Romanian cuisine is often criticized for its calorie content, excessive use of fat and salt. But no one will remain hungry, because the taste of local gastronomy is beyond praise. Serbs, Hungarians, Turks shared their recipes with Romanians for centuries, but many dishes can only be tasted here. What to look for in cafes and restaurants in Romania, what to try first?
Meat dishes are the basis of the Romanian meal
Meat is the basis of everything in Romanian cuisine. Along with vegetables and cheese, it gave rise to many interesting recipes that took root and began to shape Romanian cuisine. Smoked bacon is popular among the locals. There are so many different regions in Romania, so many ways to spice up bacon. Most often, garlic, paprika, herbs, pepper are used, but the smoking process itself gives the main aroma. Romanians' love for smoked dishes led to the creation of smoked sausages, another delicious delicacy. Traditionally, they are generously seasoned with sweet and hot paprika, salt, cumin and garlic. As an option - mititei. These sausages are prepared without casings, served heavily toasted and hot.
Something for which Romanian cuisine is just scolded is fatty dishes. For welcome guests, it is customary to cook pork according to a special recipe: meat, ribs and liver are fried in their own juice. Meatballs are popular. They are seasoned with lots of garlic and traditional herbs (parsley, dill), fried or baked in tomato sauce. This meat dish is served with rice and mashed potatoes.
Popular Romanian dishes
At first glance, one of the most popular dishes in Romania does not surprise a Russian tourist. This sarmale- an analogue of our pigeons. However, Romanians know much more about cooking methods: they often take fish instead of minced meat, add a lot of herbs, which can vary in each region, and cabbage is often replaced with sorrel and even plantain. Sermale is usually served with sour cream or hominy.
Soups in Romania are also held in high esteem. The main one is bean soup, which is cooked differently in every house. In the south, several types of vegetables are necessarily added to it, in regions close to Moldova they season the soup with dill, in Transylvania it is made thicker with the help of flour. Meat is taken to taste, including chicken giblets, and vegetables should preferably be young, not fried. Prepared this way, bean soup is a healthy alternative to fatty meat dishes.
Another famous combination of meat and vegetables in Romania is potato goulash with smoked meat. This is a Transylvanian dish in which the smoked flavor of the meat gives the whole goulash an unusual flavor. In the original recipe, potato noodles are added to the dish, which is now often served separately as a side dish.
Another Transylvanian dish is pork soup. Tarragon makes it unusual, which, in combination with meat, gives the soup a special taste. A characteristic feature of the dish is a slight sourness, which is achieved with the help of vinegar. Another favorite soup in Romania is tripe soup, to which vegetables and celery roots are added. It is served with sour cream or with garlic sauce and vinegar.
Always a great idea on the table - Peasant dish. This is a large plate on which an assortment of meat, vegetable snacks and cheeses are placed: feta cheese, spicy smoked cheese called “burduf”, bacon, cracklings, meat balls, a lot of onions and tomatoes.
Eggplant lovers will surely love the Romanian salad, for which this vegetable is grilled, then chopped and mixed with mayonnaise, onions, herbs and garlic.
Romanian desserts and pastries
Romanian housewives skillfully prepare flour products. The meal here ends with rolls, pies, muffins. One of the favorite pies has long been considered a sweet cheese pie. But local culinary specialists do not stop at such an unusual combination: for greater sweetness, the cake is sprinkled with powdered sugar. Herbs are sometimes added to cheese or replaced with cottage cheese.
From the Austro-Hungarian cuisine of Romania got a dessert papanash. It consists of a base with a round hole into which jam is poured, and a ball - it is placed on the base and poured over with an analogue of ricotta or sour cream. Papanash is so popular with tourists that a rare meal is complete without these donuts. Also, sweet tooth should try the cottage cheese casserole aliench- it comes from Moldova and is prepared with the addition of corn grits. Dessert is served with jams or sour cream.
Romanian traditional drinks
In Romania, wine-making traditions are long-standing - the first varieties were brought by the French and Greeks, and in the Middle Ages, vineyards were replenished with varieties from Germany. The country has long been considered a major wine producer, although its quality drinks are not as well known. In Romania, not only famous varieties (merlot, pinot noir) are popular, but also local Graça and Feteasca (white). They produce Cotnari wines. The fame of Cotnari has led to the fact that tourists in Romania are interested in this wine in the first place. The drink has a delicate aroma and matures in barrels in a short time - Cotnari acquires the main taste already in bottles.
The most characteristic of all Romanian regions is the drink cuica. This is a local vodka made from apples, plums and pears, and the strongest is made in Transylvania. Tsuica is quite easy to drink and has a fruity aroma. Sometimes it is customary to warm up the drink and add spices - cuyka becomes like liquor.
You can be completely sure that you will not stay hungry in Romania, but on the contrary, you will be able to try many delicious and interesting dishes. Problems can arise only for those who are constantly on a diet and watch their figure, they are unlikely to like the local cuisine, since fatty, nutritious and high-calorie foods are mainly used in cooking here. You can compensate for extra calories thanks to active hiking in the mountains. Vegetables are loved and respected here, they are present on almost every table, but at the same time they eat a lot of bread and meat.
If you want to try some kind of first course, then first of all you will be offered the most famous and popular local soup - chorba. This is a sour soup with meat, herbs and vegetables. There are many varieties of this dish, but soups with beans and smoked meats, meatballs or cooked in a rustic way are considered the most delicious. In addition to sour cream and bread, this dish is served with hot peppers. For themselves, Romanians try to cook this soup with beef broth.
Romania will definitely appeal to cheese lovers. For locals, cheese is more than a national product; not a single feast is complete without it. Here you can try cow, goat and sheep cheese, each of which has an excellent taste, as only natural ingredients are used during preparation, without any chemicals and non-natural additives. To try all the types that are produced in the country, even a few trips will not be enough (each region has its own traditions and old recipes that are passed down from generation to generation).
In addition to cheeses, Romanians consume milk (mainly in a warm form), some first courses are prepared on the basis of whey, and sour cream is used as dressings and various sauces are made on its basis.
From meat dishes, you will be offered various sausages, shish kebabs, baked meat cooked with sour cream, cheese, etc. Just like us, Romanians eat almost all types of meat and poultry, so this culinary similarity should be a definite plus for you. I recommend trying such a meat dish as "sarmale". In appearance and taste, it has certain similarities with our cabbage rolls. Usually it includes pork or beef (goat, lamb or poultry meat is used much less often). The meat is wrapped in sorrel leaves, grapes, pickled or fresh cabbage. After that, the dish is boiled in a clay pot or cauldron and served only hot.
Sweet lovers will also find something to eat in this hospitable country. If somewhere on the menu you see such a dish as Cozonac cu nuca, then you can safely order it - you won't regret it. This is a fragrant and juicy cake, which contains a lot of ground walnuts. It is the nut cake that is considered the best, but it also happens with Turkish delight, chocolate and other ingredients.
Papanasi are cottage cheese donuts served with sour cream and cherry jam (one serving consists of two donuts). The dish is quite hearty, and the donuts themselves are large, so tourists are advised to order one dish for two.
Those who are not indifferent to different types of jam should definitely try the local jam or jelly, which is called “loop”. It is prepared not from the fruits themselves, but from their juice. The juice is boiled for a long time on low heat, and then in the process of cooling it becomes thick and transparent.
Romanians treat alcohol very positively and drink it in large quantities. Beer is drunk in small quantities and mostly only light, but they drink a lot of wine (mainly local production and often diluted with water). In the first place in popularity, you can put fruit moonshine, which has two varieties: palinka and tsuyka. Palinka is a very strong moonshine that reaches 40 degrees, while palinka is much weaker (only 20-30 degrees). The local population believes that the best weak moonshine is obtained from black plums, but you don’t need to drink it right away, but you need to keep it in special barrels for at least three years.
You don't have to worry about the prices in public catering establishments, they are more than democratic.
Romanian cuisine is characterized by a wide range of vegetables, fruits, herbs and hot spices used. Vegetables are served here not only fresh, but also actively pickled, and then served as a side dish for meat or fish. The most popular vegetables are eggplant, peppers and zucchini. As in Moldovan cuisine, Romanian has a lot of dishes with cheese and cornmeal. In general, Romanians are very fond of vegetables in a variety of forms, and therefore many traditional local dishes are prepared from vegetables - stuffed peppers, moussaka (aubergine and minced meat casserole), cabbage rolls, eggplant salad.One of the fundamental products of Romanian cuisine is corn. Hearty, nutritious cornmeal dishes are a hallmark of Romanian national cuisine, and cornmeal porridge, known as hominy, is a hallmark of the country's cuisine. It is usually served with cheese and scrambled eggs. Hominy is often used for cooking other dishes. In Romania, cereals, salads, pancakes, soups, casseroles and many other dishes are prepared from cornmeal. Corn is constantly combined with other vegetables, meat, fish.
Another important product of Romanian cuisine is brynza, a goat's milk cheese that is served in almost every home. Other popular cheeses are kashkaval, sweet cheese made from cow's milk, urda.
Like many other Eastern European peoples, Romanians are very fond of soups. As a rule, these are sour soups, the acidity of which is given by tomato paste or citric acid. Also popular are beef broth with pieces of meat, vegetable broth with rice, various mashed soups (pea, sorrel, tomato). Soups are prepared with meatballs.
Despite their great love for vegetables, Romanians also never forget about meat and eat it almost every day. The most popular Romanian meat dishes are various baked tenderloins, pork stews, shish kebab, baked poultry, roast, kebab, moussaka, charcoal fried cutlets (served with homemade mustard), pork or chicken aspic. Fish is less popular than meat, but Romanians also have traditional fish dishes - for example, gyuvech (fish baked in the oven with stewed vegetables).
Dessert dishes are dominated by flour ones - various puff pastry products, sweet curd pies, Moldavian curd baskets, nut cookies, various fruit biscuits and, of course, jams.
It is enough to look at the menu of a Romanian restaurant once to make sure that Romanians borrowed a lot of dishes from their historical neighbors. Of course, Moldavian cuisine is closest to Romanian cuisine - they are united by hominy, and placinda (traditional Moldavian pies), and muzhdei (Moldovan sauce), and many other dishes. The influence of Turkish cuisine is especially felt in the field of desserts, and Russian cuisine taught the Romanians how to bake traditional Easter cakes. However, there are also dishes that Romanians consider exclusively their own - these are aliventzi (patties with cottage cheese), some variants of hominy, chorba (this is rather not a dish, but a way of making sour soups), mitites (very spicy sausages) and sarmale (stuffed cabbage) .
Among the alcoholic drinks in Romania, the most beloved are wine (especially dessert), mulled wine, traditional strong (55-60 degrees) plum moonshine, as well as local beer.
Traditional Romanian cuisine has a rich history and centuries-old traditions. The dishes of Romanian cuisine were formed not only on the basis of natural conditions, but also due to the close proximity to Yugoslavia, Moldova, Bulgaria, Turkey and Greece.
The original dishes of Romanians are quite simple. The basis of the cuisine was dishes from cornmeal, meat and a wide variety of fruits and vegetables. Due to the proximity to Greece, seasonings and hot spices began to be used in dishes. Cheese dishes came to Romania from Moldovan cuisine.
In Romanian cuisine, pickled vegetables are readily used, which are served as a side dish for fish and meat. Thanks to developed agriculture, and especially sheep breeding, cheese has become one of the main products for Romanians. Cheese was prepared from sheep's milk, kept in brine for a week and a half. Another type of cheese is also popular among Romanians - kashkaval, which is also made from sheep's milk.
First meal
A prominent place in Romanian cuisine is occupied by various types of soups called chorba. Chorby are prepared with dressing and have a sour taste. Citric acid, kefir, kvass and tomatoes are added to the dressing. No less common is borsh, a kind of sour infusion made from wheat bran.
Ciorba de burte is cooked in beef broth, always with pieces of meat, which are cut into strips. There is a wide variety of chorba recipes, using lemon and cabbage juice, a variety of vegetables, herbs, and sour cream. The basis for the broth can be not only beef, but also pork, as well as skimba, which is made from the tripe of oxen.
First courses in Romania are quite varied, including broths with flour dumplings, vegetables and rice. Green pea and bean puree soups, spinach and sorrel soups, garlic tomato soups.
Corn and meat are staples of Romanian cuisine
In Romania, cornmeal has always been used for cooking. Perhaps the most famous dish is hominy, a steeply boiled porridge made from cornmeal. Hominy has become the visiting card of the Romanians. There are many recipes for hominy - both tare and fried, and in the form of puddings and snacks. Such dishes from hominy as urs and balmush are very common. Urs is a ball of hominy stuffed with grated cheese. Urs is baked in hot ash. Balmush is hominy in milk. Also, dumplings are prepared from hominy and served with fried eggs.
There are a lot of meat dishes in Romania, they amaze with their variety. Consider the most popular meat dishes.
- Stufat is a lamb roast with garlic and green onions. Stufat can be attributed to the truly national dishes of Romanians.
- Chulamu is finely chopped meat stewed with vegetables and mushrooms in flour sauce.
- Mich i frigerui is a kebab from any kind of meat, cooked according to a special recipe on charcoal or on the grill.
- Mititei are oblong-shaped meatballs with garlic and pepper added. The mititei is fried on a griller.
- Tokanu is a stew that is cut into small pieces. Stewed tokanu in a sauce consisting of tomato sauce and onions.
- The most famous dish is paprikash. The dish is very similar to tokana, but red sweet bell pepper is added to the sauce. This dish came to the Romanians from Hungary.
- Givech is a meat stew stewed with eggplants, onions, sweet peppers and carrots.
- Ostropel is a duck meat stew. The duck is stewed in a thick spicy sauce, to which vinegar, garlic, red pepper and flour are added.
On big holidays or for a wedding, in the tradition of Romanians, roast a whole ram on a spit.
Traditional drinks and Romanian wines
As in any southern country, Romanians have a wide variety of wines, liqueurs and fruit vodkas. Perhaps the most famous is tsuika, a kind of palenki. Tsuika differs from Palenki in strength. The palenka is less strong, no more than forty degrees, but the cuyka reaches fifty-five, sixty degrees. The raw materials for fruit vodka are apple, plum and pear fruits. The best tsuika is made from black plums and is called slivovitz. It is stored in large oak barrels and aged for at least three years, resulting in an oily, yellowish color.
By the way, cuica is exactly Romanian vodka. But the palenka came to Romania from Hungary.
A wide variety of delicious meat dishes and excellent local wine, a great reason to visit Romania and taste all the variety of Romanian cuisine.
Romania is an unknown pantry for true connoisseurs of delicious and hearty food. Local food is food for peasants, shepherds and workers. Maybe it is simple and, at first glance, unappetizing, but extremely satisfying.
Romanian cuisine types
Romanian cuisine has absorbed the culinary traditions of the peoples who inhabited these and neighboring lands. Notes of Roman, Greek, Austrian, Turkish, Russian and Polish cuisines are felt in local dishes.
There is almost no hotel diversity by region in Romania, except in Dobruja, where the influence of the local Turkish community is great and they eat food more similar to oriental cuisine.
Romanian families are quite traditional, so they prefer a home-cooked meal at a common table. Such feasts are valued in many ways even more than going to a good restaurant.
Romanian housewives cook a lot and hearty, a homemade meal always consists of several dishes, among which there are usually soups, fried and boiled meat, and pastries.
The main component in many Romanian dishes is corn, and the visiting card of the local cuisine is hominy, a hard-boiled porridge made from cornmeal, often replacing bread on the table. Especially interesting is the rural tradition of cutting hominy with a thread wound around the tips of the index fingers. This is a real colorful action, which can be seen quite rarely.
Second in popularity after hominy are a variety of meat dishes. There are many such dishes. Especially popular among tourists in Transylvania is the preparation of a ram baked in clay. From the preparation of this dish, a whole show is arranged, during which stories from the life of Count Dracula are told.
It is customary to start a traditional feast in Romania with tsuyka - strong moonshine, usually plum, apple or pear. According to Romanians, the best vodka is made from black plums and aged in a special barrel for at least 3 years.
Already during the meal itself, preference is given to local wines, among which are the popular brands of Feteaska, Babyaska, Zgihara, Busujoca, Grasse, Murfatlar, Sadova-Korabia, Dragosan, Panciu, Furmint, Stefanesti, Tirkava, Mazharca, Kryata, Tamiyoase, Sangiovesk and others.
The feast ends with compotes and black coffee, usually without sugar, which is drunk in large quantities.
They also drink Hungarian palinka in Romania, not considering it shameful, but in quantities much smaller than cuyca.
Local beer is almost never consumed, the stores sell mostly foreign varieties brewed in Romanian breweries. Ursus beer is considered the best of its own brands.
