Pierogi ruskie are the canonical potato-and-quark dumplings that anchor every Warsaw milk bar, pierogarnia and wedding table. The name traces to the Ruthenian Carpathian uplands, not Russia.

Pierogi were already a Polish staple by the 13th century, but pierogi ruskie in their canonical potato-and-quark form emerged through the 19th century in the Ruthenian (western Ukrainian) Carpathian uplands of the old Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. Polish repatriation from the eastern borderlands after 1945 carried the recipe west into Warsaw kitchens, where it became the default pierogi at the new socialist milk bars in the 1950s. Today every Warsaw pierogarnia plates the dish; the spelling 'ruskie' is etymologically tied to Rus, not Russia, and remained on menus throughout the Cold War.

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