Borscht () is a sour soup, made with meat stock, vegetables and seasonings, common in Eastern Europe, Central Europe and Northern Asia. In English, the word borscht, borrowed via Yiddish, is most often associated with the variant of the soup originating in Ukraine, made with red beetroots as one of the main ingredients, which give the dish its distinctive red color. The same name, however, is also used for a wide selection of sour-tasting soups without beetroots, such as sorrel-based green borscht, rye-based white borscht, and cabbage borscht.
Borscht derives from an ancient soup originally cooked from pickled stems, leaves and umbels of common hogweed (Heracleum sphondylium), an herbaceous plant growing in damp meadows, which lent the dish its Slavic name. With time, it evolved into a diverse array of tart soups, among which the Ukrainian beet-based red borscht has become the most popular. It is typically made by combining meat or bone stock with sautéed vegetables, which—as well as beetroots—usually include cabbage, carrots, onions, potatoes, and tomatoes. Depending on the recipe, borscht may include meat or fish, or be purely vegetarian; it may be served either hot or cold, and it may range from a hearty one-pot meal to a clear broth or a smooth drink. It is often served with smetana or sour cream, hard-boiled eggs or potatoes, but there exists an ample choice of more involved garnishes and side dishes, such as or , that can be served with the soup.
Its popularity has spread throughout Eastern Europe and—by way of migration away from the Russian Empire—to other continents. In North America, borscht is often linked with either Jews or Mennonites, the groups who first brought it there from Europe. Several ethnic groups claim borscht, in its various local implementations, as their own national dish consumed as part of ritual meals within Orthodox, Greek Catholic, Roman Catholic, and Jewish religious traditions. In 2022, shortly after Russia's invasion of Ukraine, UNESCO recognized the "Culture of Ukrainian borscht cooking" on its List of Intangible Cultural Heritage in Need of Urgent Safeguarding. UNESCO noted that several countries in the broader region have also practiced borscht cooking and their inscription does not imply exclusivity or ownership of the dish for any particular country.
Etymology The English name derives, through Yiddish, from Ukrainian and Russian (, , ). Together with cognates in other Slavic languages, such as (), , and others, it comes from Proto-Slavic *, 'hogweed', and ultimately from Proto-Indo-European , 'point', 'stubble'.
The English form comes from Yiddish (), as the dish was first popularized in North America by Yiddish-speaking Ashkenazi Jews from Eastern Europe.
Ingredients and preparation
The stock is typically made by boiling meat, bones, or both. Beef, pork or a combination of both are most commonly used, with brisket, ribs, shank and chuck considered to give the most flavorful results, especially if cooked on a high flame. Marrow bones are considered best for the bone stock. Meat stock is usually cooked for about two hours, whereas bone stock takes four to six hours to prepare. Meat and bones are usually removed afterwards and the meat is only added back into the soup about 10–15 minutes before the borscht is done. Some recipes call for smoked meats, resulting in a distinctively smoky borscht, while others use poultry or mutton stock. Fasting varieties are typically made with fish stock to avoid the use of meat, while purely vegetarian recipes often substitute forest mushroom broth for the stock.
The vegetables most commonly added to borscht are beetroots, white cabbage, carrots, parsley root, potatoes, onions and tomatoes. Some recipes may also call for beans, tart apples, turnip, swede, celeriac, zucchini or bell peppers. Parsnip may be used as a substitute for parsley root, and tomato paste is often used as well as or instead of fresh tomatoes. Onions, carrots, parsley root, turnip and other root vegetables are sautéed (traditionally in animal fat, especially lard or butter) and then mixed with tomatoes or tomato paste. Dry beans are boiled separately. Potatoes and cabbage are boiled in the stock for about 15 minutes before the precooked vegetables are added.
The traditional technique of preparing the soup is to precook the vegetables—by sautéing, braising, boiling or baking—separately from the meat and only then to combine them with the stock. This distinctive feature of borscht derives from the practice of slow cooking in the Russian oven (traditional masonry stove, used for both cooking and heating), wherein the differences in cooking times of individual ingredients had to be taken into account in order to ensure that all components reach doneness at the same time. The importance of this method is reflected in the Russian language, where a variant in which all vegetables are added raw directly into the stock is referred to by the diminutive form rather than .
The soup is typically flavored with a wide selection of herbs, spices and condiments. Salt, black pepper, garlic, bay leaves and dill are among the most commonly used. Other aromatics often added to borscht include allspice, celery stalks, parsley, marjoram, hot peppers, saffron, horseradish, ginger and prunes. Some recipes require flour or roux to further thicken the borscht. A common opinion is that a good borscht should be thick enough for a spoon to stand upright in it.
Beet sour The dominant tastes in borscht are sweet and sour. This combination is traditionally obtained by adding beet sour. The sour is made by covering sliced beetroots with lukewarm preboiled water and allowing bacteria to ferment some of the sugars present in beetroots into dextran (which gives the liquid a slightly viscous consistency), mannitol, acetic acid and lactic acid. Stale rye bread is often added to hasten the process, but usually omitted in Jewish recipes, as chametz (leavened bread) would make the sour unfit for Passover meals. Sugar, salt and lemon juice may also be added to balance the flavor. After about 2–5 days (or 2–3 weeks without the bread), the deep red, sweet and sour liquid may be strained and is ready to use. It is added to borscht shortly before the soup is done, as prolonged boiling would cause the tart flavor to dissipate.
The beet sour is known in Slavic languages as kvas (; compare kvass) and in Yiddish as (from a Slavic word originally referring to any brine obtained by steeping salted meat or vegetables in water; compare Russian , 'pickle juice', Polish , 'broth'). Apart from its employment in borscht, it may also be added to prepared horseradish or used as pot roast marinade.
As the traditional method of making borscht with beet sour often requires planning at least several days ahead, many recipes for quicker borscht replace the beet sour with fresh beetroot juice, while the sour taste is imparted by other ingredients. Vinegar, tomato products, lemon juice or citric acid may be used, as well as dry red wine, dill pickle juice, murături juice, sauerkraut juice, tart apples, Mirabelle plums, apricots, or a fermented rye flour and water mixture.
Variations
Ukrainian
There are multiple examples of the soup in Ukrainian cuisine. Virtually every oblast has its own version. Differences between particular varieties may regard the type of stock used (meat, bone, or both), the type of meat (beef, pork, poultry, etc.), the choice of vegetables and the method of cutting and cooking them. For example, although the typical recipe calls for beef and pork, the Kyiv variant uses mutton or lamb as well as beef, while in the Poltava region, the stock for borscht is cooked on poultry meat, that is, chicken, duck or goose. The use of zucchini, beans and apples is characteristic of the Chernihiv borscht; in this variant, beetroots are sautéed in vegetable oil rather than lard, and the sour taste comes solely from tomatoes and tart apples. The Lviv borscht is based on bone stock and is served with chunks of Vienna sausages. In Southern Ukraine borshch typically includes legumes. Historically, borshch with meat was reserved as a holiday dish, meanwhile varieties consumed during lent would include fish, such as dried crucian carp.
Numerous seasonal varieties of borshch exist in Ukrainian tradition: in spring and during summer, green borshch is traditionally cooked, meanwhile borshch with pork would be traditionally reserved for Christmas season, and in autumn borshch with mutton and chicken was also popular. The traditional variety of borshch consumed during Lent contained fish, wheat flour, hemp oil, beans and potatoes. Other popular traditional ingredients of borshch are salo, fried sausages. During the late 19th century a dish known as panskyi borshch ("lords' borshch") would be cooked with the addition of duck, chicken and pork meat.
Borscht is symbolic of hospitality in Ukraine and is part of multiple traditional celebrations and rituals. In some parts of Ukraine, the third day of a wedding celebration is called do nevistky na borshch, which translates to "visit daughter-in-law to eat borscht". In 2022, UNESCO added "Culture of Ukrainian borscht cooking" to the List of Intangible Cultural Heritage in Need of Urgent Safeguarding, citing the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Polish
As well as the thick borschts described above, Polish cuisine offers a ruby-colored beetroot bouillon known as , or clear red borscht. It is made by combining strained meat-and-vegetable stock with wild mushroom broth and beet sour. In some versions, smoked meat may be used for the stock and the tartness may be obtained or enhanced by adding lemon juice, dill pickle brine, or dry red wine. It may be served either in a soup bowl or—especially at dinner parties—as a hot beverage in a twin-handled cup, with a croquette or a filled pastry on the side. Unlike other types of borscht, it is not whitened with sour cream.
, or Christmas Eve borscht, is a variant of the clear borscht that is traditionally served during the Polish Christmas Eve supper. In this version, meat stock is either omitted or replaced with fish broth, usually made by boiling the heads cut off from fish used in other Christmas Eve dishes. The mushrooms used for cooking the mushroom broth are reserved for (small filled dumplings), which are then served with the borscht.
Jewish Ashkenazi Jews living in Eastern Europe adopted beetroot borscht from their Slavic neighbors and adapted it to their taste and religious requirements. As combining meat with milk is proscribed by kosher dietary laws, Jews have developed two variants of the soup: meat () and dairy (). The meat variant is typically made from beef brisket (pork is never used) and cabbage, while the dairy one is vegetarian, blended with sour cream or a mixture of milk and egg yolks. Both variants typically contain beetroots and onions, and are flavored with beet sour, vinegar or citric acid for tartness and beet sugar for sweetness. Galician Jews traditionally liked their borscht particularly sweet. Jewish borscht may be served either hot or cold, typically with a hot boiled potato on the side. In prewar Eastern Europe it was traditionally put up to ferment around Purim so that it would be ready four weeks later for the Passover holiday.
Russian
Russian variants include a Siberian style borscht, characterized by meatballs; Pskov borscht with dried smelt from the local lakes; monastic Lenten borscht with marinated kelp instead of cabbage and the Russian Navy borscht (), the defining characteristic of which is that the vegetables are cut into square or diamond-shaped chunks rather than julienned. Kuban borscht is made from local beets, Kuban borschevaya 43 cultivar, which is distinguished by its less bright color. As a result, the borscht turns out golden or orange in color.Kuban borscht
Lithuanian cold borscht