Not only borsch and dumplings: how a Lviv woman collected the traditions of Ukrainian cuisine in the USA

Lviv resident Marianna Dushar, as part of a Fulbright scholarship, researched the cuisine of the Ukrainian diaspora in the United States. Her project called “Ukrainian cuisine is more than borscht and dumplings” will soon develop into an online library of cookbooks, a website with interesting culinary stories of Ukrainians, and an archive for researchers, she writes. «Radio Svoboda».

Photo: Shutterstock

How did Ukrainians in America manage to preserve the culture and traditions of Ukrainian cuisine? What interesting things did the Ukrainian researcher find, a well-known blogger under the pseudonym "Mrs. Stefa"?

Marianna Dushar has visited more than 20 Ukrainian families in New York, Detroit, Philadelphia, Chicago. Mostly, these are the second and third generations of Ukrainians who were born in the United States, but retained the Ukrainian language and traditions. Their relatives left Ukraine, fleeing the second arrival of the Soviet "liberators" in July 1944.

However, before going overseas, they lived, worked, and studied for some time in special camps in Germany and Austria - Displaced Persons (DP). People, despite difficult life trials, were able to take home archives, books, and things from their homeland that allowed them to preserve Ukrainian identity, culture, language, traditions, and history.

“The cuisine is intertwined with tradition. For example, celebrating Christmas, such a proper Christmas. I just read about this and saw it in New York. For example, my grandmother did not bake three rolls, but prepared a round roll. And there they still bake three round rolls and a braided cake on top of each other, like a wrapped baby. The symbolism of the holiday is embedded in this. We share kutia, and in the families of the Ukrainian diaspora - prosphora with honey.

Photo: instagram.com/panistefa

I compare these traditions with my own experience, my family. Their housewives still bake knishes with onions, and in the middle there is a ball - a knyshatko. In the Ukrainian diaspora, gastronomic culture has been preserved and everything is so textbook and unshakable that I was simply amazed. They had a conscious mission to preserve the tradition and they took care of it, kept it in everyday life, and passed it on to their children and grandchildren. This is a living tradition,” says Marianne Dushar.

Dumplings and borsch

Ukraine and Ukrainians are known in the world for their dumplings and borscht; this has become an indispensable symbol of “Ukrainianness”. You can often hear that more than one church in the diaspora arose on these Ukrainian dishes, because this is how people raised money. Ukrainian churches operated and still operate numerous kitchens and cafes where Ukrainians gather, make dumplings and cook borscht.

On the subject: Dumplings conquer America: 5 of the best restaurants of Ukrainian cuisine in the USA

In the title of the project, Marianna Dushar specifically pointed out that Ukrainian cuisine is more interesting than borsch and dumplings. And in Detroit and New York I saw master classes on making pies.

“I’ve been to pie bakes in Detroit and New York. And it looked different. Detroit is run by fathers who came from Brazil. There is a wide pot on the stove and water is constantly boiling in it, the dumplings are boiled, then they are washed in cold water, dried and frozen. This is a must see! Or a rocker that goes over the dough and immediately cuts out circles. There are other devices, for example, they cut out glasses: chick-chick and you’re done. In Detroit, the dough is rolled out by men and the rolling pin is wrapped in a rag to prevent the dough from sticking, or perhaps to help the flour hold on better. I haven’t tried this method yet,” says Marianne Dushar.

Photo: instagram.com/panistefa

In the famous Ukrainian restaurant "Raduga" in New York, you can even take a master class on sculpting pies, which is held by an American of Ukrainian descent every two weeks. It is visited not only by Ukrainians, but also by people of other national origin. Someone is looking for their roots, the half-forgotten taste of their childhood, while someone is just interested in getting to know the culture of Ukrainian cuisine.

“I watched with delight how people take care of what is important to them, this is not an imitation, this is the meaning of life, and these are very “high-quality” Ukrainians and feel like they are them. But the problem of self-identification, in my opinion, exists in Ukraine. Because we don’t feel where our roots are, we don’t go deeper. Everyday self-identification does not mean for Ukrainians in the United States that they have closed the world to themselves,” the expert notes.

The Ukrainians shared their grandmothers' recipes with the Lviv woman and showed old culinary notebooks.

In Chicago, Oresta Fedynyak, a representative of the Ukrainian diaspora, keeps a notebook with notes from her grandmother, which even describes the tradition of making bread in Ukraine. It is very carefully written. On one page there is a recipe, it indicates who it was taken from and where it came from. You can trace the individual history of a family, show how recipes migrated from house to house, how housewives improved them. These notebooks are passed down from generation to generation. This is not just food, emphasizes Marianne Dushar, but a tradition of taste.

There are never too many "medoviks"

In the New York family of Lyarisa Zelik, the Lviv woman was treated to four types of “honey cake”: with and without nuts, wet and dry. And Marianne also brought hers. This is a testament to how rich and varied Ukrainian cuisine is. Lyarisa Zelik is the most famous loaf maker in New York and conducts ritual baking courses at the Ukrainian Museum.

Photo: instagram.com/panistefa

“I baked a honey cake from American products, with Irish butter and Californian pear. This is the transplantation of tradition, because nothing is identical. Flour in the USA is different than in Ukraine, more moist. You take the same amount of flour and the dough turns out lumpy. This varies depending on where you live and what the tastes of those around you are. American sweets are sweeter, American honey cake is sweeter, maybe sugar is sweeter. I bought Ukrainian honey in an American supermarket. So glad! There are, there are nuances and you need to know about them,” notes Marianna.

Ukrainians who, after DP camps, ended up in the United States, when preparing food, learned to take into account the nuances of what products were prepared from and adapted their recipes to American standards: switch from glasses to mugs, find out how much food a tablespoon holds. For, if the entry says “one tablespoon,” then this tablespoon of sugar or flour must be leveled with a knife - and this will follow the recipe. For a long time, Ukrainians could not get used to bread in the USA and American flour.

Photo: instagram.com/panistefa

Photo: instagram.com/panistefa

Marianna Dushar recorded dozens of such interesting stories. And about how Ukrainians got used to one kind of flour and used it throughout their lives.

Or another story, how in the 1970s the fashion for embroidered dresses for the bride and bridesmaids was revived in the Ukrainian diaspora. And it influenced the decoration of wedding cakes and sweets in general. Therefore, dressmakers began to master and improve the specialty of a culinary specialist, elements of the Ukrainian folk system appeared on cakes, loaves, cookies.

To this day, the Ukrainian diaspora remember the "embroidered cakes" and loaves of Maria Khotinetskaya-Maletskaya from the suburbs of Chicago. The hostess baked for weddings and even decorated the cakes with a Hutsul pattern. Some of the Ukrainian women took over her business.

Photo: instagram.com/panistefa

And then there is a separate story of a small but valuable book "Young mistress", published in 1971 in Chicago, where a paper copy is kept in the Ukrainian National Museum. The initiators of the book were plays from the Spartanka kuren. The girls needed a large kuren flag to assert their identity. And there was no money to sew it. Therefore, they came up with a cookbook, found sponsors for it and managed to earn money for the flag, and also to popularize Ukrainian cuisine.

On the subject: Cossack menu and pineapple dumplings: what is served by the first Ukrainian restaurant in Philadelphia

“I’m simply bombarded with material and at first I had only intentions to implement the project, but now I want to create a library of online publications, mainly culinary. These are cookbooks of certain communities at churches, dance clubs. This is a purely American phenomenon that has spread to diaspora circles. This is an interesting and broad topic. I want to reach the diaspora from several countries: the USA, Brazil, Canada, Australia. This will be an online archive. The second is the stories of families through food, how they cooked and how they baked. There are many interesting facts,” notes Marianne Dushar.

Marianna Dushar wants to attract many people to the Ukrainian gastronomic project so that they can share their delicious family stories. Showing people through the prism of food is also a reflection of the traditions of every Ukrainian family.

Read also on ForumDaily:

How a Ukrainian family in Ohio feeds Americans homemade sausages

Our borsch: how the Russian Foreign Ministry used the Ukrainian dish for military propaganda of the Russian Federation

'I like to work for people': success stories of Ukrainians who opened their own cafes in Ohio

Two Ukrainian startups entered the ranking of the best US employers: the history of their creation

Do you want more important and interesting news about life in the USA and immigration to America? — support us donate! Also subscribe to our page Facebook. Select the “Priority in display” option and read us first. Also, don't forget to subscribe to our РєР ° РЅР ° Р »РІ Telegram  and Instagram- there is a lot of interesting things there. And join thousands of readers ForumDaily New York — there you will find a lot of interesting and positive information about life in the metropolis.