Polish Takeaway

I see we have one of these locally. History repeating itself as each wave of migrants tempts us with their cuisine - and that word itself I suspect is not native :-)

Anyway, there was a menu in the widow. A list of incomprehensible items with prices. I reflected on how more customer-friendly the equivalent menus were in 1970s Chinese and Indian takeaways. Sure, they had foreign words but each item also had a number for embarrassment-free ordering. And there were English descriptions too such as "rices with vegetable" which served to inform and amuse.

But history hasn't repeated itself exactly. The owners of Indian takeaways in 1970s Britain were often the only people of that ethnicity in town. Pioneers. Very few of them were nurses, engineers, doctors, etc.

With the Poles it's been different. The pioneers arrived a decade ago. The Polish takeaways, grocers, etc. came later and are not there for to provide the occasional exotic treat for the English natives. They're for Polish people.