If you’re familiar with Ukrainian Culture here in Canada, you’ll know just how important of a role food plays in preserving our identity against the backdrop of the Canadian experience. As Ukrainians moved across the land, we brought with us our traditional culinary practices forever changing the landscape. No seriously! If you ever doubted how much we value our traditional food, go take a drive through Alberta. Ever heard of the “Giants of the Prairies”? We’ve immortalized our favourite treats has huge statues across the prairies. A giant kovbasa in Mundare, a colossal Vareniki in Glendon you get the idea. But chief among these culinary titans in the hearts and minds of Ukrainians across the WORLD has to be borsch.
Borsch is a hearty vegetable stew, coloured red with fresh beets, flavoured to taste with dill and of course, smothered in sour cream. It’s what your baba makes you when you’re feeling sick, it’s served at every family gathering. Heck its just tasty. We even have a saying for borsch “No self-respecting Ukrainian girl can expect to find a husband UNLESS she knows how to make borsch”. It really is that important. With all this in mind, it might come as a shock to many of us Ukrainian-Canadians that we aren’t the only eastern European emigres out there serving up borsch at every meal. Enter the Doukhobors, a religious community from the southern regions of Russia who fled persecution from the Russian Orthodox Church with many settling in Canada (Grand Forks British Columbia to be exact). Living in the southern steps of Russia, the Doukhobors often lived side by side with Ukrainians sharing their food, language and traditions. So it shouldn’t come as a surprise that the dialect of Russian spoken by the Doukhobors contains many Ukrainian loan words and more importantly, that they have their own version of Ukraine’s national dish. We had a chance to learn more about this Doukhobor Borsch thanks to one of our members Jarred Webb. Jarred comes from Grand Forks BC and is descended from some of the first Doukhobor settlers in Canada. He got us in touch with the local Doukhobor community in Victoria and, partnering partnering with the Ukrainian Cultural Center, we were able to host a Doukhobor Borsch making workshop! It was a blast getting to meet the Doukhobor community and learn more about their culture. For all our Ukrainian Borsch eaters out there, you probably wouldn’t recognize the Doukhobor version as borsch if you saw it. Although they both share many similar features, Doukhobor borsch is distinguished by the addition of rich heavy cream and spicy chilli peppers. The most noticeable difference of Doukhbour borsch is that it isn’t red. Not only does the cream give the soup a pale yellow colour, but get this, they remove the beets! What could be perceived as sacrilegious to us Ukrainians is in fact one of the key defining features of the Doukhobor Borsch. Doukhobor borsch is creamy, with an extra kick from the peppers. Overall, we were blown away. A huge shout out to the Doukhobor Women’s Choir of Victoria for giving a wonderful performance to close out the event.
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August 2021
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