Polish carp sent to Vatican for Swiss Guards' feast

Carp from a Polish farm in Dzwonowo. Photo: PAP/Marcin Bielecki

The carp will be cooked in a variety of ways by Tomasz Lesniak, official chef for Poland's national football team.

Zbigniew Szczepanski, chairman of the Union for the Promotion of Fish, revealed to Radio Katowice that Magdalena Wolinska-Riedi, Polish wife of one of the Swiss Guards, helped organise the carp banquet.

Szczepanski said that the occasion was a wonderful opportunity to promote Polish carp – a staple of the Christmas table in Poland - and that it might also persuade some Poles who have abandoned the dish to try it once again.

“Thanks to this trip to the Vatican, I think that all the more people [in Poland] will believe that carp really is inseparably bound up with tradition, and that all the more people will feel that it's the right Christmas fish for them, and that the 10 percent of people who still don't believe this will eat carp this year.”

Chef Tomasz Leszniak will be rustling up as many as 12 dishes from carp for the Swiss Guard and their families. Among the three starters are such options as cream of carp soup with pumpkin seeds, while mains include breaded fillets of carp with hazelnuts and almonds and a creamy horseradish sauce.

Pope Francis spends birthday with homeless Pole, Czech and Slovak

Meanwhile, Pope Francis marked his 77th birthday on Tuesday by having breakfast with three homeless men from Poland, the Czech Republic and Slovakia.

The men, all in their forties, were invited at random after they were found sleeping under the portico in front of the Vatican press hall on Tuesday morning.

One of the men brought his dog, and prior to breakfast, the group took part in a mass led by the pontiff at the Vatican's St. Martha Guesthouse.

According to Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano the Pope “shared a few laughs” with the men over breakfast. (nh)

Pope Francis meets hosts three homeless men for breakfast on his 77th birthday. Photo: EPA/Vatican handout