For as long as I can remember I loved my grandmother's salads. She always asked me to pick the ingredients myself in the vegetable garden in between the old house and the appletrees. At that time there were not many types of seeds available in Poland, but her garden was always full of potatoes, onions, cabbages, red beets, spring onions and dill. Especially a lot of dill.
And, not entirely coincidental, these are also the main characters in Polish cuisine. For years,
even after my grandmother passed away far too early, 'grandma's salad' was the first and last thing I ate when I was in Poland. Because her salad turned out to be widely known and available although not from her vegetable garden. But rarely were they as tasty as the one and only. I didn't find out why until decades later.
My grandma turned out to ferment her Surówka, because that's what the salad is called. Fermented shortly, to prevend it to become sauerkraut, but a crunchy salad instead. It has both sweet and sour notes and an aroma that I now know comes from lactic acid bacteria. I tend to think this was my grandma’s, who was a pediatrician, attemp, to feed super healthy food to all kids in the family in times of scarcity.