I just spent a few days in Kyiv on this trip to Ukraine, as the May holidays approached. Kyiv is increasingly an international city and although I didn't get to any markets, a couple quick snapshots convey the changing nature of Ukrainian food in this capital city.
Somehow over the last year and a half, many the food carts in the city all adopted a sort of Ukrainian village style--so now you see these (above) faux houses on faux wooden wheels all over the center. In the year or so before that, tiny expresso coffee trucks popped up--they're now a really common sight. But because it's spring, I saw these coffee trucks doing double duty--they were also selling kvas from blue and yellow barrels. So the coffee trucks have replaced the once familiar big kvas tanks that were a harbinger of spring.
Perhaps most surprising was my encounter with a raw food restaurant, just off Maidan. I pondered villagers eating their dandelion greens and foraged berries while I ate my green soup and fresh pressed juice. Ever-changing Kyiv-- a reminder that our food cultures are always combinations of old and new.
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