Borscht

Borscht is a sour soup traditionally built on beetroot, and it is central to Ukrainian domestic cooking, where it exists in an enormous number of household and regional variants. Related soups are eaten widely across eastern and central Europe.

In 2022 UNESCO inscribed the culture of Ukrainian borscht cooking on its list of intangible cultural heritage in need of urgent safeguarding, a decision explicitly connected to the threat posed by the war to the communities that sustain the tradition.

The name originally referred to a soup made from fermented hogweed, a sour wild plant, long before beetroot became the defining ingredient. The sourness has always been the constant; the source of it has changed.

Two problems preoccupy borscht cooks. The first is colour: beetroot pigment degrades with prolonged boiling, turning a vivid crimson soup a disappointing brown. The remedy is acid — vinegar, lemon, beet kvass or tomato — and adding the beetroot late rather than boiling it from the start.

The second is balance. A good borscht is sour, sweet and savoury at once, and the sweetness of beetroot needs the acid to keep it from cloying. Beyond beetroot the pot usually holds cabbage, potato, carrot, onion and often a meat stock, with beans in some regions.

Many cooks insist it improves overnight, and it is frequently made in a large pot to be eaten over several days.

Borscht arrives with a spoonful of smetana, a thick soured cream that is stirred in at the table, and generally with dill. Pampushky — small soft garlic bread rolls — are the classic Ukrainian accompaniment, torn and dipped.

There are cold versions too, made with young beetroot and kefir or soured milk and served chilled in summer, a startling pink and completely different in character. Green borscht, made with sorrel rather than beetroot, is another spring staple that shares the family's essential sourness.