Revealing Part of Ukrainian Culture, Tasteful Thinking
“This is not what I’m used to!” were my first thoughts when I arrived in the USA. Well, this is a part of being an exchange student – you’re constantly trying to get adjusted. Especially to something like food. I am frequently asked what the biggest change from my old style of life and eating habits is, so I have made a list of some of the biggest differences between America and Ukraine.
- Cold water. Yes, it’s cold for me. Water that Americans drink felt freezing for the first couple of months. Ukrainians usually drink water at room temperature.
- Hot tea/milk. We usually brew tea
and warm our milk up. My mom would make me warm milk with honey for me to sleep better when I was small. In everyday life, we drink tea with a slice of lemon. - Porridges. I know that in the US porridges are not such a big deal, but they are in Ukraine. Especially rice porridge, oatmeal, pumpkin porridge, semolina and most important Buckwheat.
4. Doktorskaya sausage (basically boiled sausage). I love and miss it with all of my heart. I don’t know how to explain the taste, it’s something between ham and sausage. We make sandwiches with it, add it to salads, and more.
5. Salads. When I say “salad” it still associates with the Ukrainian version of it. Usually, it means vegetable salad. We surely have ones with cheese, meat or mayonnaise, but mostly those are for holidays. The most typical everyday salad is cucumbers, tomatoes, some more vegetables that you can find somewhere in the back drawers of your fridge, with onions and olive oil.
6. Pancakes. In Ukraine they are really thin, they can be covered with jam, cottage cheese, Nutella, sour cream or caviar, then folded or rolled and eaten.
7. Peanut butter is something I had never had before. There’s no such thing as peanut butter in Ukraine. I honestly always thought that it is something sweet (like Nutella) and when I tried a spoonful of it I didn’t like it that much. I was just about to spit it out, but, fortunately, I didn’t. I even tried it once again. And again, and again, and again… You get the idea. I love it now.
8. Bread. All of the bread is too soft for me. That might sound really weird, but Ukrainian fresh
bread, even still warm after being baked, has a crust outside. It’s not always squared or sliced. People frequently decide to slice it themselves.
9. Dough mixtures from packets. Honestly, that was one of the most interesting and unusual things for me. When we decide to make something in my country, we take eggs, flour, sugar and all other ingredients that we need and we make everything from the start. There’s no such thing as ready mixtures. This is why baking a birthday cake (if you don’t want to buy it) can take more than 4 hours. My mom always makes rich cream for the top separately and that takes even more time.
10. Soups. From my experience, American soups are mostly blended. Ukrainian soup is basically a huge pan, filled with water, chopped vegetables, meat and boiled for couple of hours in a special sequence. It usually takes from two to four hours to prepare. We typically eat this for lunch.
What is also interesting, is that our nations have different eating habits. Ukrainians have rich breakfast and lunch, but usually really light dinner. We eat meat and bread closer to noon, and in the evening we have vegetables, rice or buckwheat. As I noticed, in the US, Americans prefer to have light breakfast, but a good dinner.
Finally, it’s time for some traditional cuisine. Let’s start with Borscht. Oh, what a word for me, there are years of my life in it, there’s a part of my Ukrainian soul. It is the main dish of Ukrainian cuisine and one of my favorite dishes. It is a soup made with a main ingredient of beetroot, which is why it has such a rich red color. It is usually served with a dollop of sour cream and a slice of rye bread.
While I’m trying to persuade myself I’m not hungry, let’s move on.
Varenyky is also an incredibly delicious Ukrainian dish. They are made by wrapping pockets of unleavened dough around a savory or sweet filling and cooking in boiling water. They remind me of my childhood. They taste like mashed potato, cottage cheese or fruits (it depends on a filling). The dumplings may be served with toppings, such as melted butter, sour cream or fried onion.
Syrniki – I remember them when I go to sleep. They are made from creamy quark, mixed with flour, eggs, and sugar, sometimes adding vanilla extract. The soft mixture is shaped into cakes, which are fried, generally in vegetable oil. The outside becomes crisp, and the center is warm and creamy. They are sweet and served for breakfast or dessert. They are something like thick pancakes with cottage cheese inside. My mom would put homemade apricot jam as a topping and just a little bit of her love.
I covered my three favorite Ukrainian dishes, but there is a lot more! I am honestly just too hungry to continue now. There are a lot of differences between food in our countries.