The image of Slavs that many people carry and that is unfortunately propagated in our times is associated with a table full of meat and strong alcoholic beverages, which are of course prepared from natural ingredients, which makes them supposedly beneficial for health.
Slavs did indeed brew beer and make mead, and undoubtedly these were natural beverages with great taste and health benefits.
However, few people know that these were holiday/ritual drinks that would typically be only consumed by men. In some slavic cultures only by those who had brought 16 (in words: sixteen) children into the world and raised them.
Barszcz
The name “barszcz” was used – depending on the region and family traditions – in reference to various soups cooked with sourdough (SGP I: 405) made from vegetables and fruits available in an average household, as well as from other plants, e.g. lovage, or from barley groats, offal. — Slavic Dialect Phraseology, LingVaria Library, vol. 23.
Boćwina
Boćwina, botwina. From the Latin word beta – beet, beetroot (in Mączyński’s dictionary from 1564, only “ćwikła” is listed), the word “botwa”, “botwina” and “boćwina” were created, which is the folk name for the most common variety of beetroot. The spread of boćwina came from the custom of cooking borscht from the wild plant called “barszcz”, and it became a daily food in Lithuania with boćwina and in the Crown with just beetroots. —- Zygmunt Gloger, Encyklopedja Staropolska, Warszawa, 1900
Beer
Beer has been brewed since ancient times in Egypt, but:
“The first documented cultivation of hops took place in 736 in the Hallertau region of present-day Germany, although the first mention of the use of hops for brewing beer in this country dates back to 1079.” [in today’s Wrocław, Poland] Hops – https://pl.qaz.wiki/wiki/Hops
In addition:
The word PIWO (beer) is one of our oldest words. It was created in Proto-Slavic times from the verb *piti, meaning ‘to drink’ – piwo is what is drunk, just as spoiwo is what binds, and tworzywo is what (in which) things are made. Even in the Middle Ages, PIWO had a general meaning, referring to any drink – everything that was suitable for drinking and was drunk ——. Ojczysty – add to favorites, Narodowe Centrum Kultury
In numerous sources, it is mentioned that Polish beer at that time had only slightly higher alcohol content than bread kvass. It’s funny that alcohol enthusiasts always cite two key arguments for why drinking day in and day out is normal: that in Poland, people drank beer (at 1% strength) from morning till night, and in England, people drank gin non-stop (if you were a pauper in Victorian London and had no other means of entertainment, medicine, disinfection…).
Beaver
Polish cuisine has adopted “plusk”, which is the tail of a beaver, which, as it is covered with scales, was eaten during fasting, cons idering it as a fish. —– Zygmunt Gloger, Encyklopedja Staropolska, Warszawa, 1900
Bread
Initially, as claimed by Karłowicz and others, grains were used as food in the form of roasted seeds, groats or flour; later, they were baked on a hot stone or in ash as flatbreads, “podpłomyki,” and the like. Among the Slavic peoples, old forms of bread have been preserved, often combined with various rituals and beliefs. Such forms include żur, siemieniec, kasza, lemieszka, pęcak, krupnik, kisiel, kluski, zacierka, prażucha, and so on. Rye flatbread, baked in ash without yeast, is still eaten in Krakow to this day.
The importance of bread in rituals for all peoples shows a considerable variety of shapes, types, and names of ritual bread, attached to certain days and celebrations. Thus, we also have wedding bread (kołacz, korowaj), carnival bread (reczuchy, pampuchy, pączki, chróst), Easter bread (baby, mazurki), Christmas Eve bread, funeral bread, All Souls’ Day bread (perebuszki, peretyczki), and so on. —– Zygmunt Gloger, Encyklopedja Staropolska, Warszawa, 1900
In times of scarcity, when basic ingredients were lacking, bread was baked with various additives, such as bran, chaff, pepper, straw, ground pine cones, or ground wood. —– Słowiańska Frazeologia Gwarowa, Biblioteka LingVariów, t.23
Once it was a staple in Slavic cuisine. We know this because the name is wide spread all over Slavic countries. —- Ojczysty – dodaj do ulubionych, Narodowe Centrum Kultury
Byski & Nowe latka in Kurpie
are ritual breads associated with the period from Christmas to Epiphany, formerly functioning as magical objects that helped to conjure abundance and fertility in the world of plants and animals. Although the magical nature of this tradition has now disappeared, it is still passed down from generation to generation.
Potatoes baked and mashed in a pot, seasoned with cracklings.
—- Słownictwo polSzczyzny gwarowej na BraSławSzczyźnie, Janusz Rieger, 2014
Eastern baba
Eastern baba is a Marzanna made of pastry. Eating it is like drawning Marzanna – giving death back what is hers.
Wiara Słowian z obrzędów, klechd, pieśni ludu, guseł, kronik i mowy słowiańskiej wskrzeszona, 1880
see Russian Eastern baba – Kulicz, which actually resemble more of a stone baba (which You will see in: stones and statues)
Egg
As stated in a report about the pagan-Orthodox holiday Prowody in Podlasie by Father Grzegorz Misiejuk:
“It’s food, but it’s also life.”
https://bialystok.tvp.pl/59835563/prowody
This explains the surprising popularity of painted eggs, which have been eaten since the time of the Etruscans, throughout the Middle Ages and in modern-day Poland.
Karahod
Spring Jurassic Karahod ritual [in Belarus]. (…) It starts on the eve of the holiday by baking two types of bread: festive, called “karahod,” and black with sacrificial character. On the day of the holiday, the inhabitants, accompanied by singing, go to the field, carrying a festive tablecloth, bread, and an eight-pointed star. On the spot, men carrying the “karahod” form a circle and continue singing. A piece of black bread is buried in the ground with a prayer for abundant harvests.
KIEŁBASA” is one of our oldest words. It appears (in various forms) in practically all Slavic languages, which suggests that the Slavs have been enjoying sausages for a long time. We do not know whether the Proto-Slavic sausage looked like the one we have today, but the origin of the name suggests that it has always been a sausage-shaped meat product: the root -kļbъ carries the meaning of ’round, convex, circular’. —- Ojczysty – dodaj do ulubionych, Narodowe Centrum Kultury
Kutia
On the day of the winter solstice, December 25th, the first of four celebrations was held, marking the new year. Among the Rusyns and Czechs, it was called Kolady, while in Poland, it was known as Gody. The New Year’s truce during Gody was sealed with the communal consumption of kucia, a dish made from barley groats with poppy seeds and honey. The name Gody is derived from kucią, which is the name of the dish in certain regions. Kucia is made by pounding barley in the field to obtain groats.
(…)
In the past, in Ukraine – as my father told me – kucia was placed on the graves of the deceased. As the name suggests, kucia had to be served at funerals in Poland as well. —– Wiara Słowian z obrzędów, klechd, pieśni ludu, guseł, kronik i mowy słowiańskiej wskrzeszona, 1880
Poppies
“In Rus’, the keepers of old customs, they bless honey and poppy seeds on Makovey, which are then used for kucia. The same is done on Spas with apples.” —- Wiara Słowian z obrzędów, klechd, pieśni ludu, guseł, kronik i mowy słowiańskiej wskrzeszona, 1880
Sweet flag
People used to make bread on flag, maple or chorseradish leaves. On horseradish even in my times actually.
Monki pasypisz albo położysz ajiru, klenowe liscie łożyli i tedy na te listy chleb ten sadzisz.
Presumably, pickling wild apples for the winter in Poland dates back to prehistoric times and has survived to this day in the custom of old housewives adding such apples to sauerkraut pickled for the winter. —- Zygmunt Gloger, Encyclopaedia of Old Poland, Warsaw, 1900.
What did first Polish king eat (around y. 1000)?
According to researchers, he wasn’t technically a vegetarian, but he ate mostly legumes and buckweat.
What did ancient Polish settlers eat?
Only 15 percent of the diet of people living several thousand years ago in southern Poland consisted of meat, and nearly 50 percent was plants, according to research on the bones of dozens of people who died during the Neolithic and Bronze Age in Miechów (Małopolskie). —- says Zwiadowcahistorii.pl, Polish history website.
