I found the food in Ukraine to be tasty and straightforward. – nothing special but always filling and enjoyable. Mike and I had the opportunity to try food and drink at both city restaurants (in Kiev and Lviv) and in the countryside. While we enjoyed both, we especially appreciated the home-cooked meals that we sampled while staying with a local family in Kosmach. (I have never drank so many shots of vodka or eaten so much homemade cheese in my life.)
Over the course of our twelve days in Ukraine, we noticed many of the same items on every menu and dinner table. Ordering at restaurants was always an adventure as the language barrier required us to choose a menu with pictures or get really involved with miming. A highlight of my culinary experience in Ukraine was cooking with Anna, the matriarch of the family we stayed with on a farm in Kosmach. Anna taught Mike and I how to milk a cow and actually make cheese, sour cream, and yogurt from this milk. She even let me lend a hand while cooking dinner one night. We made banush which reminded me of polenta. I was surprised by how few ingredients we needed to make banush – cornmeal, salt water, and sour cream. We then topped it with crumbled homemade cheese…mmmmm.
Two other prevalent and notable dishes are described below:
Varenyky:
Verenyky is a very popular Ukrainian dish that we saw on every menu. Varenyky are stuffed dumplings (every country seems to have their variation of “the dumpling”) that can be savory or sweet and are filled with either various meats, cheeses, potato, vegetables, or fruit. We preferred the savory varenyky and often ate them topped with traditional fried onions and sour cream.
Borscht:
Borscht is a soup that is not only popular in Ukraine but also in many other Central and Eastern European countries. It is typically made with beetroot as the main ingredient and heavy, starchy vegetables. Borscht can be an appetizer or a full meal, but is normally paired with dark rye bread and sour cream as a garnish. I liked borscht a lot and it seemed much less heavy to me than I expected it to be. It was a comforting dish whether I was dining at the family dinner table in Kosmach or catching a quick lunch with Igor, the bus driver, at the station.