What do you eat?

[MbUke]

Hi, my name is Alec. I live in Canada. I am in grade 3. I have to find out about different foods that ate eaten in the Ukraine. Can someone answer these questions?

1. What food is eaten most often there?

2. What vegetables and fruits do people eat in your country?

3. What grains are eaten most often?

4. What milk and milk products do people eat?

5. What kinds of meat, fish, nuts or beans are eaten?

6. What is usually eaten for breakfast? Lunch? Dinner?

7. What foods do you have on special occasions?

8. What is you favourite food?

9.How do you make it?

Thank you for answering these questions.

[benda]

I am sorry for delay, dear MbUke...

1. Traditional dishes: borshch - beetroot soup, varenyky - a dish made of boiled dough with stuffing, holubtsi - minced meat wrapped in leaves of cabbage, soups; more modern: fried potatoes, cutlets, meatballs, mashed potatoes, salads...
Tell me if you need more.

2. Apples, bananas, oranges, tandarines, plums, peaches, apricots, grapes, etc...

Onions, tomatos, cucumbers, radishes, melons, water-melons, greens, potatoes (of course), cabbages, and so on...

3. What do you mean - cereals?

4. Milk itself, kefir, ryazhenka, butter, cheese, sour clotted milk, curds, processed cheese, joghurts...

5. Bacon, beef, lamb.

Herring, carp, cod, trout, salmon. Vobla and horse-mackerel - to the beer.

Walnut, peanut (especially fried), hazelnut, pistachios; peas, haricot.

6. For breakfast - porridge, salad, omelette or something else from eggs, sausage, sandwiches.

For dinner - soup, then some meat - a cutlet or so, maybe rice or buckwheat.

We don't usually have lunch - but we have supper.
7. Balabushky, kutya, different pies and buns, non-Ukrainian but very popular shashlyk, stuffed eggs, fish in aspic, jellied minced meat, "fur coat"...

[MbUke]

Thanks, B. My son will think this is great.

For #3, yes cereals, breads etc

What is a fur coat? Kefir? Ryazenka?

I am sorry but I forgot your first name. I'm Garry by the way.

[benda]

You are welcome. My name is Olexiy - thank you for confidence.

3. We don't eat cereals - we use them in porridges or something like that.

Semolina, buckwheat, oatmeal, rice, millet.

About bread - unlike Western Europeans, we prefer to eat bread itself, it is a saint dish - "Bread is a staff of life". We bake read of wheat - white bread, and rye - the most widespread sort of bread is made of rye and is called "Ukrainian". I can assure you with no ego - Ukrainian bread is the best bread in the world because of special ferment. We also make kvass of bread (it is a sort of sour non-alcohol beer).

Ryazhanka (I've made a mistake - ryazhanka, not ryazhenka) is fermented baked milk.

Kefir is thick sour milk.

Herring under "fur coat" is cut herring covered by layers of onions, eggs, carrots, beetroots on the top with mayonnaise.

[MbUke]

Again thank you. My son was really excited and impressed that someone from the other side of the world was able to "talk to him".

He did ask me a question though. "Do they have McDonald's over there?" I said that they probably do, but I would ask.
Any other North American fast food companies?

[nickcsadler]

There is a McDonalds in Yalta..

[benda]

Oh yes.

If I don't mistake, there are in large cities - Kyiv, Dnipropetrovsk, Donetsk, Odesa, Kharkiv, Lviv, Simferopol, Mariupol, Kryvyi Rih, Zaporizhzhya...