Cuisine

Ukrainian

Borscht is a family of sour beet soups, not one purple bowl. Ukrainian versions often include beetroot, cabbage, potato, carrot, a souring of tomato or kvass or vinegar, and a meat or bone broth — or none, on a fasting day. Dill and sour cream go on at the end. The soup should taste earthy-sour, not like sweet beetroot juice. Pampushky, garlic bread rolls, sometimes sit beside it. The wider table is varenyky, salo, buckwheat and sunflower oil. Borscht became the dish that had to carry a national argument because it is ordinary, not because it is a banquet showpiece.

Beet soups exist across Eastern Europe; the Ukrainian pot is an everyday household soup with regional splits — some thicker, some with beans, some with smoked meat. Unesco listing of the cooking culture is a recent political fact sitting on a much older pot. Polish barszcz and Russian restaurant borscht are related and not identical. Sour beet soup is a regional family, and Ukraine's version has the strongest claim to being a national everyday plate.

Beetroot should keep some sweetness under the sour. Cabbage and potato make it a meal. Sour cream is stirred in at the table so it streaks. Dill is a herb, not a speck. A meatless borscht is still borscht. Ukrainian cooking overlaps Polish dumplings and cabbage and then goes its own way on sunflower oil, garlic bread and this sour beet pot. It is not a generic 'Eastern European stew'. If the soup is only sweet and purple, the souring was skipped.