One of the pleasures of travelling, for me at least, is trying new foods from the various places I visit… the local cuisine can be daringly different or sometimes familiarly similar. The Ukrainian local cuisine is a blend of both, and at first glance is very healthy… similar to a Mediterranean one.
Cold and hot soups, filled with vegetables… meat dishes of various kinds, baked, fried, BBQ’d, boiled even (but since my heart attack, I avoid fried foods)… I took a fancy to two types of fish salad made by my friend’s mother.
In the first, to the far left, you can see decorations of black olives and potato chips… yes, the kind that comes out of a pack or a Pringle’s can. The one on the right is loaded with vegetables, corn, herbs etc. Both had different tastes, which made tucking in a real treat.
The dish to the right is 'pelmeni’ (Russian, in Ukrainian it is vareniki) which is like wontons… a thin flour wrapping filled with meat. This particular dish was pelmeni with mushrooms. To the far right is a cabbage salad. It was topped with lemon juice and was very tasty.
The best food is home prepared, in my opinion. I like the traditional flavours that come through, as opposed to the taste of dishes from restaurants… though to be fair, even those are nothing to scoff at as I said in my last post.
