Romanian cuisine

Romanian cuisine is a diverse blend of different dishes from several traditions with which it has come into contact, but it also maintains its own character. It has been greatly influenced by Ottoman cuisine, while it also includes influences from the cuisines of other neighbours, including German, Serbian, Bulgarian, and Hungarian cuisine.

There are quite a few different types of dishes, which are sometimes included under a generic term; for example, the category ciorbă includes a wide range of soups with a characteristic sour taste. These may be meat and vegetable soups, tripe (ciorbă de burtă) and calf foot soups, or fish soups, all of which are soured by lemon juice, sauerkraut juice, vinegar, or borș (traditionally made from bran). The category țuică (plum brandy) is a generic name for a strong alcoholic spirit in Romania, while in other countries, every flavour has a different name.

In the history of Romanian culinary literature, Costache Negruzzi and Mihail Kogălniceanu were the compilers of a cookbook "200 rețete cercate de bucate, prăjituri și alte trebi gospodăreşti" (200 tried recipes, pastries and other household things) printed in 1841. Also, Negruzzi writes in "Alexandru Lăpușneanu": "In Moldavia, at this time, fine food wasn't fashioned. The greatest feast only offered a few types of dishes. After the Polish borş, Greek dishes would follow, boiled with herbs floating in butter, after that, Turkish pilaf, and finally cosmopolitan steaks".

Cheese was known since ancient history. Brânză is the generic word for cheese in Romanian. This word is from Dacian. In addition to cheese, Dacians ate vegetables (lentils, peas, spinach, garlic) and fruits (grapes, apples, raspberries) with high nutritional value. The Dacians produced wine in massive quantities. Once, Burebista, a Dacian king, angered by the wine abuse of his warriors, cut down the vines; his people gave up drinking wine.Legend says that the Dacian people created their own beer. With the Romans, there was a certain taste, rooted in the centuries, for the perfect pastry made from cheese, including alivenci, pască, or brânzoaice. The Romans introduced porridge, where different variations of millet porridges were developed.

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