{"id":11746,"date":"2019-06-10T07:26:11","date_gmt":"2019-06-10T07:26:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/russian\/?p=11746"},"modified":"2019-05-29T21:57:16","modified_gmt":"2019-05-29T21:57:16","slug":"things-that-dont-go-together-in-russian-cuisine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/russian\/things-that-dont-go-together-in-russian-cuisine\/","title":{"rendered":"Things That Don’t Go Together in Russian Cuisine"},"content":{"rendered":"

I recently attended a conference in Italy, and I thoroughly enjoyed the advice the locals gave us on following the culinary conventions, such as no cappuccino after 11 AM. This inspired me to write this post, which will look at some food-related “taboos” in Russia. This is all in good humo{u}r, and, of course, not everyone follows these conventions religiously.<\/p>\n

\"dumplings\"

Photo by Yuxiang Zhang<\/a> on Unsplash<\/a><\/p><\/div>\n

Pelmeni and Red Sauce<\/h2>\n

Pelmeni (\u043f\u0435\u043b\u044c\u043c\u0435\u0301\u043d\u0438<\/strong>, singular \u043f\u0435\u043b\u044c\u043c\u0435\u0301\u043d\u044c<\/strong>) are dumplings filled with meat, onions, and spices, smaller than pierogies but larger than ravioli (the English plurals of foreign words like “pierogi<\/a>” and “ravioli<\/a>” is a fascinating subject beyond the scope of this post). The pelmeni’s meat-free counterpart, varenik (\u0432\u0430\u0440\u0435\u0301\u043d\u0438\u043a<\/strong>, plural \u0432\u0430\u0440\u0435\u0301\u043d\u0438\u043a\u0438<\/strong>) can be filled with cheese, mushroom, or even cherries.<\/p>\n

Because of their resemblance to some Italian pasta products, such as ravioli or tortellini, you may be tempted to have them with red tomato sauce. I’m sure some people do as a matter of personal preference, but the conventional way of eating \u043f\u0435\u043b\u044c\u043c\u0435\u0301\u043d\u0438<\/strong> or \u0432\u0430\u0440\u0435\u0301\u043d\u0438\u043a\u0438<\/strong> is with sour cream (\u0441\u043c\u0435\u0442\u0430\u0301\u043d\u0430<\/strong>) and butter (\u043c\u0430\u0301\u0441\u043b\u043e<\/strong>).<\/p>\n

\"open

Takeaway [CC BY-SA 4.0<\/a>], via Wikimedia Commons<\/a><\/p><\/div>\n

Second Slice in a Sandwich<\/h2>\n

Most sandwiches in the US (readers from other parts of the world, chime in!) consist of a bread base with multiple fillings of meat, fish, cheese, or vegetables covered by another slice of bread. The bread is often toasted. To make this packed sandwich go down easier, the filling is often covered in some sort of dressing, be it mayonnaise, mustard, or something else.<\/p>\n

A typical Russian sandwich (\u0431\u0443\u0442\u0435\u0440\u0431\u0440\u043e\u0301\u0434<\/strong>) is very different. First, only one slice of rich, flavo{u}rful bread (\u0445\u043b\u0435\u0431<\/strong>) is used, which is not normally toasted\u2014what is called an open-face sandwich. On top of that base, you usually have one main topping, such as kielbasa (\u043a\u043e\u043b\u0431\u0430\u0441\u0430\u0301<\/strong>), smoked salmon (\u0441\u0451\u043c\u0433\u0430<\/strong>), cheese (\u0441\u044b\u0440<\/strong>), caviar (\u0438\u043a\u0440\u0430\u0301<\/strong>), or sometimes simply butter (\u043c\u0430\u0301\u0441\u043b\u043e<\/strong>). Sometimes butter if used underneath the main topping, especially for cheese sandwiches (\u0431\u0443\u0442\u0435\u0440\u0431\u0440\u043e\u0301\u0434 \u0441 \u0441\u044b\u0301\u0440\u043e\u043c<\/strong>) or caviar sandwiches (\u0431\u0443\u0442\u0435\u0440\u0431\u0440\u043e\u0301\u0434 \u0441 \u0438\u043a\u0440\u043e\u0301\u0439<\/strong>). Because no dressing is typically used, this kind of sandwich would be very dry and hard to swallow if you added another slice of bread on top of it!<\/p>\n

\"oatmeal\"

Image by RitaE<\/a> from Pixabay<\/a><\/p><\/div>\n

Salt in Porridge<\/h2>\n

I am using the word “porridge” here to refer to any sort of hot cereal<\/a> (\u043a\u0430\u0301\u0448\u0430<\/strong>), not necessarily to oatmeal. Most of Russian porridges will be on the sweet side, even though many recipes will call for adding salt (\u0441\u043e\u043b\u044c<\/strong>) to the boiling water. However, when making oatmeal (\u0433\u0435\u0440\u043a\u0443\u043b\u0435\u0301\u0441<\/strong>) or cornmeal (\u043a\u0443\u043a\u0443\u0440\u0443\u0301\u0437\u043d\u0430\u044f \u043a\u0430\u0301\u0448\u0430<\/strong>), you would typically add more sugar (\u0441\u0430\u0301\u0445\u0430\u0440<\/strong>) than you would salt. Compare that to such dishes as grits<\/a>, which tend to be on the salty and savo{u}ry side.<\/p>\n

Of course, this is not an absolute rule, and you will likely come across such unsweetened porridges as buckwheat (\u0433\u0440\u0435\u0301\u0447\u043d\u0435\u0432\u0430\u044f \u043a\u0430\u0301\u0448\u0430<\/strong>) or pearl barley porridge (\u043f\u0435\u0440\u043b\u043e\u0301\u0432\u043a\u0430<\/strong>).<\/p>\n

Have you ever tried to get creative with Russian-inspired dishes (or any dishes from Eastern Europe)? What was the reaction?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\"oatmeal\"

I recently attended a conference in Italy, and I thoroughly enjoyed the advice the locals gave us on following the culinary conventions, such as no cappuccino after 11 AM. This inspired me to write this post, which will look at some food-related “taboos” in Russia. This is all in good humo{u}r, and, of course, not…<\/p>\n

Continue Reading<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":113,"featured_media":11752,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":""},"categories":[3,7826],"tags":[507369,13671,1226,385636,507256],"class_list":["post-11746","post","type-post","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-culture","category-when-in-russia","tag-kasha","tag-pelmeni","tag-russian-cuisine","tag-russian-food","tag-taboos"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/russian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11746","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/russian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/russian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/russian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/113"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/russian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11746"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/russian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11746\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11753,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/russian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11746\/revisions\/11753"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/russian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11752"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/russian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11746"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/russian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11746"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/russian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11746"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}