Like any national cuisine, Karelian cuisine consists mainly of what grows, lives and lives in a certain territory. The Karelian region, mostly located in the north-west of Russia and on the territory of Finland, is rich in its forests and lakes. And Karelian cuisine is replete with a variety of dishes from fish. It is boiled, dried, salted and even sour. Meat in the local cuisine is very small.
In addition, the dishes are widely added to the gifts of the forest - mushrooms and berries: strawberries, blueberries, blueberries, cloudberries, cranberries. Wheat flour in the preparation of food is practically not used. It is replaced with rye and barley. Dairy products are not as common as in neighboring Estonia. Heat treatment of products in Karelian cuisine is also very special. They do not have the concept of "Fry".Even fried patties they call boiled in oil. It is not peculiar to them to smoke fish, as in the same Estonia, located next door.
Fish - the basis of Karelian cuisine
Speaking of Karelian cuisine, we can not say about the proprietary Karelian ear - kalaruokke. It's an ear cooked in a very special way. Cook it mainly from whitefish. Unlike the traditional Russian soup, transparent as a tear, the calaruoca is unclear. The peculiarity of its preparation is that, shortly before the end of cooking, it is passed through a thick layer of coal. This is done so that all bitterness and unnecessary impurities are gone. After all, it is brewed with the addition of moss, pine and birch buds. In the calarokku add egg, milk, as well as for navara dried small fish - a bag.
Fish is the main component of the whole Karelian cuisine. It was harvested in incredible quantities. They poured and sugared fish in pits according to sorts. On a fish folded into pits, thin chopsticks were laid and on top put oppression so that all the fish was under brine. Small fish also did not disappear. It was dried and added for the cook in different dishes. Valuable caviar was mainly sold, and the remainders made the filling for pancakes. Some nationalities used raw salted fish, and others cooked it, pre-soaking.
Features of the national cuisine of Karelia
Another characteristic feature of the Karelian national cuisine is the almost complete absence of main dishes. They were replaced by a variety of pies all with the same unleavened fish. Pies baked a variety of forms, but mostly it was crescent or semicircular pies. For baking used mainly rye flour. An unexpected feature of Karelian pies with fish is that it is laid without first cleaning it, directly with scales.
From vegetable dishes in Karelian cuisine there is turnips, potatoes, in less quantity radish, carrots, onions. And potatoes began to grow in Karelia more recently.
In Karelian cuisine there is no such thing as a dessert. Sweet dishes almost did not cook. From the habitual for our understanding of delicacies from Karelians there were only pies with forest berries. Favorite dainty for the people of Karelia was milk with the same berries. In the rich local forests, berries were collected quite a lot.
Of beverages, kvass is very popular. Make it from malt, turnips and bread. Also in Karelia they drink coffee and tea, including infusions from various medicinal herbs.