Russian

What it is

Russian cuisine took its modern shape in two waves: an old peasant base of cabbage soup, rye, and porridge, and a 19th-century imperial layer when French chefs at the Romanov court invented dishes like Stroganoff and refined service à la russe. The Soviet century then standardized the menu, with the Olivier salad on every New Year’s table.

How it tastes

Hearty and sour. Cabbage, beet, and cucumber are preserved through the winter by lacto-fermentation, lending the cuisine its signature tang. Dill is a national obsession, used as a vegetable as much as an herb. Smetana (sour cream) finishes nearly every soup.

Signature dishes & techniques

Borscht — beet-and-cabbage soup, eaten across the entire Slavic world — is also Russia’s most-claimed plate, though Ukraine carries deeper historical roots. Pelmeni, small meat dumplings, are mass-frozen and stocked through winter. Beef Stroganoff, named after the 19th-century Count Pavel, is the imperial-era global ambassador.