Kitchen Talk

Sofia's Kitchen, Verkhovyna, Carpathian Mountains

I have heard native-born Ukrainians refer to the language spoken by members of the Ukrainian diaspora, living in the US and Canada as “kitchen Ukrainian,” a not-quite contemporary Ukrainian, often with English or other influences. It is also meant to reflect the fact that many first and second generation Ukrainian Americans and Canadians learned Ukrainian from their mother or grandmothers, usually while they helped with cooking. Indeed, several friends with Ukrainian roots that grew up in the US and Canada have shared these kinds of insights. 

The Beekeeper's kitchen, Donbass Oblast

Social scientists actually use the term “diaspora language” to describe the dialects or variations of languages spoken in places of migration. These languages evolve, as all languages do, absorbing new influences and changes to their community. In the context of rapid change in Ukraine, as well as long absences from the country, language and food practices seem to be the most tangible connection to this culture for people with Ukrainian roots living in other parts of the world.

Svitlana, in her Kyiv kitchen

Through the Pickle Project, we too have learned a kind of kitchen language, Ukrainian, Russian and Crimean Tatar, spending time, mostly with women, talking about food. Standing over stoves, hunched over plants in the garden: Як ви сказали? How do you say it? 

Lenura's kitchen in Ak-Meshet, Crimea

Maybe it is because that is where Mama is, or, where the food is, or, where the work is.. Everyone is always hanging out in the kitchen. Included here are photos of some kitchens that we have been lucky enough to spend time in.

The 1970's kitchen, Pyrohiv National Museum of Folk Architecture

Of course, nothing foments fervent debate or connections to identity and culture quite like language in Ukraine. So, please consider this an open invitation to share your own thoughts, stories and experiences about the intersection of food practice, cultural preservation and food. 

Historic Photo, Ukrainian Market

Out of this World Apples

Last year, the apple tree in our backyard here in the Catskills was heavy with apples, with every branch full.  This year, there's barely an apple to be seen out there, due to an late frost last spring.  So despite the scarcity of apples in my immediate neighborhood, fall always seems a good time to think about apples.

Berries and cherries may seem like the most prevalent fruits in Ukraine as they're so scrumptious, prevalent and available in the summer months.  But apples take center stage come fall.  You can eat them fresh, picked from the tree in your dacha's garden;  you can make apple cakes;  you can dry them, and use them to make a compote from that;  you can have pickled apples,  or make apple wine or brandy.  So rather than those big, hard supermarket apples, Ukrainians have all these ways to make the flavors of real, taste-filled apples last the year-round.

Dried apples are just one part of what makes uzvar, a drink made from soaking dried apples, plums and perhaps pears in liquid.  The drink often has a smoky taste, from the way the fruits are dried,  and to me, is a bit of an acquired taste.

A little web research told me more about Ukrainian apples--several of these heirloom varieties can also be found in North America.  On several sites describing apple varieties, I wondered whether apples whose origins noted as Russian were perhaps Ukrainian.  From Crimea, there's the Kandil Sinap, also called Jubilee.  Discovered growing wild in Ukraine in the 1700s was the Alexander apple, which came into Britain in 1805;  and then made its way to the United States.  

One of the most notable apples was the Reinette Simirenko (above)  which, some agronomists say, may be the same as Woods' Greening, an American apple. But it may have originated in P.F. Simirenko's Ukrainian garden.  I could just find a bit about Simirenko,  who evidently was an expert in fruit crop breeding in Ukraine but whose work was opposed by Soviet horticulturist Ivan Vladimirovich Michurin, leading to Simirenko's imprisonment and death in the 1930s.  But evidently the taste of the Reinette Simirenko is out of this world--Soviet cosmonauts snacked on it in space! So perhaps it's a carefully wrapped Reinette Simirenko you glimpse in this video showing ground level tasting of cosmonaut food.

Lunch, Soviet-Style

We had great home-cooked meals throughout Ukraine and saw and tasted tremendous fresh and pickled fruit and vegetables in markets and elsewhere.  But in Yalta, in Crimea, we came across a remnant of the old Soviet-style of eating out--a stolovaya, or canteen.  These canteens--or cafeterias--still exist across the former Soviet Union and once existed in every school and workplace.

But it was surprising to find one just off the seaside promenade in Yalta,  where fancy clothing stores and expensive restaurants abound.   Not at all crowded the day we ate there, it really did have the feeling of a different time.  Nicholas II built a palace just south of the city, but in the 20th century,  the entire Crimean Peninsula became a favored vacation spot for Soviet workers, with hundreds of sanitoriums dotting the rocky hillsides.  So the place we found was an echo of a past, and it seemed as if the only people eating there, besides us, were older folks who remembered that different time.

A series of large dining rooms came off the small cafeteria line. Out the lace curtains,  a seaside view.  The selections were pretty minimal:  borscht and solyanka for soup,  cutlets,  a sort of unknown goulash, cabbage salad, cucumber and tomato salad, compote (fruit drink) and bread.   But it was really affordable (I see that stolovayas are often recommended in Lonely Planet guidebooks) and the food was dull, but edible.

Today, restaurants of every type abound in every large Soviet city: sushi, Italian,  Ukrainian,  Indian, and of course, fast food including McDonalds and the Ukrainian McFoxy.  It's hard for me to imagine the time when this,  this simple food,  was what eating out was.   Our meal in Yalta provided that important reminder (and slightly alarmed the 17 year-old boy with us, who wanted to eat at the McDonalds down the way).