Food from the Ukraine (and thinking about the devastation)

Civilian housing destroyed in Zhytomyr, Ukraine, March 2, 2022.
My ancestors immigrated to the US from a village
near Zhytomyr. (From the Guardian live updates)

Thinking about the war crimes being inflicted by Russian military on the population of Ukraine is very depressing. The invasion in progress right now is intended to seize key Ukrainian cities. Its intensity is increasing today. Stark threats to the population of these cities obviously include the danger that their homes will be destroyed. But even if their lives and property are spared, they face devastating shortages of food and necessities, as well as a lack of fuel to stay warm in severe winter temperatures. Humanitarian aid currently has little chance to reach them. Hundreds of thousands of people have already fled, or are trying to escape the war zones and get to safety across the border. Like most Americans I can't grasp how this must feel to these victims of war and tyranny. Like most of us, I'm filled with admiration for the ongoing leadership and effective public statements of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

How can I think about cuisine at a time like this? Well, thinking about Ukrainian cooking makes me feel closer to these besieged people. The foods I've been familiar with all my life include many Jewish-Ukrainian dishes, and some of them are probably familiar to most Americans. Because Ukraine was governed as a region of Russia for several centuries, Ukrainian food is often considered a regional version of Russian cuisine; in fact, there are many regional variations of quite a few of the most famous dishes. I have several Russian cookbooks and food books that were published before the independence of Ukraine, and thus view the country as part of Russia, and view the food as a local variant -- especially true in books by Darra Goldstein and Anya von Bremzen.

Ukraine is a very productive agricultural region (one reason why the Russians covet it); thus many of the dishes use the major produce of the region, including wheat, potatoes, and sunflower oil. In the past, residents of poorer villages used potatoes as their major source of nutrition, as my father often reminisced. (He was born in a village in Belarus, very near the area where Russian troops are assembling on their way to invade Kiev. History repeats itself: this area was a major battlefield during World War I, when my father was a child, and his family became refugees.)

Here's a list of the traditional foods that I find most memorable:

• Borscht is one of the most famous of the Ukrainian foods. The term can refer to almost any soup. The versions from my family are vegetarian beet borscht, vegetarian spinach borscht, and cabbage borscht with meat. 
• Blintzes are thin pancakes, usually filled with a mixture of cheese and eggs: one of the most delicious dishes of the Ukrainian-Jewish cuisine. A Ukrainian version of these pancakes uses buckwheat batter. Every cuisine in the region has some type of pancakes!
• Kasha, a pilaf of whole grain and vegetables, is another way to use buckwheat, Ukrainian Jewish style, a dish my mother made and I also still make. It's often served with varnishkes, that is, bow-tie pasta. 

• Kugel, a sweet or savory egg-noodle casserole, has many variations in Ukrainian cooking as well as in Eastern European-Jewish cuisine. It's a favorite with American Jews who have made it sweeter and sweeter as time has gone on. Some Ukrainian versions include bacon, which distinguishes it from any Jewish version!
• Other favorites in Ukraine and the surrounding area include cabbage rolls stuffed with meat and rice and pierogi, or meat-filled dumplings. Everyone has a personal recipe for these!
• Latkes, or potato pancakes are traditional for Chanukah. A very similar variety is called deruni in the northern part of Ukraine (source), and other versions are widespread, since potatoes are a major crop.
• A variety of plum and prune dishes and other tree fruits are popular in Ukraine with both Jews and non-Jews. Many types of plum cake are once-a-year favorites when the fruit is ripe, and the dried fruit is used in compotes and pastry fillings around the year. For example, Hamantaschen, for the upcoming festival of Purim, often use prune filling.
• Honey and poppy seeds are two typical Ukrainian flavors for cakes and sweets, as mentioned in the cookbook A Taste of Russia by Darra Goldstein. Honey cake and poppyseeds on rolls or bagels were definitely a part of my family's tradition, as well as poppy seed Hamantaschen.
• Pork dishes are an important part of non-Jewish Ukrainian traditions, but obviously are not allowed in any Jewish foods. Pork and prune stew, and pork with caraway seeds are two examples from Please to the Table, a cookbook by Anya von Bremzen.

Although my mother's family immigrated to the US from a village near Zhytomyr, Ukraine, in 1905, I do not think I have any relatives at all in this besieged country, because virtually the entire Jewish population was murdered during the Holocaust. Most of them were shot to death by Nazi mobile killing units, operating not far from the villages where the Jews had lived. For comparison: approximately 5 million non-Jewish Ukrainians died in the conflict. Some details about World War II in Ukraine:

"An estimated 1.5 million Ukrainian Jews perished, and over 800,000 were displaced to the east; at Baby Yar (Ukrainian: Babyn Yar) in Kyiv, nearly 34,000 were killed in just the first two days of massacre in the city. The Nazis were aided at times by auxiliary forces recruited from the local population." (Encyclopedia Britanica) 

 

"Based on present-day borders, one in every four Jewish victims of the Holocaust was murdered in Ukraine." (The Holocaust by Bullets) 

 

"Babyn Yar, or Babi Yar, is a ravine on the outskirts of Kyiv where, over two days in September of 1941, more than 33,000 Jews were shot to death by Nazi-led killing squads in a campaign against the Soviet Union." (Russian missile hit site of Babyn Yar Holocaust Memorial)  

 

"Last year, on the 80th anniversary, Mr. Zelensky unveiled a modern art installation at the site [Babyn Yar]. Peter Hayes, a professor emeritus of Holocaust studies at Northwestern University, said that it only started to become a more formally recognized landmark since Ukrainian independence in 1991." (Jewish Groups Condemn Strike near the Babyn Yar Holocaust Memorial)

I don't  know  how this war will end, or how bad it will be for the population of this country that was peaceful and prosperous until last week. As I say, history repeats itself, and it is totally horrifying to think of the repeat of the devastation of the two World Wars on a nation that had in many ways changed to be modern, democratic, and much more open-minded than in the past. Clearly, President Zelensky, who says he had "an ordinary Soviet Jewish upbringing" is mindful of the horrible historic precedent of the events of World War II, when his great-grandfather and all of his grandfather's brothers were killed because they were Jewish (source).

Blog post © 2022 mae sander.