Ukraine
Black soil, black bread and the borscht that UNESCO put on its heritage list.
Ukraine sits on some of the most fertile soil on earth, and the cooking shows it: beetroot, cabbage, potato, wheat, sunflower and pork, handled with more care than the ingredient list suggests. Borscht is the national dish and genuinely varies house to house - beetroot and cabbage in a meat or bean stock, sharpened with vinegar or sour apple, finished with smetana and a clove-heavy hit of garlic bread called pampushky. UNESCO added Ukrainian borscht culture to its list of intangible heritage in 2022.
Varenyky are the other pillar - soft dumplings filled with potato, curd cheese, sour cherries or cabbage, boiled and served with fried onion and cream. Salo, cured pork fat eaten thin on rye with garlic, is a national in-joke and a genuine staple. Deruny, potato pancakes, come from the north, and holubtsi, cabbage rolls of rice and mince, appear at every celebration.
The Kyiv cake - meringue, hazelnut and buttercream - was a Soviet-era invention that became a symbol of the city, and chicken Kyiv travelled far enough from home that most people who order it have no idea where it came from.
- borscht
- varenyky
- salo
- holubtsi
- deruny
- kyivskyi tort
