shoes. Don’t ask for the guided tour. Your hosts may volunteer to show you around but if they don’t, go where you are invited.

 

Poles are proud of their culinary traditions and cooking skills, and tasting the traditional bigos, or hunter’s stew, is a must. You must show your appreciation of the reception, the table and the food enthusiastically but not over-enthusiastically and once again you must pace yourself. It’s not uncommon for foreign guests to gorge on the delicious starters and to glaze over with a sinking feeling in the stomach as the huge main dish is placed proudly on the table.

 

This illustrates a difference between Polish and British culture. In Britain you are taught to empty your plate. In Poland, if you empty your plate you will be given more. So leave a little on your plate and don’t eat too much too early. When you hear the word “jedz” (eat), just decline politely. Don’t overstay your welcome. Drink your coffee at the end of the meal and say goodbye, after offering to help clear up - the offer will be refused, but the intention will be appreciated. 10 pm or 10.30 pm is quite long enough.

 

Etiquette and Protocol

 

Most people think that culture is all about etiquette, politeness and protocol. We hope that we’ve demonstrated that fitting into Polish culture and building good relations with your hosts and clients involves a lot more than that. However, politeness does pay, along with greeting people in the right way and showing the appropriate degree of respect. “I like the British, they are so casual and relaxed”, says Maggie, a Polish PhD student in London. Relaxed and casual? Surely, she has mistaken the British for the Americans. However, in comparison with Poland, she is right. The British are very much a “first name” culture, not overly given to hand-shaking, and adopting a relatively relaxed style, even with regard to authority.

 

In Poland it’s the other way round, and it’s easy to fall into the trap of being over-familiar, just by behaving in the same way there as one would here, in the United Kingdom. For one thing, the use of first names in Poland is for close friends and family, not acquaintances, although Poles do stretch a point for Anglo-Saxon informality.

 

Among themselves, however, the formal Mrs and Mr and titles are much more common: the movement from surnames to first names is a big step forward in a relationship and is always initiated by the Polish side. Imagine calling your bank manager “Mrs Bank Manager” and you’ve got an idea of the degree of formality involved.

Similarly, if you are a woman among older men, you may be embarrassed by the man who takes your hand, bows and lightly kisses the back of it. This old-fashioned courtesy is uncommon in today’s Poland, but it does still exist, whereas shaking hands with all parties at the beginning and end of meetings is de rigueur. There’s a degree of formality in body language which the Poles prefer, such as men not sticking their hands in their pockets while speaking, keeping wrists on the table during meals, not chewing gum in meetings (does anybody do that anymore?) and definitely not planting the ankle of one leg over the knee of the other. In short, your relaxed body language might be offensive to your Polish clients and partners.

 

Just Like Us?

 

A well known cultural commentator, John Mole, once said that the person who looks most like you may be the most different. We are all on the lookout for cultural differences with communities we expect to be different, such as the Chinese and Japanese, but we often assume that there are no differences between cultures who are a mere two hours away by air. In business, getting the culture right is a great way to build good relationships, something which is particularly important in Polish business.

 

About the Authors:

 

Barry Tomalin is the Director of Cultural Training at International House. He has previously worked as the Marketing Manager for BBC English and the BBC World Service. For further information about International House London, please call +44 (0)2076112461                                                                                                 

Anna Maria McKeever is the Director of the British Polish Business Club and a Polish Consultant at the Department of Culture and Communication Training for Business, at International House. For further information on the British-Polish Business Club, please call +44 (0) 20 7193 6943