What's Your Favorite Ukrainian Food? Baba's Borscht!

This past sunny Saturday,  I went to the 50th Anniversary Celebration of St. John the Baptist Ukrainian Catholic Church in Hunter, NY to share the Pickle Project with visitors.  The church itself is an amazing structure to come across in the Catskills,  handbuilt in the style of the Carpathians wooden churches.

I brought along some historic photos,  a few of our official Pickle Project t-shirts,  but most of all, I wanted to hear from festival-goers a bit about their favorite Ukrainian foods and to chat about the Pickle Project and our work in Ukraine.  Most people I spoke to were second or third generation Ukrainian-Americans whose families originally hailed from L'viv or elsewhere in western Ukraine.  Many have made just a brief visit or two to their homeland and were curious about my experiences while others spoke about cousins and extended family still living in Ukrainian villages.   Several people already knew the project from reading our blog and it was great to meet those people in person!  Many were interested in the idea that we worked all over Ukraine from east to west and that the food conversations were a way to open up civic engagement, to begin talking together about food, something we all know, and broaden out into all sorts of topics.

But I always love talking to people about food and associations with family.  To encourage that,  I invited festival-goers to share their favorite Ukrainian food on a Post-it note and put it up.  As the notes went up,  people stopped to read, to chat,  to say, "oh, no, my baba's borscht is the best!"  I think borscht was the clear winner,  followed by pirohi (varenyky) but many other memories were shared.  One man pulled up a chair and described in detail, the multi-layered torte his mother would make.  I was particularly impressed with the children who carefully printed out, in Ukrainian, their favorite food and appreciated parents' commitment to passing on the language to a new generation.

And of course, I ate!  The women of the church had clearly been cooking for days, so I tried the combination plate, which included borscht, varenyky with fried onions, sausage, and holobitsi.  The bake sale table had American style treats, but also cookies made with buckwheat honey and other traditional sweets.

The day also brought me another lesson.  The festival was public and in a way, I was surprised at how few non-Ukrainian Americans I met.  It was free, it had great music and dance,  exhibits,  food, and even a bouncy castle for kids.  No matter where we live, I think we all can make more efforts to get out there and see, in informal settings, cultures different than our own.  So, Pickle Project readers, get out there and go to a festival in a neighborhood that's not your own,  stop in at a church supper somewhere you wouldn't go to, and, of course, eat, eat, eat and enjoy!

The Pickle Project in Vermont

 Shelburne Farms is a member-supported, nonprofit environmental education organization with a mission to cultivate a conservation ethic for a sustainable future. Set on1,400 verdant acres of working farm and forest on the restful shores of Lake Champlain in Shelburne, Vermont, the Farm serves as a model for sustainable land use. The Farms' innovative programming, connect people and food systems, has made it a natural partner for the Pickle Project. 

Several weeks back, the Farm hosted a Pickle Project Community Conversation, like those convened in four Ukrainian cities last fall. These conversations are designed to draw on the personal experiences of the participants, including the role of food in our families, memories and communities, expanding to broader discussions of the connections between food production, economies and culture.

We were very fortunate to have been joined by a small, wonderful group of old and new friends from the University of Vermont, the Vermont food community, the Vermont Ukrainian community, the Shelburne Farms community and more. For me, it was especially lovely to have admired professors and friends attend, showing their support, as they always do.

The Farm hosted the event at Orchard Cove, a recently renovated cottage-like building, nestled beside the lake.  As silvery waves folded upon the rocks outside, we gathered in a circle, some in chairs, some sitting cross-legged on the floor. It was a potluck and there was a veritable smorgasbord of vittles, including Shelburne Farms’ own award winning Cheddar, a zesty beet salad, varenyky with creamy sour cream,  an earthy kamut salad and refreshing red grapes. There was also amazing banana bread and some delicious-looking chocolate chip cookies. (I can only attest to their appearance, as they were gone before I could nab one!) In addition to the slightly medicinal lemon infused vodka and the peculiarly invigorating horseradish infused vodka that have become the staples of Pickle Project affairs, a Ukrainian -American friend and forester brought vodka infused with golden root. This plant, is also called roseroot or Aaron's rod (scientific name: Rhodiola rosea) grows in the Carpathians and is said to be a mood enhancer. 

Like the community conversations in Ukraine, the evening’s conversation at the Farm seems to draw in threads from every angle. What does McDonalds signal about a culture, its health, its wealth? What kind of sheep are those? What makes a food authentic to a culture, time or place? What are the antecedents for a sustainable food system? Can a food practice only be valued, once it is lost or endangered?

And, like the Ukrainian conversations, we made new connections, to each other and between threads of culture, community, economy and nature.

We would like to thank Shelburne Farms’ fabulous staff and community for the warm welcome in hosting this fantastic event and their ongoing partnership with the Pickle Project. In particular, we would recognize Christie Bond for all of her planning and coordination.