Unseen Romania » Culinary Art

Romanian Cuisine – Expression of Diversity

Daniel Voicu — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 13:58:10 +0000

When visiting a new place I tend to think that each of us is pretty much curious about the local cuisine: in fact, apart from the basic need of feeding yourself one might like to taste something traditional in the area. This can be for cultural reasons or because of simply curiosity. Anyway, eating habits and local cuisine say a lot about a country or a region inhabitants and their culture.

Like everywhere else in the world Romanian gastronomy is an expression of the geography and history of the country too: the landscape diversity provides Romanian housewives with a large variety of fruits, vegetables and spices while the historical neighborhood of other ethnic groups has left a colourful and tasty mark. So, Romanian cuisine is extremely diverse. In fact it is a mix up of different dishes from several cultures it has come across during its stormy past, but it has managed to maintain its own character and adapt the foreign recipes to local taste. It has been greatly influenced by Balkan cuisine but it has retained some influences from other neighbours’ culinary traditions, such as Germans, Serbians, and Hungarians too.

Traditional Romanian spirits are very… strong and we can include here the famous palinca and tuica. Palinca is a traditional Transylvanian drink and it is a type of brandy, usually made from plums, apples, pears or apricots and its alcohol content is at least 40% but home made drinks can even reach 60% – 70% although their fruit flavour is still strong. Tuica is another type of local brandy in Wallahia.

But Romania is also a great wine producer. In fact arheological findings and historical documents place the beginning of wine culture on these lands some 4000 years ago. High quality wines produced in this region were object of trade ever since ancient times. Some of the most important vineyard centres are Dealu Mare, Pietroasa, Dragasani, Murfatlar, Cotnari, Odobesti and some of the best Romanian wine varieties include Tamaioasa Romaneasca, Feteasca Alba, Feteasca Neagra, Galbena de Odobesti, Babeasca, Busuioaca and many others.

Muntenian Cuisine

Daniel Voicu — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 13:31:01 +0000

Muntenia lies in the south – central part of Romania, along the Danube and further up to the mountains. Its cuisine is very ingenious and apart from some Greek and generally speaking oriental influences the most significant influence it suffered comes from the French cuisine. To understand this we should bear in mind that French culture and habits were extremely popular and fashionable in Wallachia, especially during the 18th and 19th centuries.

Muntenian gastronomy is very similar to its sister, the Oltenian fresh cuisine. So, vegetables soups made of nettles, mushrooms and all kind of beans and weeds are very popular in this region too and they are usually enriched with rice, eggs and sour cream. Meat soups are cooked especially with chicken and beef and Muntenians cooks make good use of lovage too.

Soups and thicker broths come along a large choice of meat dishes such as chicken (in fact all kind of poultry), fish, pork, beef or mutton.

Dry and smoked plums (prune) are very appreciated in Muntenia and they make good ingredients for all kind of dishes, from main meals such as prune stew (with or without meat) to prune pies and puddings.

People from Muntenia eat indeed a lot of fresh salads – especially in spring and summer time – but during cold season they would not give up their salads, only that they would use more boiled vegetables, mixed up with cheese, cheddar, eggs and various dressings – which from the French mayonnaise is held in high esteem; in fact mayonnaise is very much used in Muntenia.

In conclusion, if you go to Muntenia you should expect to find on the menu something like: chicken roast with quince or apricots, duck with olives, prune dishes, mayonnaise salads, the famous tripe soup (served with garlic and sour cream), fish dishes and of course a lot of vegetables soups and vegetables main dishes.

If we speak about desserts – prune pie and pumpkin pie (and all sorts of puddings) are very popular here. Sweet specialties of the area are the boiled “papanasi” (a sort of round dumplings served with jam and sour cream) and the “mucenici cu zeama” / “mucenici muntenesti” or simply “mucenici” (“mucenici muntenesti” – a special type of small cookies boiled in water with walnuts, honey (or sugar) and cinnamon which are prepared only once a year – on the 9th of March).

Author: Irina Petre

Cuisine from Dobrogea and the Danube Delta

Daniel Voicu — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 14:32:02 +0000

This is the region that has probably seen the strongest Turkish influence during its history but Greeks, Tartars and Bulgarians left their traces too. The region lies in the south – eastern part of the country and due to a Mediterranean – like climate thanks to the proximity of the Black Sea and the Danube its cuisine is rather light and based on fish.

If we are to sum up the local gastronomic habits then we have to speak about fish, mutton and game dishes as the most common. Breeding sheep has a long tradition in Dobrogea (Dobdrudja) and it was one of the main professions in the area, apart fishing and as one can imagine this is a good explanation for mutton being on the second place on the top of culinary preferences. Transylvanian shepherds who came to Dobrudja and settled there in the past brought with them certain culinary habits, among which the large use of cheese and dairy by – products.

Minced mutton or beef are used to prepare the Dobrogean (Dobrudjan) musaca made of egg fruits, tomatoes, potatoes and various spices and served with cold yogurt. As a matter of fact yogurt and kefir are very popular here. There are a lot of game dishes which are eaten especially in winter and autumn: wild boar meat balls, duck or teal with stuffing and all of them make very refined and appetizing choices.

Moldavian and Bucovinian Cuisine

Daniel Voicu — Fri, 15 Aug 2008 13:20:27 +0000

This region lies in the north-eastern part of Romania and historically speaking it suffered few foreign influences from people who came to conquer these lands or to trade with natives. They managed to influence more or less the local culture. The Byzantine Empire and later on Greeks left some culinary marks in Moldavia – a large variety of sweets, some spicy dressing with various flavours or the Mediterranean habit of using dry wine to cook some dishes.

Turks (when the region came under their influence between the 16th and the very beginning of the 19th century) left one of the most powerful imprints on the local cuisine: the use of mutton on a large scale and dishes like musaca or hotchpotch (ghiveci). We should not forget the Russians: they left us something too – pickled vegetables and a lot of baked dishes and baked cakes. Nowadays the Moldavian cuisine is considered as being one of the most subtle of our country. Because of some Mediterranean influences (from Greeks) it is much lighter than for instance the Transylvanian one and it is also very tasty.

People in this part of the country eat a lot of soups; chicken soup is at high esteem among these (like it is the use of white meat – chicken and fish) and borsch (a homemade fermentation liquid obtained from bran and water) is largely used to get a slightly sour taste to soups. “Ciorba de potroace” (a kind of sour soup) is also particular in this area. It is made of chicken giblets boiled together with carrots, onion, rice, parsley and it is seasoned with borsch – people say this soup makes an excellent medicine for hangovers.

Cuisine of Oltenia

Daniel Voicu — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 14:17:56 +0000

Oltenia is a region in the south – western part of Romania. It is bordered by the Banat region to the north – west, by Transylvania to the north and by Muntenia to the east.

Common history and geographical proximity made Oltenia and Muntenia part of the same kingdom of Wallachia (known as Tara Romanesca in Romanian) – foreigners called the inhabitants of these two regions “vlahi” (Romanian word) or “Wallachians” and the truth is those people had and still have many common features. From a gastronomical point of view they both suffered some Turkish, French and Italian influences which have been more and more adapted to local taste and customs in time.

People eat many more soups in Oltenia than in any other part of the country. They enjoy their soups sour and generally speaking food is lighter than in regions like Transylvania, Banat or Moldavia and it preserves a bit of Mediterranean touch. Black pepper and salt are most commonly used to spice the meat. If you go today in some Oltenian villages (especially in the southern ones) you are amazed to see that farmers still cook their food in crockery and use a sort of ancient oven made of clay which they call “?est”. This procedure gives a particular enjoyable taste to their food.

Oltenians use a lot of fresh vegetables, chicken, beef and pork meat and of course they eat a lot of dairy products as all Romanians are great producers of milk, cheese and other dairy by – products. No wonder that Romanian cheese is renowned in the Balkans and central Europe. Romanian cheese, especially a salty type which is called “telemea” in our language, has reached Hungarian, Slovakian and Slovenian borders centuries ago – for example Slovakian people called it “brinza” (from the Romanian general word for cheese – “brânz?”) and they know it was brought to their country by Wallachian merchants.

Transylvanian Cuisine

Daniel Voicu — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 16:00:31 +0000

Transylvanian cuisine is full of flavours and fattening and I guess Eskimos would be envious of these meals if they knew them. But there is a logical explanation for these rich meals and we should think this region is a mountain and hill area, with cold winters.

The well known bacon, onion and bread (slanina cu ceapa si paine) is only a scrap of the barrel and the local recipes book has many pages with very diverse recipes, mixing up influences from Austro-Hungarians and various German populations who settled there during centuries. That was how entered the recipes book the Austrian snitzel, the German (actually “sasesc” – "sasii" are a German population who migrated to Transylvania between the 12th and 13th centuries) kaiser ( a sort of fat bacon) or the “secuiesc” (apparently people known as “secui” have Hungarian origins) papricas (a kind of dumplings made of flour, eggs, butter and optionally cheese served with boiled veal meat and paprika).

The widespread “Borsch” from Moldova is not very much used in Transylvania. People around here prefer pork, beef or lamb soups seasoned with vinegar and spiced with all kind of herbs and roots but tarragon is by far the most frequently used herb. It is also traditional in this area to put sour cream in soups – so, if it happens to you to see somewhere “ciorba/ supa ardeleneasca” (which translates “Transylvanian soup” ) on a Romanian restaurant menu then you should expect to find sour cream in it.

An interesting feature of the Transylvanian cuisine is represented by its… fruit soups: next to the well – known tomatoes soup or kohlrabi & fennel (gulii & chimen) you might be surprised to find apple soup, quince soup, raisins soup or morello cherry soup seasoned with sour cream. Transylvanian housewives give them a sour taste by using a large variety of herbs and spices. Pork is very much eaten at the main meals, especially during the cold season. Transylvanians do not usually eat fish, since the region is crossed by quick rivers where fishing is not possible or very difficult.

Banat Cuisine

Daniel Voicu — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 14:22:26 +0000

Banat is a region that lies in the western part of Romania and as you might guess, it suffered most of the Transylvanian culinary influences, Serbian influences but some Italian and French credits are to be felt too.

Banat people like pork meat as much as their neighbours from the north like it: sausages, smoked bacon, the famous “sarmale” and many, many others. Pork dishes are seasoned especially with fried vegetables and dressing based on flour and spices like black pepper, paprika, savory, horse radish or fennel. Fennel is very much used in this area not only for main dishes but also for various snacks such as salty biscuits, crisps, shortbreads and other hors d’oevre which are served all day long – these salty cookies are to be eaten before meals, after meals (as a kind of “dessert”) or between meals and they make a traditional snap in Banat. One can choose between “pogacele” (almost a symbol of Banat) and a huge variety of “saratele” ( an umbrella term for salty pastry). You would also find a lot of chicken dishes apart from pork ones while beef and fish are not that common.

There is also a long list of sweet or sour soups – to obtain the sour taste the most frequently used substance is lemon juice. People often get their soups tastier by adding some sour cream, tarragon and “rantas”. “Rantas” is obtained from stewed onion (ceapa calita) which is afterwards fried with some flour in a sauce pan. For someone travelling to Banat and getting into local restaurants or people’s households it is easy to notice some features of local gastronomy: sweet dishes, lots of noodles and “rantas” almost for everything (Banatians would even use “rantas” for their sarmale).

Romanian Recipes

Daniel Voicu — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 12:37:35 +0000