Food & drink

The beets came later — borscht began as a weed

The soup that everyone pictures as deep red started out as something else entirely: a sour brew made from the pickled stems and leaves of common hogweed, a meadow plant that gave the dish its Slavic name long before beetroot arrived. What survives is not a recipe but a category — green borscht made with sorrel, white borscht soured with rye, cabbage borscht, versions served ice-cold or drunk from a glass. It appears in Orthodox, Greek Catholic, Roman Catholic and Jewish ritual meals, and reached North America through Jewish and Mennonite migration, which is why several nations claim it at once. In 2022 UNESCO stepped carefully into that argument, listing Ukrainian borscht culture while stating plainly that no country owns the dish.

UNESCO placed Ukrainian borscht cooking on its list of heritage in urgent need of safeguarding in 2022, weeks after Russia's invasion — while noting the listing grants no country exclusive claim to the soup.

Read the whole of Borscht on Wikipedia

The article comes from Wikipedia and is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. The introduction above is our own.