Romanian Cuisine – Expression of Diversity « Page 2

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Articles: Romanian Cuisine – Expression of Diversity Muntenian Cuisine Cuisine from Dobrogea and the Danube Delta Moldavian and Bucovinian Cuisine Cuisine of Oltenia Transylvanian Cuisine Banat Cuisine Romanian Recipes

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Romanian Cuisine – Expression of Diversity

A few characteristics of the Romanian cuisine

Although each region has its own specific specialties, there are a few characteristics of Romanian traditional cuisine.

A lot of bread – Once I have heard some skinny western ladies complaining about the awful Romanian meals which come always along a big and fattening loaf of bread…well, this has a very simple explanation: since ancient times, Romanians have always been an agrarian society and to worship agrarian and earth gods came natural to them. That is why cereals like wheat have always played an important role in their life…and in their cuisine too. Wheat and bread are symbols of fertility and abundance, according to folk beliefs and this superstition is also connected to the Orthodox religion where bread represents Jesus’ body and that is why one should never waste or throw away the “holy bread”.

In the past baking bread was almost a solemn ritual and bread – under different shapes and compositions – was part of all major ceremonies like a child’s birth, a wedding feast, Christmas and a lot of other both religious and profane festivals over the year.

People used to bake bread in different beautiful shapes – they could be round, twined and criss-crossed according to the baker’s imagination and had various names like colaci, turte, turtite, impletite etc; usually women were the cooks in the family so they were the authors of all these incredible models. Bread could also make good sweets – if the “colaci” or “turte” were cooked with sugar, honey, eggs or other spices and/or taped with walnuts, sugar, honey or syrup.

An old custom – which is still valid in some villages today – was to welcome your guests or visitors with bread and salt, as a symbol of hospitality – home backed bread had a special flavour and it was both tasty and healthy.

A lot of soups – you can find a lot of soup recipes in Romanian cuisine; some of them are clear soups but some of them are thicker brods which are usually prepared with lots of vegetables and these ones are called “ciorbe” in Romanian.

Some of the most widely spread and appreciated clear soups are “supa cu galuste” (this is a clear chicken soup served with a kind of semolina dumplings inside it) and “supa cu taitei” – a chicken soup with noodles which were traditionally home made from flour (most of the times wheat flour), eggs, salt and water. These soups may contain some vegetables like carrots, celery, onions, potatoes and parsley or they can be very simple with only chicken meat, semolina dumplings/noodles and spices – especially parsley and black pepper.

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