For every person living anywhere in the world, the national cuisine of his country will be closer and more understandable than the dishes of other countries. However, when going on a trip to another part of the world, most of us strive to try the cuisine of other countries in order to experience national culture this place on own experience. When traveling around Germany, people want to try Bavarian sausages and beer, in Italian restaurants they most often order pizza or pasta, and when they come to Russia, foreigners are drawn to exotic things like jellied meat or okroshka, and this is what they think about our food.
This dish traditionally occupies a leading position in the anti-rating of Russian dishes. Foreigners sincerely do not understand why making jelly unsweetened and using meat to prepare it. They are used to the fact that jelly is a dessert! If we mention that hooves and ears are used as ingredients in an already dubious dish, it will be almost impossible to convince a foreign guest that jellied meat is tasty.
“When I saw him for the first time (visiting an almost stranger, I couldn’t refuse), I thought I was going to die. I really love all kinds of fats, but this terrible thing looked simply disgusting. Then I realized that a lot depends on who cooks the jellied meat. I can eat it. But I haven’t reached the point of love, I eat for the sake of politeness,” writes Katerina Corbella, a foreign user of The Question.
First courses abroad are not in such demand as in Russia. In other countries, light vegetable broths or pureed soups are usually prepared. When foreign guests see such a variety of soups in our country, they are usually lost.
“What you mean by 'first' is nothing to us,” explains Frenchwoman Audrey Simone. - Soup must be in the form of puree, and nothing else. In France, for example, the Spanish gazpacho soup is very popular in the summer. We also love bread and garlic, so we add small croutons to the soup. But we even eat this puree before the main course and not instead of it!”
Felicity Curwen-Reid admits: “When I lived in England, I thought I didn’t like beets. But when I tried real Russian borscht, I found out that it was incredibly tasty.”
At the mere word “kvass,” foreigners’ faces change, and when they see floating vegetables and pieces of sausage in it, they believe that the hour of reckoning for sins has come. They don’t understand why pour a drink over the salad, especially sour water. Some are still ready to try okroshka with kefir and mineral water, but again, not all stomachs like it.
“One of my (Canadian) friends once gave a very good definition of okroshka: “They took everything that was on the table, including drinks, and put it in one plate.” Poor food, poor kvass, even poor kefir. Why do they need all this suffering? - writes foreign user The Question.
Although it is not a native Russian dish, many foreigners consider it as such. Most people agree that the main thing in Russian cuisine is meat. It is associated with Russia because of the cold weather. They say that to survive the Russian winter, you need a lot of strength. Where can I get them? In meat. Shashlik evokes great sympathy among almost everyone.
Artem Mishkin, a student at the European University of Cyprus, has been living on the island for several years. Therefore, I have already tried to treat my friends to Russian dishes and noticed: “Cypriots really love meat: they have lamb and beef everywhere and in different versions. It's no surprise that they like all Russian dishes that contain meat, especially shashlik. But, no matter how much the locals love it, you don’t really want to eat kebab on the island because of the intense heat. But once in Russia, the Cypriot will sweep it off the table before the owner even has time to blink an eye!”
The top 25 best desserts in the world, compiled in 2015 by one of the world's leading news portals Business Insider, included Russian cheesecakes. Not all foreigners immediately understand how to fry cottage cheese, but after trying the dish, they are delighted with it.
Spaniard Javier Garcia visited Russia several times: “I always liked Russian soups and dumplings. But one day I realized that I knew nothing about Russian cuisine. A friend of mine said that Russians eat cheesecakes for breakfast. I liked this dish so much that I even learned how to cook it and now I only eat cheesecakes for breakfast.”
Pancakes are also especially popular. But for foreigners this is a dessert that should be eaten with jam, preserves or syrup. Pancakes with meat, caviar, fish or some other filling filling seem very strange to them.
“When I first arrived in St. Petersburg, they took me to a cafe to eat pancakes. There I saw that they put caviar and fish on pancakes and wrap meat. Even then I thought: “Lord, people, you need to put jam, butter or chocolate on pancakes,” but out of politeness I decided to try pancakes with meat. Now it's mine favorite dish. In four years, I only ate sweet pancakes once,” says Scotsman James Brankin.
In fact, this drink is widely known in European countries as fruit punch. Europeans just don’t understand why they boil it, thereby complicating the cooking process. It's more difficult for Asians. They don't have a similar drink.
“When Indian schoolchildren came to us as exchange students,” says Irina Trefilova, teacher in English Lyceum of the village of Dolgorukovo Lipetsk region, - the cooks were surprised that the Indians did not drink tea at all. Then we decided to treat them to compote, and one of the Russian guys joked that it was cooked from meat. For a long time we could not understand why none of the guests wanted to drink it. When the reason became clear, they laughed for a long time. I had to explain that compote is boiled water, to which fruits and sugar are added.”
To this salad, which no one in Russia can do without New Year, foreigners have a wary attitude. Vegetables chopped almost into porridge and drenched in mayonnaise have nothing in common with European salads! Foreigners call Olivier “Russian salad”. However, many people eat it...
“The Spaniards have an ambivalent attitude towards Russian cuisine, but everyone likes Olivier. Only instead of chicken or sausage they put tuna in it, says Natalia Golubar, a graduate student at the Autonomous University of Barcelona. - At one time I rented an apartment with a girl from Venezuela. There is also a similar salad there, but it is always prepared with chicken. Perhaps this is the only thing that makes our kitchens similar.”
“In Greece, salad is fresh vegetables, but in Russia it is something with mayonnaise that can be stored for a week. Our Olivier is a disgusting dish, but here this salad is very tasty. Probably the Greeks are copying something incorrectly,” says Greek Stratos Siourdakis.
On February 2, 2004, the first Institute for the Study of Taste, Gastronomy and the Art of Table Setting was opened in France. It’s really interesting to study taste sensations by comparing cuisines different countries.
First, we must warn you that everything, of course, depends on the nationality of the tourists. The Japanese, even prepared with European cuisine, will be amazed by almost half of what they see on the table in an ordinary Russian family. But the Greeks, on the whole, will calmly accept Russian treats, but they are also taken aback by some dishes. In general, not everything is so scary. For example, many people believe that foreigners do not eat lard, although in Eastern Europe and Germany it is no less common than here.
Refined Americans stand apart. They are practically not surprised by anything, but at the same time they refuse to even try many products that are common to us. For example, herring. In their understanding, the fish remains raw until it has been in the oven or in the frying pan. In most cases, they will not put cabbage rolls on the plate. They treat ground meat “in leaves” with suspicion. But there are all dishes that cause a real storm of emotions in almost everyone.
The Russian love of soup seems old-fashioned to many foreigners, but there is one soup that consistently leaves them amazed. This is okroshka. Especially the version with kvass. While everyone is now more or less familiar with kefir, they try kvass for the first time in Russia and usually don’t ask for it a second time. And the very idea of chopping sausages, cucumbers and other goodies into it leads to a slight concussion. Many generally refuse to believe that this is not a joke, and they really eat okroshka. For them, it’s like pouring Coca-Cola on a salad and saying that this is such a dish.
Maxim Usachev
Culinary delights that foreigners see on festive tables Russians, sometimes drive them into a stupor. However, not all traditional European dishes were able to take root in Russia. So, what products and dishes of Russian cuisine do foreigners consider strange and even disgusting, and what foreign cuisine will not all Russians risk trying?
In addition to residents of Russia, Ukraine and Belarus, buckwheat has admirers in Korea, where sae me duk buns are made from it. In Japan, buckwheat flour is used to make noodles. Jews also eat porridge, mixing it with pasta and fried onions.
Buckwheat is a cereal with the highest protein content; it also contains vitamins A, C, iron, calcium, manganese, and magnesium. 100 grams of buckwheat porridge is only 97 calories.
The homeland of buckwheat is not Greece at all, but the Himalayas. Grain cultivation in Rus' was mainly done by Greek monks, hence the name. There is an opinion that buckwheat tastes good only if it is part of a person’s diet from childhood. When people try porridge for the first time as an adult, they experience bitterness and a chemical taste.
However, Americans and Europeans (except the French and Germans) do not share our gastronomic delight. They consider “fish eggs” to be waste along with the rest of the entrails. Foreigners are even more surprised by the tradition of eating red caviar with pancakes; they are not used to savory fillings. In addition to Russians, the Japanese and Finns willingly eat caviar.
The opinion of foreigners about kefir is not softened even by the fact that this drink has no equal in its usefulness. It contains 30 types of lactobacilli, kefir grains, calcium, B vitamins and other substances that have a positive effect on health.
English journalist Sean Walker even organized a community on Facebook, Dillwatch, in which gourmets unanimously criticize dill. But in fact, this herb is in demand not only in Russia, but also in Bulgaria, Serbia, Sweden and Canada.
As a rule, sausages, steaks, smoked meat, fried krill, smoked cheese, chips, onion rings, barbecued meat, and sea fish in batter are eaten as snacks for beer in different countries of the world. And only here we traditionally eat dried fatty ram. Even the omnivorous Chinese and French, lovers of frogs and oysters, are surprised that dried fish someone can eat.
It is extremely popular in Moldova, Serbia, Israel, the Czech Republic, but not in Russia. It can only be bought in large supermarkets; its consumers, as a rule, are supporters healthy image life. But in the outback it is difficult to find such a product, which is explained by sluggish demand. And this is at a low price, interesting taste, and long shelf life. Another advantage of celery is that it can be eaten boiled, baked or fresh. The root is added to soups, vegetable dishes, salads, and casseroles. The stems are used for making juices, dressings meat dishes. There are a lot of ideas for cooking celery.
This is a traditional product in the diet of Asians; it is also used in a number of European countries - France, Germany, Hungary. They also love horse meat in Japan. The meat is prepared into roasts and added to sausages to improve the consistency and taste. But most of Russia does not favor this product, with the exception of Yakutia, Bashkortostan and Tatarstan.
This is explained by the fact that the horse is treated as a noble, intelligent animal, an assistant in the household. This means that eating it is a cultural taboo.
In this, the Roma, Indians, British and Americans agree with the Russians. In addition, breeding horses requires large spaces. Keeping animals in a confined space negatively affects the taste of meat.
Already read: 7737 timesHave you ever thought about what foreigners think when they look at a plate of borscht or how deliciously we crunch? pickled cucumber caught straight from the jar? Surely, everyone now recalls funny incidents from life.So, I’ll share my observations from life about how “they” treat our usual dishes. Read on.
So it turned out that your humble servant married a foreigner. Russified, of course, but with his own culinary habits. My husband, believe it or not, is Hungarian. Yes Yes exactly. I lived a good half of my life in Latvia, therefore I am not very accustomed to Russian food. And at the beginning of our relationship with him, he was simply amazed thin pancakes, cabbage soup with sauerkraut and Siberian dumplings.
By the way, over the 14 years of living in Russia, our vobla, taranka, the usual mayonnaise salads, navy-style pasta, cottage cheese casseroles and rassolnik, he never got used to it. Isn't itthat I loved borscht with all my heart and marinated mushrooms. We have Poles and Vietnamese friends, but their attitude towards Russian cuisine is not at all clear. Polish cuisine may be somewhat similar to Russian, but many dishes are a novelty for them. The Vietnamese at all.
As a child, for breakfast I was fed milk soup, porridge, pancakes with sour cream, sometimes mashed potatoes with sausage or cutlet. Lunch consisted of three courses: soup, main course (something with a side dish) and compote, an afternoon snack with cookies and a hearty dinner. And before bed, have some kefir and a loaf of bread. But what is good for a Russian is death for a foreigner.
Mexican:
...In all the stores the sellers are rude, you can’t ask anyone anything, the waiters ask “what do you want?” Therefore, I often go to visit friends, where I was taught to drink beer with dried fish - I have never seen this in any country. At first I didn’t want to try it because of the terrible look and smell, but then I liked it... Hitting a roach on the table is very Russian and fun...
I'm also always amused by French-style meat. Apart from the name, there is nothing French about the meat. In France, I have never seen meat with cheese and tomatoes. But the truly Russian national product is the sliced loaf. The personification of your country - white, simple, and most often not the first freshness, but very tasty.
German:
...Your milk is completely impossible to drink; it has a terrible taste. As if only from under a cow and even unrefined. It smells like an animal. But you have crab sticks, I have never tried them before. My girlfriend made a salad of crab sticks. She said this is your traditional salad.
It turned out delicious. You also eat soup as a main course, but for us it is an appetizer. We never have hot food for breakfast, even an omelette is considered gluttony, and in Russia you can even eat chicken. I want to try kvass, I was told about it. Friends tried it and didn’t like it, it’s bread and water, right? I hope in Germany they will learn how to make anniversary cookies. And you have no use for chocolates. I tried it several times, and was always surprised - how can there be chocolate without the taste of chocolate.
Chilean:
...In Russian cuisine, the main thing is meat. Russia in general looks like a big piece of meat. Tough weather, serious people. Siberia, frost, strength, which is what you need to survive the winter. I liked the shish kebab the most here. Your food is very healthy - Russian people often eat vegetables, a lot. Fresh marinated, salted, in salads, soups. But they don’t overeat like in America. And they drink tea all the time. I have never seen people drink so much tea. Even in nightclubs at 3 am some people order tea. The water... the water tastes disgusting.
Argentinian:
...In Argentina we hardly have breakfast, but Russians can even eat soup for breakfast. In our country this is considered gluttony. In turn, we have dinner very late, sometimes at 10-11 p.m., while in Moscow they traditionally have dinner at 7-8 p.m. The food here is very tasty, especially the borscht and dumplings. Not particularly original, but tasty. But the meat... The meat cannot be compared with Argentinean one.
Ecuadorian:
...What I miss most is bananas. We have a lot of them, green, red, small, large... You don’t have those. And people don’t know how to cook Latin American food at all... By the way, your borscht is somewhat similar to undercooked gazpacho. That's what I like about him. And caviar, which everyone praises so much and costs so much, is, in my opinion, too salty sushi. And my favorite fast food is Kroshka Potato. So unusual - mutant potatoes with mushrooms, salad, meat... 
Australian-British:
...I like your dairy products best. Ryazhenka, kefir, cottage cheese, Varenets - this is incredibly tasty, healthy and there is nothing like it anywhere in the world. Milk soup is also a very unusual dish that is prepared only at your place. I tried to make it at home and it didn't work. And for the first time I tried it in MU-MU, an excellent cafe, with real Russian food, by the way. And you have no idea about healthy eating- you add sour cream and mayonnaise everywhere, this makes all dishes high in calories... But there are not many overweight people, apparently the climate is like that. I often have to eat dumplings - a very tasty, but harmful thing. English family maybe for six months you eat the same cereal in the morning, but every day you have something new for breakfast: cottage cheese, pancakes, pancakes, scrambled eggs, porridge, sandwiches.
Frenchman:
...What we buy every day in France is considered luxury in Russia. Good cheeses, meats, and breads are sold in elite stores and are very expensive. But you have the most delicious fish in the world. I have never tasted such fresh soft salmon as in Siberia anywhere. In France, many cannot afford to buy seafood; here it is more affordable. Your food is healthier than the French - you eat a lot of soup and vegetables. Everyone is trying to buy food, not semi-finished products. Your Teremok is in no way inferior to real French pancakes. 
Nigerian:
...In Moscow it is very delicious vegetables, not in stores, but in large markets, on Dorogomilovo for example. I go there every weekend to buy groceries and then enjoy it all week: peppers, tomatoes, beans... But otherwise, your food is exactly the same as everywhere else.
What do you think about Russian food?
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Being a foreigner in Russia is not an easy task. A place of honor in the difficult process of adaptation is occupied by the study of Russian cuisine - interesting, confusing and full of surprises.
