My Scholarship entry - Understanding a Culture through Food
UKRAINE | Sunday, 15 April 2012 | Views [286] | Scholarship Entry
Today I suggest you to taste Ukraine. Just imagine that you are sitting in front of a table. What's on it? Let's try it!
You will start with a soup. Here comes traditional Ukrainian borsch. You can see the whole history of nation in it. Once when Ukraine was a huge country and was called Kyivan Rus' in Medieval Times it was full of meat, beet and other vegetables. Sour-cream was put by wooden spoon with ornament. When Ukraine became a part of Russian Empire some potatoes were added, when Emperor Peter I brought these veggies here. When Ukraine was struggling the famine in the Soviet times the borsch of our ancestors was called “hunger borsch”, barely colored red with some pieces of beet. Today's borsch we could call “global borsch”. Sometimes you can find there different flavors and components which are not really from Ukraine. That shows how we quickly adopting things from other country in the recent years of independence.
OK, let's finish with soup and take another dish. That'll be varenyky, which is something similar to Italian ravioli or dumplings. Dough covers the stuffing. What would you prefer to have inside – meat, cabbage, mashed potato or cottage cheese? These varenyky are like Ukrainians – you need to look what inside the dough, so you can understand them. And of course don't forget to pour some sour cream over varenyky.
On desert on our today's menu we have cottage cheese pancakes with raisins. You can say that in Ukraine cottage cheese much more common than cheese and it tastes differently. And again you have some sour-cream over pancakes. Do these people really add sour-cream just everywhere? Yeah, indeed!
Something to drink? What about uzvar? Smell it first. Apples and pears are pretty recognizable. They were boiled like a dried fruits in water. It's also a Christmas traditional drink, while outside is snowy winter and caroling songs.
After this meal you now feel pretty full and pretty familiar with culture of Eastern European country like Ukraine.
Tags: travel writing scholarship 2012
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