#martin has those heavy bakers hands that can make intricate and delicate pastries

[dspd]

HI HELLO POLISH MARTIN????

First of all, this really goes along with something nearly all Martin fanart has - huge ass forearms and large, strong hands. Have you tried baking? Bakers have an unusual amount of upper body strength that's developed as you stir and knead bread daily.

For Jon, Martin's baking is amazing because there's a difference in how machine mixed bread and biscuits and pastries taste compared to manually mixed items. There's no rhyme or reason (and studies show machines are a better, more consistent bake) but Jon has known since he was a tiny kid still living with his parents that hand made has a slightly different taste that he prefers.

Martin has also developed amazing vegetarian options to traditional, meaty polish dishes like cabbage rolls, bigos, krokiety, and pierogi. He's not vegetarian by any means but in the last 6 months of caring for his mom, she had developed stage 2 kidney disease and he'd learned vegetarian and peskitarian versions of the food she'd grown up with in Poland to try to keep her health up. As her health declined and her pain increased, she'd have wild emotional swings and sometimes toss the dishes onto the floor if he made them this way and he'd spend miserable minutes gritting his teeth, eyes stinging, as she sobbed and muttered in Polish into her pillow on the bed above him.

Personally, he dislikes bigos because of the mouth-feel of sauerkraut (yes yes he knows he's an unpatriotic pole for this thought) but during vacations he had a constant pot on when his mother was still alive because she loved it so much.

One of Martin's favorite memories is from right after he was hired at the institute and he brought chłodnik to a summer potluck and his dish was the last to be tried and first to be emptied. His then new coworker, Sasha, raved about it for days before he tentatively offered to give her his recipe and she nearly squealed in happiness before hugging him. You can't convince me Martin isn't a touch starved plushie who nearly forgot he was gay for a hot minute after the serotonin rush.

Martin's middle name is Krzysztof but he never used it because people struggle with the pronunciation of the "szt" and he also thinks he's terrible at Polish, something that his mother never failed to point out when she was on a tear and listing the ways he disappointed her. Of course, later, when her symptoms had abated, she'd tearfully cry and promise she didn't mean what she'd said, that it was the devil eating her brain, holding his hand between her own, increasingly fragile fingers.

So, yeah, Polish Martin who randomly breaks into polish muttering just like his mother when he's muttering to himself and thinking through a task out loud. Once, a distressed, lost polish immigrant came into the institute for help and a small crowd has gathered to try to help her, unsuccessful because no one even recognized Polish, until Martin, luckily walking past, overheard her and called out to her, startling Jon with his familiarity of the language and the way the woman's wrinkled face lifted and brighten and the way she pulled him down for an overfamiliar kiss on the cheek before she left. When he asked Martin if he knew her, carefully recreating the name he'd heard, bahb-chuh, Martin blushed and said no, that's how the Polish community treats each other. He called her babcia, grandmother, and she'd treated him as a grandson in return. This was the first spark of interest Jon felt about Martin, who otherwise had been a boring yet vaguely troublesome and annoying employee, if only for the fact that he seemed to know less about his job duties than Jon did about his own. This obviously happened after episode 12 when Jon doubts Martin's ability to translate Polish.

Martin, in another show of breaking from Polish practice, uses endearments for Jon. He tried kochanie once but Jon wrinkled his face in distaste, the Eye poo-pooing on the lovefest by maliciously helpfully translating at an inopportune moment. Instead, Martin prefers słoneczko (sweetheart) and słońce (sun/sunshine), especially fond of the second one after watching Jon unconsciously following the sunlight across the room like a cat while reading on the floor of the cabin of 161.

Archivists and cooking:

Sasha:

So good at cooking

watch her throw spices into a pan like a fucking wizard tending to their potion

Shit at baking :(

sorry Sash they appreciated the effort of you making brownies to bring to lunch that one time but they weren't amazing

Tim:

Shit at cooking

Shit at baking

No explanation it just came to me in a prophetic vision

Listen. He's a whore. He either gets a takeaway or goes on dates when he's hungry.

Jonny boy

Everyone headcanons good at cooking and I am inclined to agree it tickles me

But he's not good at cooking in a sasha making up your own recipes way but in a control freak in the kitchen, follow it to the T, complicated ass meals if he had the time/effort/wasn't constantly suffering kinda way

Shit baker.

Could probably do it if he wanted to. Tried once and was bad at it. Never did it again. Said he didn't have much of a sweet tooth anyway. (He's lying)

Marto:

Fairly decent cook

Had to take care of his mum so I'm guessing he was forced to get really good at a few fairly quick, comfort recipes

(I like polish!Martin here, cause he can make like polish comfort dishes, I don't know much about them, anyone who does feel free to add your thoughts)

AMAZING BAKER.

Cliche but a good cliche. Baker Martin SLAPS don't even try to deny it. 1. Strong arms, 2. He'd look good in an apron, 3. He's just so domestic, baking bread and cookies for Jon like you can just imagine it

He feels safe with the rigid recipes and instructions you get with baking

Will bake a plate of cookies and bring them in to the institute and they will be IMMEDIATELY GONE. he turns around and everyone is sprinting off in opposite directions.

Jon's like "Biscuits and tea seem to be a (insert long ass complicated positive adjective) combination, Martin. Don't bring them in again, they're disrupting work flow."

Martin's like "...well you took one."