There is this saying that is offensive to both Russians and Ukrainians: “While a Russian sleeps, a Ukrainian eats.” The message it conveys is that Russians are lazy and Ukrainians are greedy and crafty.
In our family, though, the saying has always been literally true. The only thing that turns N. from the gentle, sweet and kind person he always is into a scary, irate creature is waking him ten minutes earlier than planned. And the only time N. saw me freaking out – I don’t mean angry, sad, upset or experiencing any normal emotions but freaking out irrationally – is when we were moving to Baltimore and didn’t have dinner at the time I’m used to eating. N. eats a lot less than I do and I need less sleep not only than N. but than a regular person.
Now, however, the impossible has happened: I lost all interest in food and acquired an interest in sleep. I had already allowed the Russian pronunciation to substitute my heavy Ukrainian accent and now find it funny to hear my own parents talk. And I’m a convert to constant tea-drinking. Now all that is left for me to do is to buy a Russian flag and start quoting Pushkin at least 10 times a day. Of course, I will never become Russianized to the point where I will refer to borscht as “soup”, which, by the way, is the most offensive thing you can say to a Ukrainian.
Clarissa's Blog 
Forgive my ignorance, but if borscht isn’t a soup, what is it?
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If Ukrainian culinary delimitations are anything like Romanian ones, the sort of liquid dishes English speakers would call “soup” are divided in two non-intersecting categories, based on whether or not one of the primary tastes is sour. Soups aren’t sour, and calling something as essentially sour as borscht one is wrong wrong wrong, even to a culture less attached to borscht than the Ukrainian one seems to be.
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Is it just called borscht then, as in all sour liquid dishes are referred to as borscht?
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Borscht is borscht. It doesn’t fall into any categories because it is in a category of its own. 🙂
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Is borscht 100% traditionally Ukrainian, and not Russian at all? Since when? I thought it was super-popular in Russia too, not less than in Ukraine.
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Oh, I’m quite sure the Russians make it as well – though I presume they make it so wrongly they can’t distinguish it from soup 😛
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EXACTLY.
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Of course, Russians are now eating borscht too but it isn’t an authentic borscht. It is a sad, pale copy of the original. 🙂
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So, is borscht the same thing that in Polish is called barszcz? I can pronounce ‘barszcz’ but I don’t really know how to pronounce ‘borscht’.
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There are two (actually three or more) things called barszcz in Poland.
1 Barszcz ukraiński – more or less the recipe Clarissa once posted (though it probably wouldn’t pass her test as being ‘real’)
2 Barszcz – the standard version is a clear broth made from beets and other vegetables, may have little pierogies called ‘ears’ (uszka) in it.
3 Biały barszcz – another name for żurek, a soup made from sour rye flour (I never call this barszcz but some people do and some people distinguish the two which I don’t)
4 Cold borscht – is never called barszcz in Poland but chłodnik (the exact same color as pepto bismol but much better tasting)
5 A friend from the southeast makes a christmas eve soup that is called barszcz in his village. It’s made of sour rye, buckwheat and dried mushrooms. Heavenly.
Borscht is pronounced as if it were written borsht, if that helps.
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Even my own mother’s borscht doesn’t pass my test. I insist that my borscht is vastly superior to hers. Of course, she disagrees. 🙂
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Hmm, now I want to try your recipe. Would it survive the removal of both meat and beans (I’m supposed to eat light for the following few weeks) or would that shift it too hard into Wrongness?
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No, I love making the meatless version. It is best to reserve the meat and beans version for cold winters and do the lighter version when it’s warmer outside.
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The barszcz your friend makes sounds wonderful.
(I’ve actually never tried borscht — my mom hates beets)
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I need both more food and more sleep than a regular person, and get cranky without enough of either. (The needing more sleep runs in my family; I only need more food as a function of my size, muscle mass and activity level, the latter of which isn’t always as high as it used to be anymore. So I guess if I was going to attribute anything to my ethnic heritage, it’d be the sleep thing since that’s actually a familial rather than acquired trait.)
I’m half-German, a quarter Polish* and a quarter Czech.
(Do you know any Russian sayings about Polish people? I’m sure there must be some.)
*I cannot tell left from right. This also runs in my family; another relative who had it was frequently mocked by her boss for her “Polish lefts.” Yet I’m pretty sure this is just our family and not an actual national characteristic. That’s also how I’m tending to think of the sleep thing.
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I can’t tell left from right either. 🙂
I come from a city that is very close to the border with Russia, so all of our dislike went for the Russians leaving nothing over for Poles. They have more of a thing with folks from Western Ukraine.
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Do you use fresh beetroot straight from the ground or cooked beetroot for the recipe?
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In our area we can’t always find fresh beets. So I’ve been forced to use beets from a can on occasion. Of course, fresh is the best.
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