What Is Borscht, Really?

To a foreigner, borscht often remains a mystery — one that restaurant menus lazily label as beetroot soup. But calling borscht a simple soup is like calling Japanese sushi "rice with fish" or Italian pizza "bread with cheese." Borscht is not just an item on a menu. It is a cultural manifesto, a gastronomic code, and a living archive in which centuries of Ukrainian history, geography, and domestic warmth have been inscribed.

Say the word "borscht" and every Ukrainian will instantly picture a specific bowl. Yet those bowls are unlikely to look anything alike. For some, borscht is a thick, deep-red broth with kidney beans, the kind a grandmother made in the Chernihiv region. For others, it is a slightly sweet chicken broth with fluffy dumplings, remembered from Poltava. Some recall the taste of Polisian borscht made with dried loach and forest mushrooms, while others think of the Zakarpattian version, with smoked pear and pepper. This very contradiction is the key to understanding the dish the whole world knows as Ukrainian beetroot soup: borscht is not a recipe — it is an entire symphony of flavors.

The first thing to set aside is the idea of borscht as "beetroot soup." Beetroot is indeed almost always present, but it is merely the vehicle for something greater: a balance of flavors. The defining common thread running through all the different borscht varieties is a sharp, slightly sour taste, achieved through the use of acidic ingredients. Where that sourness comes from — that is where the dish's true geography begins.

In north-eastern and central regions, borscht is made with fermented beets or beet kvass, which lend it a characteristic tartness. In Podillia and the South, tomatoes set the tone — they arrived in Ukrainian kitchen gardens later but took perfectly to the steppe climate. In the west, the sourness comes from apples, plums, or sorrel. Some varieties of borscht use bread kvass to achieve that slightly acidic flavor. In other words, the same flavor effect — that gentle spark on the tongue — can be achieved in dozens of ways depending on what grew in the garden, what was stored in the cellar, and what time of year it was. Borscht has always been a dish of season and place.

Ukrainian cuisine counts around thirty regional varieties of borscht; they may include sweet pepper, mushrooms, dumplings, sausages, prunes, apples, or zucchini. Each variation is not a chef's whim but a reflection of local geography and livelihood.

This diversity is not chaos. It reads like a map: where there are forests, there are mushrooms; where there are rivers, there is fish; where there's a farm, there is duck or goose. Borscht has always spoken the language of the landscape.

Hot liquid dishes made with vegetables and seasonings were already widespread on the territory of Kyivan Rus as early as the 9th–10th centuries. Borscht emerged later, its name deriving from the Proto-Slavic word *bъrščь, which referred to the hogweed plant — its leaves were fermented and boiled long before the beet became the dish's star ingredient, a development that occurred closer to the 18th century. That said, the etymology of the word borscht has not been definitively established.

Borscht was typically made lean or with lard, and meat was added only for religious holidays, weddings, or funeral meals. Cossack registers from the 17th century record surnames such as "Borshch" and "Borshchenko" — indirect evidence that by that time the dish had already taken deep root in everyday life.

A radical rupture came during the Soviet era. Moscow's authorities sought to claim borscht as the common property of all Soviet peoples, promoting it as part of a unified "Soviet cuisine." Soviet cookbooks championed a standardized kitchen with uniform versions of traditional dishes; the same techniques and recipes were taught in culinary schools across the country, and many dishes were presented as part of a shared Soviet heritage, severed from their origins. Yet regional differences did not disappear — they went underground, into the domestic kitchen. Behind closed doors, mothers and grandmothers continued to cook their borscht, passing down to their children traditional recipes.

Today, those differences are visible once more. Ukrainian chefs are turning to archival ethnographic records, old cookbooks, and the stories of elderly people to revive borscht varieties that never appeared on any Soviet menu. It is an act of cultural reconstruction.

The culture of Ukrainian borscht cooking was inscribed on the UNESCO List of Intangible Cultural Heritage in Need of Urgent Safeguarding. The decision was made on July 1, 2022, in the midst of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine. The threat to this heritage element arose from the displacement of tradition-bearers from their communities and cultural contexts, as the destruction of the environment and traditional agriculture cut communities off from the local products needed to prepare the dish.

The culture of cooking borscht has been practiced across all regions of Ukraine for centuries: communities, families, and restaurants developed their own versions of this traditional dish, and it reflected local characteristics and ingredients depending on the region. UNESCO, therefore, did not protect a formula, a set of proportions, or a specific list of ingredients. The organization recognized the very practice of variation as a cultural phenomenon — diversity as proof of an organic, living tradition.

The next time you order a bowl of borscht at an authentic Ukrainian restaurant in Kyiv, London, or New York — or find yourself at a home dinner with a Ukrainian family — try reading the dish like a book. To do so, ask a few questions. What is the broth based on — meat, fish, mushroom, vegetables? Where does the sourness come from — tomato, fermented beet, sorrel? Are there kidney beans, dumplings, prunes? Is it served hot or cold? With sour cream or without?
Each answer is a clue: about a region, a season, a family tradition. Every home cook has her own unique borscht recipe, handed down from generation to generation. That is precisely why borscht cannot be fully "reproduced from a recipe" in any complete sense — one can only join the conversation between generations and regions.