russian food

Ukraine's culture minister declared victory in "the war for borsch" as Russia also claims the hearty beet soup. UNESCO says the invasion threatens Ukraine's borsch culture with "extreme urgency."

Before the Soviet period, "Russian food had color," says Vladimir Mukhin of Moscow's world-famous White Rabbit restaurant. He aims to honor those flavors, as well as locally source his ingredients.

It took until adulthood for Bonnie Morales, the daughter of immigrant Russian Jews, to appreciate the food of her childhood. Now she owns a popular Oregon restaurant and has released a new cookbook.

With many foods in short supply, Soviet bakers had to be creative. And while the U.S.S.R. is gone now, the walnut-shaped oreshki cookie endures. Russian ex-pat Alina Selyukh shows us how to make them.

Post a video or photo of a favorite dish on Instagram or Twitter with the hashtag #NPRHotPot from now until August 1. We'll gather some of our favorites and post them on our website.

Princess Barbare Jorjadze is renowned for her cookbook. But she spent most of her life writing letters, poems and essays, to fight for a greater public role for Georgian women.

Soviet-era movie stars, cosmonauts and, yes, intelligence agents once socialized at Aragvi over chicken tabaka and Georgian wine. Now the restaurant has reopened for regular diners.

The giant, metal, hot-water urns are at the center of Russian tea culture — and national identity. How that came to be may have as much to do with Russian literature as common usage.

Organizers of the Winter Games are preparing to serve up quite a bit of the hearty, deep-red Russian soup. Which is kind of ironic, says Russian food writer Anya von Bremzen, since borscht carries with it complicated political implications. And not all borschts are created equal, she warns.

Author Anya Von Bremzen's new memoir, Mastering The Art of Soviet Cooking, is a tragic-comic history of a family and a nation as seen through the kitchen window. Everything we ate in the Soviet Union was grown ... by the party state," she says. "So, with the food, inevitably, you ingested the ideology."