For our 22nd country date night, I cooked a meal in solidarity with the Ukrainian people. (I don't like empty gestures, so also made some donations to charities helping Ukrainians affected by the war, link below.*)
My Samet ancestors are Russian/Ukrainian in origin. At the time they immigrated to the US, their hometown (Radyvyliv) was Russian (occupied? I don't know enough of the history), but it is now part of Ukraine. So I feel a more personal connection with the suffering there.
The meal turned out pretty well, I thought. Compared to many of the meals we have had, I found the food (like the borscht and varenky), to be more familiar. The kysil was the exception, being a much thicker consistency than we are used to in beverages.
Can't go wrong with borscht. Kysil may be more of an acquired taste.
This sausage had an unfortunate appearance...
I also got a very visceral understanding of the phrase "seeing how the sausage gets made." I had to grind pork fat to make the sausage, and there was still skin and a nipple attached... which was rather startling for me and made me a bit queasy. The fact is though, that that's real life... if you eat meat, you are eating dead animals. It's just that most Americans have a very antiseptic experience of food. I think it's better to have a more direct connection to the animals whose lives you take, so you are more appreciative. (Or to be vegan or vegetarian, if you object to taking animal life.)
These paska are a traditional Easter bread. They were delicious (gifted two to neighbors) and quite attractive, I thought, though I liked their look better before they were finished with icing and sprinkles.
The Kiev Cake was a labor of love!! Turned out deliciously though. My first time eating a whole hazelnut.
After dinner we watched the film Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors (1965), about the Hutsul people. It was vividly colored and quite interesting.
When? March 14, 2022
Who cooked? Lauren
What's for dinner? (Recipe links)
Borscht, kovbasa, varenyky (I sort of looked at different recipes but this pierogi recipe is close to what I did), paska, kysil, Kiev cake
Ukraine Stats
- Population: 44.13 million (California has 39.4)
- GDP: 42nd in the world
- Life Expectancy: 71.19, 125th in the world (the US is 40th)
- Founding Date/Age in 2022: These are always messy! Paraphrasing Wikipedia slightly-- "after the Russian Revolution the Ukrainian People's Republic was formed in 1917, but was forcibly reconstituted into the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, which became a founding member of the Soviet Union in 1922. Following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, Ukraine regained independence." But we'll call it 1991/31 years old... a bit younger than me.
- Official Language: Ukrainian
- Rankings -- Largest exporter of sunflower seeds
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