My mother’s mother’s parents were both from a small village in what was then Galicia, later Poland between the World Wars, and is now Ukraine. My Great-Grandfather was Polish, and my Great-Grandmother was Ruthenian. Since my earliest childhood memories, we.ve had pierogi for Christmas Eve dinner every year, and they were always boiled. Yet today if you go to Poland or talk to many other Polish people, even here in the USA, they fry their pierogi before serving them. Why fried? It’s not what I grew up with in my very Polish household.
I guess a better question is, “Why not?” In truth, I now prefer my pierogi fried, and I think it adds a layer of flavor to them. I always fry mine now. For Wigilia I serve them with sour cream and with fried onions. At other times of the year, I add chopped bacon to the onions. But the question has always puzzled me as to why my mother, her mother (my grandmother), and my mother’s mother (my great-grandmother), only boiled them, and never fried them. I believe the answer is in the regional nature of foods, how dishes, even such widely Slavic dishes like pierogi, change over various regions.
Today if you go to Ukraine, you will be served the Ukrainian version of pierogi, called varenyky. They are in general never fried, only boiled. [They also have a small cousin, pelmeni, which are very small, almost like tortellini, but also boiled only.] I think my great-grandmother simply cooked as the people in her region did, and that’s that they made these little dumplings of goodness (called pierogi in Polish and varenyky in Ukrainian) and boiled them and served them that way. It’s how it was done in that area of the Kresy, the borderlands of Poland. So, in Poland pierogi are usually boiled then fried, but in the eastern areas, varenyky are only boiled. Yet they are basically the same thing. Pierogi, varenyky, basically the same thing.
So, the end result? Well, do what you like with them, call them what you’re comfortable calling them (pierogi, varenyky — also called Pyrohy, Pedehey, or heaven on a plate). Fry them or not, they are still wonderful. There is no right or wrong, there is only the enjoyment of these wonderful, delightful dumplings that are popular throughout the Slavic world with some variations. Smacznego!
