The Best Pierogi in Pennsylvania Is a Family Recipe Passed Down for Generations

When I was growing up, there wasn’t a single holiday or family get-together that was celebrated without pierogi and kielbasa. There was talk that we had the best pierogi connection in Pennsylvania and every member of our family always had a freezer stocked full. I remember the first time my uncle showed me how to cook them. It seemed easy; just chop up some onions and put them in a pan with butter and pierogi, which if you have never had the pleasure, are handmade potato dumplings that are often accompanied by cheese or onions, or filled with sweet ingredients. It was our “thing” I was being schooled on and despite being so young, I remember feeling appreciative, like it was something important to pay attention to.

One day when I was around 10 years old, my grandfather came unannounced to pick me up in his '90s boat of a Cadillac and take me somewhere for the day. Usually it was to go catch a Flyers game together, but today we were doing something else. We were going to drive 143 miles from suburban Philadelphia to his hometown in Northeastern Pennsylvania to pick up the coveted and glorious pierogi. 

In pursuit of Pennsylvania pierogi

Our connection, known to me only as Mrs. Garbera, was based in Simpson, Pennsylvania, a former coal mining town with a significant Eastern European immigrant population. She had retired, I found out on the ride, but her daughter continued to make and sell pierogi. After a nearly three hour drive listening to Neil Diamond and other of his favorites, we pulled up to a house — not a storefront. A woman about the age of my grandfather walked out with several large plastic bags and carried them right to the car as it was idling. She spoke to us for a couple minutes, handed over the goods and leaned into the car with a smile just to say hi to me before she went back inside. That was that and we were back on the road. 

Four years later, after my grandfather died, large family gatherings occurred less frequently. There was no longer anyone driving up to Simpson to pick up our pierogi.

Living in Manhattan and Brooklyn in my late teens and twenties, I asked around about the food from my childhood and was assured that it could be found locally. The first spot I tried was Veselka, a Ukrainian restaurant in the East Village. Everything about it was excellent and I highly recommend Veselka, but it wasn’t our pierogi. Next up was the now sadly-shuttered Odessa, also in the East Village, after a late night with some friends. While we had a great time and ate our fill, it still was not quite right.

Potatoes, cheese, and a mystery

So what exactly is my family's pierogi? Potato and cheese is all I’ve ever been told. Sometimes people would mention the cheese was cheddar but my taste buds never agreed with that; it was something else. Ours were also significantly larger than anything I’ve found at a New York City restaurant or in the freezer at a big-box grocery store.  

When I moved to the historically Polish neighborhood of Greenpoint in Brooklyn, I felt closer to finding what I was seeking. Walk into any kielbasa store on Manhattan Avenue and you will see and smell exactly what I’m talking about. Endless rings of red smoked meat hanging down the entire length of these pork stores. I investigated the standalone refrigerators and freezers of these businesses scouring for pierogi only to take them home and be disappointed again. Always good, but not quite the same.

Today as a producer and audio engineer for the Tinfoil Swans podcast, now living in the Los Angeles area, I spend some of my downtime with co-workers talking about what I’m getting for lunch, what I’m cooking for myself, and anything else food related. I bragged on Slack about how I had a current pierogi connection in L.A. but admitted I still longed for “our” pierogi. “You should write about it,” was the response I got. 

Meeting the kielbasa king

It was time to find out once and for all if Mrs. Garbera’s pierogi or a similar recipe was still available in Northeastern Pennsylvania. My family steered me into the direction of David Rupp, owner of Oprisko Kielbasa in Simpson. 

Oprisko’s boasts a 100-year old smoker, lists the Von Trapp family and the Dallas Cowboys as former clients, and supplies locals with kielbasa seasonally — most notably during the Easter, Christmas and Fourth of July seasons. While his dream is for the business to stay open year-round, David maintains a job as a local school teacher during the week and Oprisko’s as his passion project. One time in line as a customer himself, he overheard the former owner, Kenny Oprisko, mention that the store was being sold to a New York firm. David started asking questions and it became apparent Kenny would rather sell to a local person than hand the business over to outsiders. 

Along with his parents, David purchased the business and Kenny agreed to stay on for one year to train them in the art of kielbasa production. David set out to modernize Oprisko’s and ran with some of his ideas and those of regular customers. Blue cheese, jalapeño cheddar and honey sriracha kielbasa are among some of the modern flavors that Rupp created through a laborious trial-and-error process.  He mentioned, as an example, the difficulty of finding a blue cheese with the right melting point so that after the kielbasa is cooked, the cheese stays gooey and doesn’t liquify.

I spent $170, including delivery to California, to stock my fridge with six behemoth rings of kielbasa and a dozen pierogi. After heating up and sampling the first ring, I realized why my family recommended Oprisko. This was the most nostalgic and flavorful kielbasa I ever ate in my life. Of particular note was the double smoked kielbasa. According to Rupp, it’s popular with customers because it brings them back to the camping trips they took as scouts during their youth. When you’re a kid from Northeastern Pennsylvania of Slovak, Polish, Russian, or Ukrainian descent, you don’t get sent off to the lake or up the mountains with PB&J in a brown paper bag, or even hot dogs for roasting. You get a cooler full of already smoked kielbasa, and heat them on a stick over a bonfire. This “Boy Scout dinner” might also include potatoes and cabbage if you're lucky.

The mysterious pierogi maker

There was something else in the package David sent me – an extra dozen pierogi from Petrosky Pierogi. It was significant to me that one local store owner was making a point to make me aware of, essentially, a competitor’s product. Rupp recommended that I talk to the owner, Brian Petrosky and gave me his phone number. 

Brian, who studied marketing in an effort to help modernize his family business, mentioned that he heard my grandfather used to come to the family shop. This was impossible since we always bought directly from Mrs. Garbera’s elusive and — to me — nameless daughter. When I brought this up to Petrosky, he replied “Yeah, that’s my mom.”

Diane Petrosky, 89, is retired from pierogi making, but her children Brian, Pam and Brenda have kept the tradition going with a storefront business that supplies households and many restaurants in the Simpson and greater Scranton area. Before the storefront, it was a common sight to see factory workers lined up on the street during lunch hours outside the Petrosky house while multiple family members would be inside making hundreds and hundreds of the potato dumplings by hand to feed the local masses. Diane’s mother, Anna Garbera (née Zavacky) and her own sisters carried on the tradition a generation earlier after learning from their Ukrainian mother. The recipe has never changed and is still sold at Petrosky’s. The cheese is Cooper Sharp – not cheddar.  

As I am writing this, there are six in the frying pan along with some butter and onions just like my uncle showed me. I’m taking the first bite now and getting a little misty. 

I’ve finally found our pierogi. Now it's yours, too.