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The cuisine of Odesa, Ukraine is influenced by various cultures and regions, including Russia, Jewish culture, Georgia, France, Germany, Italy, Armenia, Uzbekistan, Bulgaria, Moldova, and Greece. However, many recipes are indigenous to Odesa, with fusion cuisine being common.

Dishes of Odesa cuisine: gefilte fish, helzel, aubergine dip, cabbage rolls "little fingers"

Typical dishes

Appetizers

Meat

Fish and seafood

Other

Desserts

Overview

"Odessa cuisine loves to sit, you shouldn't take it off the stove and swallow it quickly. Let it sit on the stove or in the refrigerator. Odessa bazaar smells. Odessa dill smells. Odessa garlic sticks fingers together. Odessa horse mackerel detaches from the ridge and melts in the mouth. Aubergine dip sharpens and flavours any pork chop. Odessa red borscht with beans. Green with egg ... From one chicken - neck, stuffed legs, broth, and noodles. Wine in Odessa is called "daddy made" - it is sucked through a tube from a 12-liter glass bottle. In short. Come to Odessa hungry, enjoy it, and eat".

— Mikhail Zhvanetsky, About Odesa cuisine[29]

Due to its coastal location, Odesa cuisine includes a large number of seafood dishes. The most popular dish is gefilte fish, which is served on holidays using several types of fish, mainly pike, mullet or redlip mullet, carp, and pike perch. Fried fish is also popular. Preference is given to the Black Sea flounder and gobies. Cutlets are fried from small fish of the herring family, mainly Black Sea sprats. Pilaf with mussels is a popular Odesa seafood dish. Mussels are often fried on-site on large sheets of iron.

A traditional snack in Odesa is boiled shrimp, called "rachki", in the Odesite slang.

Among cold appetizers, vorschmack is especially popular, as well as a dip made from grilled aubergines.

Stuffed chicken neck (gefilte helzele) and stuffed vegetables (bell peppers, zucchini, and aubergines) are very popular.

Another feature of Odesa cuisine is the tendency to reduce the size of individual food items while keeping the portion size unchanged. For example, pelmeni and varenyky, when interpreted by Odesa chefs, look different than the more traditional versions. In Odesa, pelmeni and varenyky are served at a small size, whereas varenyky in Ukrainian cuisine are as large as a fist. The most popular type of varenyky are cherry varenyky. Cabbage rolls in the Odesa culinary tradition are also made in a smaller size than is traditional elsewhere, with a preferred size called “the little finger.” A popular dessert, called nalistniki (blintzes with quark), is also quite small.

Odesa specialties

Dried gobies for sale on the market in Odesa, Ukraine

The specialties of Odesa and the Odesa region include:

"Whatever one may say, but gobies are another “sacred gastronomic cow” of the city by the very blue sea. Some Odessa residents, who grew up in Moldovan courtyards and remember the smell of fried gobies cooked outside in a primus stove, wry when people who got sunburnt on the first beach day, run to the nearest restaurant to try this local delicacy. They, those people, can tell you about their grandfather, about his tarred boat, about morning fishing and how you can catch gobies lazily from the pier. Then, without any hesitation, eat it for breakfast fresh, salted with seawater and seasoned with summer."

— Maria Kalenska, My Odessa: delicious gobies[33]

"… From the aubergines we immediately made aubergine dip. Of course, not that bland, sweetish yellowish gruel, which is sold as canned food, but that real, home made, famous Odessa aubergine dip- the food of the gods! - green, with onions, vinegar, garlic, Moldavian pepper, devilishly spicy, from which "bites" are made on the lips ... In order to cook such a dip, the aubergines had to be (of course!) not boiled, and not to stewed, and, of course, not fried, but baked over coals. The aubergine should be charred. Then the skin is pilled from them, and the steaming, half-baked green pulp with white seeds is finely chopped. But God forbid chopping them with a knife. From contact with metal, the aubergine loses its natural green colour, turns black, and then the dip is no longer any good. The aubergines must be chopped only with a wooden knife. Then you get a real Odessa aubergine dip. What could be easier."

— Valentin Kataev, About aubergine dip[37]

"And this combination of Jewish and Greek traditions remained. I cook it very often, especially if I want my table to have some accent. In every home has its own recipe, it is absolutely dietary, easily made, eaten as a pleasant spicy snack with a slice of black bread. It is cooked in large quantities, immediately before the arrival of guests, so that it does not wind up and does not give excess juice. Pairs well with everything except kissing. However, smells are obligatory for the food Odessa principle. Garlic, grease, dirty hands - one cannot leave the table sterile and light. Aubergine dip is good because it does not upset the balance either in the stomach or in the head."

— Anna Loshak, About aubergine dip[38]
Boiled shrimp (Rachky)

Books about Odesa cuisine

References

  1. ^ Moore, Eleanor (14 February 2019). "Review of Black Sea: Dispatches and Recipes – Through Darkness and Light". Russian art and culture. Retrieved March 2, 2021.
  2. ^ Libkin, Savva (October 12, 2018). My Odessa Cuisine. Fors. p. 51. ISBN 978-617-7559-69-5.
  3. ^ "An authentic Old World appetizer – Jewish touch in Odessa cuisine". The Odessa Journal. Retrieved March 2, 2021.
  4. ^ Moore, Eleanor (14 February 2019). "Review of Black Sea: Dispatches and Recipes – Through Darkness and Light". Russian art and culture. Retrieved March 2, 2021.
  5. ^ Libkin, Savva (October 12, 2018). My Odessa Cuisine. Fors. p. 177. ISBN 978-617-7559-69-5.
  6. ^ Libkin, Savva (October 12, 2018). My Odessa Cuisine. Fors. p. 124. ISBN 978-617-7559-69-5.
  7. ^ Libkin, Savva (October 12, 2018). My Odessa Cuisine. Fors. p. 16. ISBN 978-617-7559-69-5.
  8. ^ Eden, Caroline (13 June 2020). "The best food books to take you overseas - while stuck at home". The Guardian. Retrieved March 4, 2021.
  9. ^ Kalenska, Maria. "Delicious gobies". Retrieved March 3, 2021.
  10. ^ Hercules, Olia (July 14, 2020). Summer Kitchens: Recipes and Reminiscences from Every Corner of Ukraine. Weldon Owen. p. 278. ISBN 978-1681885704.
  11. ^ Eden, Caroline (5 August 2017). "Odessa's new parks lead a blossoming of urban regeneration". The Guardian. Retrieved March 4, 2021.
  12. ^ Hercules, Olia (July 14, 2020). Summer Kitchens: Recipes and Reminiscences from Every Corner of Ukraine. Weldon Owen. p. 21. ISBN 978-1681885704.
  13. ^ Libkin, Savva (October 12, 2018). My Odessa Cuisine. Fors. p. 49. ISBN 978-617-7559-69-5.
  14. ^ Kalenska, Maria. "Odessa mussels". Retrieved March 3, 2021.
  15. ^ Kalenska, Maria (31 May 2019). "Mussel pilaf". Retrieved March 3, 2021.
  16. ^ Libkin, Savva. "Pilaf with mussels". Retrieved March 3, 2021.
  17. ^ Kalenska, Maria. "Sprat cult". Retrieved March 3, 2021.
  18. ^ Hercules, Olia (July 14, 2020). Summer Kitchens: Recipes and Reminiscences from Every Corner of Ukraine. Weldon Owen. p. 276. ISBN 978-1681885704.
  19. ^ "Borscht with Gobies". Retrieved July 6, 2021.
  20. ^ Libkin, Savva (October 12, 2018). My Odessa Cuisine. Fors. p. 238. ISBN 978-617-7559-69-5.
  21. ^ Kalenska, Maria (6 October 2020). "Odessa "5 minutes" pickled cucumbers". Retrieved March 3, 2021.
  22. ^ Libkin, Savva. pickled cucumbers "ODumplings with Cherry". Retrieved March 3, 2021. ((cite web)): Check |url= value (help)
  23. ^ Libkin, Savva (October 12, 2018). My Odessa Cuisine. Fors. p. 235. ISBN 978-617-7559-69-5.
  24. ^ Libkin, Savva (October 12, 2018). My Odessa Cuisine. Fors. p. 93. ISBN 978-617-7559-69-5.
  25. ^ Libkin, Savva (October 12, 2018). My Odessa Cuisine. Fors. p. 245. ISBN 978-617-7559-69-5.
  26. ^ Hercules, Olia (July 14, 2020). Summer Kitchens: Recipes and Reminiscences from Every Corner of Ukraine. Weldon Owen. p. 296. ISBN 978-1681885704.
  27. ^ "Food diplomacy: the French influence on Odessa dishes (but probably is Neapolitan)". The Odessa Journal. Retrieved March 2, 2021.
  28. ^ Kalenska, Maria (3 April 2020). "Odessa-style walnut stuffed prunes". Retrieved March 3, 2021.
  29. ^ Libkin, Savva (October 12, 2018). My Odessa Cuisine. Fors. p. 5. ISBN 978-617-7559-69-5.
  30. ^ Libkin, Savva (October 12, 2018). My Odessa Cuisine. Fors. p. 151. ISBN 978-617-7559-69-5.
  31. ^ Libkin, Savva (October 12, 2018). My Odessa Cuisine. Fors. p. 14. ISBN 978-617-7559-69-5.
  32. ^ Libkin, Savva (October 12, 2018). My Odessa Cuisine. Fors. p. 23. ISBN 978-617-7559-69-5.
  33. ^ Kalenska, Maria (23 February 2021). "My Odessa: delicious gobies". The Odessa Journal. Retrieved May 2, 2021.
  34. ^ Libkin, Savva (October 12, 2018). My Odessa Cuisine. Fors. p. 33. ISBN 978-617-7559-69-5.
  35. ^ Libkin, Savva (October 12, 2018). My Odessa Cuisine. Fors. p. 43. ISBN 978-617-7559-69-5.
  36. ^ Libkin, Savva (October 12, 2018). My Odessa Cuisine. Fors. p. 154. ISBN 978-617-7559-69-5.
  37. ^ Kataev, Valentin (2005). Катакомбы [The Catacombs] (in Russian). Эксмо. ISBN 5-699-12011-4.
  38. ^ Loshak, Anna (2010). "Баклажанная икра семейства Лошак" [Aubergine dip of Loshak family]. Afisha (in Russian).
  39. ^ Libkin, Savva (October 12, 2018). My Odessa Cuisine. Fors. p. 156. ISBN 978-617-7559-69-5.
  40. ^ "Izmail is the place we are". Izmail City Council. Retrieved March 3, 2021.

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