Borscht (also borsht or borshch) is a vegetable soup from Eastern Europe. It is traditionally made with beetroot as a main ingredient[1][2] which gives it a strong red color. Other, non-beet varieties also exist, such as the tomato paste-based orange borscht and the green (zelioni) borscht (sorrel soup).
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The soup is a staple part of the local culinary heritage of many Eastern and Central European nations.
It made its way into North American cuisine and English vernacular by way of Jewish, Polish, Russian, Ukrainian, and other immigrants. Alternative spellings are borshch[3] and borsch.[4] The name itself is considered to be of Ashkenazi Jewish descent, and was first used in Yiddish as early as 18th century. The Jewish family name Borsczewski may once have referred to the borscht cooks in person.[5]
It is called in various languages Lithuanian: barščiai, Polish: barszcz, Romanian: borș, Russian and Ukrainian: борщ, borshch, Yiddish: בארשט, borscht.
The name was earlier applied to hogweed soup, and originally to the plant hogweed.
There are two main variants of borscht, generically referred to as hot and cold. Both generally are based on beets, but are otherwise prepared and served differently.
Hot borscht (mostly Ukrainian and Russian), the kind most popular in the majority of cultures is a hearty soup with many common optional ingredients, depending on the cuisine, including various vegetables (beans, cabbage, carrots, cucumber, potatoes, onions, or tomatoes), mushrooms, and meats (chicken, pork, or beef). It is more akin to a stew than most soups, and may be eaten as a meal in itself, usually with thick dark bread.
Cold borshch exists in a number of cultures.
The basic Polish borscht (barszcz) recipe includes red beetroot, onions, garlic, and other vegetables such as carrots and celery or parsley roots. The ingredients are cooked for some time together to produce kind of clear broth (when strained) served as boullion in cups or in other ways. Some recipes include bacon as well, which gives the soup its distinctive, "smoky" taste.
Other versions are richer as they include meat and cut vegetables of various kinds where beetroots aren't the main one (though this soup isn't always called barszcz, but rather beetroot soup). This variation of barszcz isn't strained and vegetable contents are left in it. Such soup can make the main course of obiad (main meal eaten in the early afternoon).
Barszcz in its strictly vegetarian version is the first course during the Christmas Eve feast. It's served with ravioli-type dumplings called "uszka" (lit. "little ears") with mushroom filling (sauerkraut can be used as well, again depending on the family tradition). Typically, this version does not include any meat ingredients, although some variants do.
As other Christmas traditions, barszcz served at that time has its own symbolic meaning. Most of food served at that time isn't quite the food of the living ones, but of those that passed away. Dried fruit, mushrooms — all symbolise death of the old year as opposed to birth of the new one a day later. Change of food on December 25 (Christmas) is a visible sign that old traditions are still preserved in those little, sometimes unclear ways.
A key component to the taste of barszcz is acidity. Whilst barszcz can be made easily within a few hours by simply cooking the ingredients and adding vinegar, lemon juice or citric acid; the traditional way is to prepare barszcz several days before and allow it to naturally sour. Depending on the technique; the level of acidity required and the ingredients available, barszcz takes 3-7 days to prepare in this way.
The word borş is used in Romanian to refer to a kind of sour soup made from fermented wheat bran, which is an important part of Romanian cuisine. To refer to the traditional borscht made from beetroot, Romanians generally say borş rusesc (Russian borscht) or borş de sfeclă (beetroot borscht).
There are local variations in the basic borscht recipe: