BELARUSIAN CUISINE

1.                  What dishes do you know from the national Belarusian cuisine?  Belarusians are very hospitable people and they will invite any foreigner to have dinner with them. There are a lot of traditional dishes that our people eat every day and all of them are very tasty. Belarusian national cuisine has a long history.

The most popular product and ingredient of the Belarusian cuisine is potato. People call it “the second bread”. Its popularity can be explained by good climatic conditions and the fact that potatoes are cheap.

Potato is on the Belarusian table every season and in any state - fried, boiled or baked. Potato is a popular ingredient for soups and salads. It is served with meat and mushrooms. The most popular dishes are mashed potatoes and, of course, draniki.

A big place in the national diet belongs to meat and salted pork fat. Beef and pork or chicken cutlets are very popular with people. Salted pork fat is seasoned with garlic and onions and eaten with bread. Meat is usually served with local vegetables: potatoes, cabbage, beans, carrots, beetroots and so on.

Zatsirka is a world-famous dish. It is cooked from dough and served with milk or salted pork fat.

Soups are eaten almost every day. Okroshka is a cold soup made from kvass. Cabbage soup, solyanka and borsch are the most famous hot soups.

Belarusians like to drink kvass, kefir, birch tree juice, fruit and berry compotes and milk.

Desserts include different kinds of pies and pasties (which can be cooked with meat, mushrooms, eggs and onions or liver). Belarusians eat a lot of fruit (apples, pears) and berries (plums, cherries, strawberries, and currant) and cook jams. Baked apples are very tasty.

The dishes of the Belarusian cuisine are rarely hot or spicy - usually they lack pepper, parsley, garlic, dill and onion. Horse-reddish sauce can be eaten with meat dishes.

In their everyday lives Belarusians eat a lot of different things, though. They love pizza, sushi, pasta, rice, sandwiches and so on. For breakfast Belarusians cook different cereals – semolina, porridge, rice and millet. Another popular dish is pancakes with different jams.

There are many dishes, which originated in the USSR, the most famous of them being minced meat salad, meatballs, kholodets, cabbage rolls or dressed herring.

2.                  Do you eat any traditional dishes in your family? We eat quite a lot of dishes from the national Belarusian cuisine. Every day we eat soup: borsch or cabbage soup, in summer we sometimes make okroshka. Very often I make draniki. I also eat them at school almost every week. Potatoes are on our table almost every day: we boil them and serve with butter or eat mashed potatoes. Mom cooks meatballs and cutlets. For breakfast I prefer pancakes or porridge. On New Year’s Eve we eat a lot of traditional dishes, such as dressed herring, kholodets and minced meat salad. They are very popular and remind people of the past.

3.                  Can you remember the recipe of your favourite Belarusian dish? My favourite Belarusian dish is, of course, draniki or grated potato pancakes. To make them you should peel 5-6 potatoes and one onion. Grate them, add salt and stir well. Take a hot pan, pour some oil on it and use a spoon to shape the small pancakes. We serve this dish with sour cream or butter. It is very tasty, easy to cook and very traditional.

4.                  Why is it important to try the dishes of national cuisine while you are travelling? Food is very important in our life, because it gives us all the necessary elements and vitamins. Every nation has its own cuisine and cooking traditions, which reflect their national character and spirit, likes and dislikes, traditions and history. Moreover, national dishes are very tasty.

What questions might a tourist ask about Belarusian dishes at a restaurant?