🇷🇺 The cattle breeds of Russia

Cattle enter the Russian kitchen mostly as beef, veal and dairy: beef turns up most often in its dishes, while smetana, kefir and soured milk give the classic soups their tang. Orthodox fasting seasons, when meat and milk are set aside, still shape the cooking year. In this food-centred account the animals themselves stay offstage, playing a small part.

• Beef is the most common meat in okroshka, used alone or with poultry.
• Borscht is usually made with beef in Russia and with pork in Ukraine.
• Smetana, a sour cream like crème fraîche, is served with shchi and okroshka.
• Orthodox fasting seasons call for shchi made without meat or dairy.
• Cold beet soup can be based on kefir, buttermilk, yoghurt or soured milk.

Cattle in Russia

Cattle keep a modest place in this picture of Russian food: the animals matter as what they give to the pot rather than as farm stock, and they play a small part overall. Beef is the meat cooks reach for most. It flavours okroshka, the cold summer soup, and it is the usual meat in borscht, the beet soup, as cooked in Russia, while neighbouring Ukraine leans on pork. Veal may garnish chilled beet soups. Dairy carries even more weight. Smetana, a thick soured cream, is spooned over shchi, the everyday cabbage soup, and okroshka; kefir, buttermilk, yoghurt and soured milk all bind cold soups; noodle soup can be made with milk. The long cold winters encouraged preserving food, and the Orthodox calendar, with its meatless and dairy-free fasts, shapes when these foods are eaten.

Milk, butter and beef

Beef leads the meat list. It is the standard meat in okroshka, taken alone or with poultry, and a mild bologna-style sausage sometimes stands in; Russian borscht is normally built on beef. Veal can be scattered over chilled beet soup with ham or crayfish tails. Dairy matters just as much. Smetana, a soured cream close to crème fraîche, finishes shchi, okroshka and hot borscht. Kefir, now often bought ready-made, sits beside soured milk, buttermilk and yoghurt as cold-soup bases, sometimes loosened with water and garlic. Milk noodles make up a small soup group of their own.

Festivals, fairs and faith

Faith sets the rhythm for eating what cattle give. Through much of the year the Orthodox Christian Church calls for going without meat and milk, and cooks answer with plant-only shchi. Tyurya, a humble dish of bread soaked in kvass, a sour fermented drink, with perhaps onion and oil, served as a usual fasting meal for poor peasants and in hard times such as war and revolution. These fasts built a long habit of cooking without animal foods.