Polish carp sent to Vatican for Swiss Guards' feast

Poland's Union for the Promotion of Fish has dispatched over 120 live Polish carp to the Vatican for a special pre-Christmas feast this Friday for the Swiss Guard.

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.