Pomeranian

A Gdańsk smokehouse smells the way a Kashubian summer tastes — alder smoke pulling pink salt out of mackerel and eel, herring in jars cured with onion and bay, sandacz (pike-perch) baked under butter and dill for Sunday lunch. The lakes inland send up their own catch: pike, perch, the small bream the locals call leszcz. In July the strawberry season turns into a region-wide event — the Kashubian strawberry has PDO protection — and cold strawberry soup with sour cream appears on every table.

Within Polish regional kitchens, Pomerania is the sea one — the only place in Poland where the fish supply leads the menu instead of pork. The Kashubian minority adds its own touches: a Slavic language different from Polish, a strong dairy tradition (the cold strawberry soup uses local cream), and a lasting love for buckwheat and barley over wheat. The food is lighter than the rest of Poland; the river and the Baltic see to that.