Ukraine enjoys a variety of traditional cookery, as well as favourite imported dishes. Fruit and vegetables, grown under the hot sun in rich Ukrainian soil, have natural taste of real nature products. Ukrainians like to cook and treat their guests. The foreigners who arrive in Ukraine find the national dishes very delicious. Ukrainian cuisine has merited an excellent reputation long ago. Various farinaceous produces ("pampushki", "halushki", "vareniki", "korzhi", etc), meat foods and dishes (Ukrainian sausages, cold collations, game, fowl. etc), vegetables and dairy foods (curd fritters - syrniki, ryazhenka), fruit and honey drinks of every sort and kind enjoy wide popularity. But a particular world-wide favour and fame are kept by Ukrainian borsch.
Borsch prepares of fresh vegetables: cabbage, beet, tomatoes and others, and then dresses with stamped lard, garlic and parsley. The combination of these ingredients imparts to borsch a wonderful aroma and relish. There are up to 30 sorts of borsch that are specific for Poltava, Chernihiv, Kyiv, Volhynia, Lvov and other regions of Ukraine. Also various kashas, vareniki (dumplings) filled with curd, potatoes, stewed cabbage, and berries are spread widely in Ukraine. Such dishes as roast meat with potatoes ("pechenya"), larded Ukrainian mincemeat with garlic, cold boiled pork with cabbage and lard, "kruchenyki" and so on are also very popular. An important place in Ukrainian national cookery is traditionally taken by fish dishes - crucians baked in sour cream, twisted and baked pieces of fish (kruchenyki), carp stuffed with mushrooms and boiled buckwheat, carp stewed with onion or in sour cream, pike-perch baked with mushrooms and crayfishes etc.
Ukrainian national cookery is rich in dishes, which traditionally timed to different holidays and ceremonies - wedding, birth, send-off to military service and other important events. For instance, wheat and buckwheat pancakes and vareniks were obligatory dishes on Pancake week (last week of carnival). By the most solemn holidays pies with meat, liver and other fillings were baked generally. Such ritual drink as "uzvar" (dried fruits compote) also was very popular. Now you may find these dishes in every restaurant menu.
The inevitable part of festive meal is alcoholic beverages horilka (vodka), brandy, wine, fortified liqueurs that Ukrainians know numerous formulas for ages. From the wide variety of Ukrainian horilka the kind of the one prepared of honey plus pepper stands apart, since it combines rival tastes of pepper pungency, sweetness of honey and aroma of native-grasses embodying diversity and unpredictability of life itself. Tea is a favourite drink, although coffee is enjoyed as well. Kvass, a slightly fermented drink may be made from white or dark rye bread, cranberries. It is difficult to say, how many hundreds or even thousands of recipes are used in traditional Ukrainian cooking. Ukrainian women usually cook well and many of them are real masters in preparing food and drinks. Their fantasy based on folk traditions is endless. If you have an occasion to be at the Ukrainian home, you will be charmed by the sincere warmth of hosts and home-made food. You ll never leave Ukrainian family being hungry.