Cossack cuisine
Cossack cuisine is the traditional cuisine of the Cossack people of present-day Ukraine and Russia. Having emerged in parallel with the settlement of Eastern European steppes, Cossack food culture incorporated elements of various traditions, including European, Caucasian and Central Asian cuisines.
Foods and products
Fish and seafood
Many Cossack hosts were named after rivers along which their members would settle, and this connection has influenced the Cossack diet, which is dominated by an abundance of fish dishes. In Ivan Kotliarevsky's Eneida sturgeon, herring and roach are mentioned among the fish consumed by the poem's heroes, who were inspired by Zaporozhian Cossacks. Ukrainian ethnographer Mykola Markevych also mentioned dishes like borshch with fish, loaches with horseradish, cutlets made of pike or crucian carp, which were popular among Ukrainian Cossacks.Social elite of the Hetmanate would also use imported fish such as Dutch herring, eels, flounders, lampreys, salmon as well as cuttlefish. Some other local fish species popular during that time included carp, catfish, common bream, sander. Much of the fish consumed by Cossacks in Ukrainian lands was salted or dried. Fish trade between Ukraine and the Black Sea region during the Cossack era was controlled by chumaks, but much of the catch was done locally in rivers, such as the Dnieper and Desna, or in ponds.
Among Don Cossacks baked carp or bream are still popular, and they prepare soups and stews with fish, such as ukha and . The Don Cossacks' fish dishes include sturgeon, balyk, Don herring, scherba, and small fish fried with onions and eggs.
Other dishes
Typical food consumed by Zaporozhian Cossacks consisted of milled grains and flour and included traditional Ukrainian dishes such as kasha,, and. During campaigns Cossacks would be supplied by the hetman administration with basic rations consisting of flour, breadcrumbs, groats and meat. In Pereyaslav regiment during 1722-1723 a Cossack artillery serviceman would annually receive almost 200 kg of rye, 50 kg of wheat and 50 kg of buckwheat flour, 50 kg of millet, 15 kg of salo and 55 g of salt. Cossacks would also eat borshch, which was a universal food for all classes in Ukraine during that era.The diet of the Hetmanate's Cossack elite was much more luxurious in comparison: campaigning in the Caucasus in 1726, Lubny colonel Yakiv Markovych ordered his wife in Ukraine to send him foods such as olives, butter, ham, dried tongues, chicken and turkeys, as well as olive oil and various appetizers. During the Cossack era beef and game in Ukraine were consumed mostly by the upper classes; the most commonly eaten meat among the lower classes was mutton.
Don Cossacks traditionally eat porridges, noodles, bread and pies. Stuffed cabbage rolls and aspic are also common. A well-known Don dish is watermelon pickled in brine, which is often used as an appetizer for strong alcoholic drinks.
Kuban Cossacks eat borscht, varenyky, pancakes, and shish kebabs. Goulash is common in the cuisine of the Cossacks of Southern Russia. The most common soups are okroshka and shulum. Meat is usually baked in the oven. The round bread palyanytsia is surrounded with honors.