Foodways and Memory: Polish-Jewish Relations in a Post-Holocaust Town

This article explores how the contemporary Polish inhabitants of Dąbrowa Białostocka remember town’s former Jewish community through the lens of foodways. By analyzing food-related practices, economic exchanges, and everyday interactions; the study examines how memory is shaped by structural amnesia, stereotypes, and post-memory narratives. Drawing on extensive ethnographic research conducted in the Podlasie region, the article highlights how food serves as both a site of remembrance and a vehicle for historical erasure. While Jewish merchants and tradespeople were once central to local food economies, their absence after the Holocaust has left both material and symbolic voids. The findings reveal that Jewish foodways persist in sensory and economic memory; yet they are often detached from individual Jewish lives. The study underscores the role of food in mediating Polish-Jewish relations and contributes to broader discussions on memory, forgetting, and the socio-economic legacies of multicultural pasts in the post-Holocaust communities.