Romanian Cuisine

Traditions of Romanian Cuisine

Traditions and peculiar features of Romanian cuisine were reasoned by the geographical position of the country, which was situated on the famous and important trade way “from Varangs to Greeks”. So there is no wonder that besides original dishes from maize flour, there appeared in Romanian cuisine some Greek and Turkish dishes. Romanian cuisine is the opulence of vegetables and fruits, spices and piquant seasonings. It is characteristic for this cuisine to be rich in dishes made of brynza, because due to the high level of development of sheep-breeding brynza was very popular and could be found practically on every family dinner table. It was cooked from sheep milk, which was kept in prickle for 10 or 15 days. Another Romanian sheep-milk cheese — cashcaval – is not less popular.

Chorba

In Romania people adore various soups, which they call, using only one word — “chorba”. Chorba is a kind of soup with seasoning. Romanians add tomatoes or lemon acid to make the dish piquant. There are a lot of chorba recipes, from the simplest to the most complicated, where vegetables, cabbage and lemon juices, greens, sour cream and pork are used.

Mamalyga

As it has been mentioned above, maize is widely used in Romania. So mamalyga became the V-card of Romania. Mamalyga is a kind of porridge from maize flour. The amount of ways of mamalyga cooking is not less than the amount of chorba recipes — there are boiled and fried mamalyga, and besides there are some special kinds of this dish. Here we may mention urs (a ball of mamalyga, stuffed with grated brynza and baked on burning ashes) and also balmoush (mamalyga, boiled on milk). Romanian culinars cook even dumplings with mamalyga.

Mitch and Miteteis

Romanian meat dishes shouldn’t be neglected either. First of all, we should mention mitch, miteteis and papricash. Mitch, perhaps, is the most popular dish of Romanian cuisine. It represents a kind of shashlik from any kind of meat, roasted in a special way on grill or burning ashes. And it should be kept in mind, that real mitch can be cooked only outdoors, for when you cook it indoors, the taste is completely different. Usually Romanians eat mitch without garnish, but necessarily with mustard and drink it all with beer. In Russia miteteis are rather popular. They represent a kind of meatballs of oblong shape with pepper and garlic, roasted on gridiron. Besides, there are stufat (a very tasty dish — roast meat with spring onions and garlic) and chulamu (meat, vegetables and mushrooms in mealy sauce). Sometimes the aborigines roast a whole ram on a spit. In Transylvania, the most mysterious region of the country, citizens prefer mostly meat dishes from pork and mutton. Specially for the tourists there exists a peculiar entertainment — they bake a ram in the clay, whereas telling horrible stories about count Dracula. They say, the count loved this dish very much, but instead of rams he preferred the prisoners of his castle.

National Romanian Drinks

Surely slivovitz shouldn’t be neglected. It is something like national Romanian home-brew, rather strong. It is a kind of palenka — a fruit vodka. Slivovitz is kept in oak barrels for not less than 3 years and that’s why it acquires oily yellow color. This drink is made of prunes only.