Ingredients of monastic borsch

Do you know anything about the ingredients of monastic borsch?

First of all, let’s note that the taste of the dish is inseparable from the time it was served in. Along with fish soup and porridge, borsch was an everyday meal in the brethren’s menu of the 18^th century.

The history of borsch began with the fermentation of beets. Vegetables were, first, peeled, then washed and placed in a tub filled with spring water. To cook the dish one could use either beets or beet kvass as well as chopped cabbage. Millet porridge or lightly toasted rye flour (not wheat flour, which was kept only for baking proskur and rolls) was added to the borsch dressing, which was enriched by hemp oil. Borsch was served with a piece of rye brethren’s bread, placed near the bowl.

The taste of the monastery borsch lined well with surrounding silenced space full of strong fraternal prayer and love.

Natalia Lytvyn

Caption to the illustration:
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