🇷🇴 The cattle breeds of Romania

Cattle keep a modest place in Romania's kitchen, where pork leads and lamb and fish also figure. Beef and veal still season the national table, from slow-stewed rasol to pastramă, while milk, soured cream and cheese anchor dishes born of Carpathian pastoral life. The same foods run through Romanian-speaking Moldova.

• Beef is eaten in Romania, though pork is the main meat of the cuisine.
• Brânză is the generic Romanian word for cheese, eaten since early times.
• Pastramă began as brined, smoked beef made to keep meat before refrigeration.
• Tripe soup, made from a cow's stomach, is one of the sour ciorbe.
• Romanian cooking grew from pastoral life in the Carpathian Mountains.

Cattle in Romania

Cattle are a quiet thread in Romania's food story rather than its centrepiece. The national table leans on pork, with beef eaten alongside mutton, fish and game, and the milk of cows counts among the base foods of the cuisine, listed with vegetables, cereals, fruits and honey. Cooking here grew out of pastoral life in the Carpathian Mountains and practices reaching back to Roman times, later taking on Balkan, Ottoman, Central European and French habits. Cheese, called brânză, has been eaten since the beginning of the country's history, and dishes such as beef stews and veal in cream sauce show where cattle end up on the plate. Much of this food is shared with Moldova, the Balkans and the lands of the old Austria-Hungary.

Milk, butter and beef

Milk and dairy count among the base foods, soups often finish with soured cream, and the tripe soup ciorbă de burtă, made from a cow's stomach, is served with soured cream, egg yolks and garlic. Cheese, brânză, is generic and ancient, and sweet cottage cheese fills the Easter pie pască. Beef and veal appear across the recipe book: pastramă from brisket, brined, dried, smoked and steamed; rasol, beef stewed over a low fire with a garlic paste called mujdei; goulash borrowed from Hungary; veal in a white sauce of flour and soured cream; even cow tongue with olives.