Gołąbki is the Polish name of a dish popular in cuisines of Central Europe, made from boiled cabbage leaves wrapped around a filling of minced pork or beef, chopped onions, and rice and/or kasza. Gołąbki are often served during on festive occasions such as weddings, holidays, and other family events.

Etymology

Gołąbki is the plural form of gołąbek, the diminutive form of gołąb ("pigeon, dove"). Max Vasmer accepts this as the origin of the word, stating that the dish was so named due to similarity in shape. The Polish linguist Marek Stachowski finds this theory semantically dubious. He instead proposes an Oriental borrowing, pointing out that a similar dish, aside from Eastern Europe, is known in the Levant and Central Asia. He mentions Persian کلم "cabbage" or کلم پیچ "cabbage roll" and Old Armenian կաղամբ "cabbage" as possible sources. The word would have later been altered by folk etymology to resemble the word for the bird.

Other names

Gołąbki are also referred to in English as golombki, golumpki, golabki, golumpkies, golumpkis, gluntkes, or gwumpki. Similar variations are called holubky (Czech, Slovak), sarmale (Romanian), töltött káposzta (Hungarian), holubtsi (Ukrainian), golubtsy (Russian), balandėliai (Lithuanian), Kohlrouladen (German) or kåldolmar (Sweden, from the Turkish dolma). In Yiddish, holipshes, goleptzi golumpki and holishkes or holep are very similar dishes. In the United States, the terms are commonly Anglicized by second- or third-generation Americans to "stuffed cabbage", "stuffed cabbage leaves", or "cabbage casserole". They are also referred to as "pigs in a blanket", not to be confused with pigs in blankets in British and Irish cuisine.