Russian Borscht. History, Recipe, and How it Differs from Ukrainian

Few people who enjoy sipping borscht suspect that it is not named after the beet at all. The word borscht is the old name for a plant, hogweed, the very one whose young edible leaves were once cooked into a thick soup. This is not about the poisonous Sosnowski's hogweed, which burns your hands along the roads, but about its harmless wild relative, resembling giant dill, which has been eaten for centuries throughout Rus'. A curious account has been preserved. An Englishman who visited the Russian North about four hundred years ago recorded that borscht is a type of herb that is gathered, cooked, and eaten with great relish in the summer. Not soup, mind you, but a herb, greens, that were thrown into a cauldron.

It turns out to be an amazing thing. The soup, which today is recognizable at first glance by its thick ruby color, was originally green and named after a wild herb. There was no beetroot, which colors it red, nor potatoes, nor tomatoes in the first borscht. There was greenery, there was an acid like kvass, and the soup turned out to be rather sour and herb-like, closer to the current green shchi. That brightness, without which borscht is no longer borscht, came much later than everything else.

Someone who searches for "borscht recipe" sees a simple red bowl and usually doesn't suspect how long its lineage is or how many verbal duels have been fought over it. Let's break it down: where borsch originated, what makes its taste stand out, how it's prepared on the stove, how Russian and Ukrainian traditions differ, and why no two bowls of borsch are alike.

Soup named after a herb

The roots of borscht are so deep that no one can name its exact birth date. The lands of ancient Kievan Rus are considered its cradle, from where it spread far and wide, acquiring its own characteristics in each region. Borscht first appeared on paper thanks to a German named Martin Gruneweg, who in the autumn of 1584 stopped for the night near Kyiv by the Borshchovka River and noted from the locals' words that borscht was rarely bought at the market there because each household cooked its own. However, there's a catch for those who love precise dates: at that time, "borscht" was the name for a pottage made from hogweed itself, and the familiar red soup was still a long way off.

The word, incidentally, proved tenacious and left its mark on the language itself. The verb "pereborshchit'" (to overdo it), which today means to go too far or to take too much, according to one version, was originally associated with sourdough starter and meant something like to over-ferment or over-sour. Thus, in an ordinary word that a Russian person says without thinking, the memory of an ancient sour soup is hidden. Food, as almost always, hides language.

Borscht turned red when beets came to it, and with them – potatoes and tomatoes, meaning ingredients that did not immediately appear in Europe. Since then, it has acquired the hundred guises in which it is known today, but the sourness, inherited from its very origins, can still be felt in good borscht.

What is real borscht made of

The debate about what to put in borscht can go on forever, and yet there's a core that without which borscht is not borscht. Its heart is beets, which both color the soup and give it that distinct mild sweetness. Next comes cabbage, fresh or sauerkraut, potatoes, carrots and onions, tomatoes or tomato paste, and definitely meat broth, on which everything is based, most often from beef or pork on the bone. Borscht is seasoned with herbs and garlic, and served with sour cream.

And here lies the trick, which is precisely why we're talking about authentic borscht. Beets are fickle when cooked for a long time: boil them a bit longer and they'll give up all their color, turning the soup from ruby red to a dull brownish hue, as if it's faded in the sun. Acidity saves the day. If you add a little vinegar to the beets, squeeze in a wedge of lemon, or mix in some tomato, the color is fixed and reaches the plate in all its brilliance. Recipes usually hide this small detail somewhere in parentheses, yet without it, "red beet soup russia," as this dish is called on English websites, is only half of what it should be. It's more convenient to keep the ingredients themselves and their proportions in front of your eyes as a list, and they belong in a separate table.

How is it prepared to come out like grandma's?

The most important thing about borscht is this: it's not dumped all into one pot at once and boiled together. It's carefully layered, piece by piece, and that's the whole gap between real borscht and quick borscht. First, unhurriedly, over a low heat, a meat broth is made, for over an hour, carefully skimming off the gray foam so that it comes out clear and strong. Meanwhile, in a frying pan, a sauté of onions and carrots is prepared, to which beets and tomatoes are added. The beets are not thrown raw into the boiling broth, but are stewed separately with that same sourness, preserving their color.

Next, the order of adding ingredients is important. Those that cook for a long time, like potatoes and cabbage, are added to the broth first. The cooked beet dressing is added at the very end so it doesn't disintegrate and bleed its color into the liquid. After this, the borscht shouldn't boil for long; it's removed from the heat and left to rest. And here's perhaps the most honest aspect of this dish: it tastes better the next day. After sitting overnight, the borscht seems to meld internally, becoming richer and more harmonious, and yesterday's borscht always surpasses freshly made, as anyone who has ever cooked it themselves will tell you. It's more convenient to have the steps themselves, in order and with timings, on a separate note.

Russian or Ukrainian, what's the difference

And so we come to the very question over which debaters break so many lances. And the most honest way to begin is simply: borscht is a common good of the Eastern Slavs; it has been cooked for hundreds of years across the entire expanse from the Carpathians to the Urals, and it has never had a single canonical recipe. For Ukrainians, borscht has long since grown into the main national dish, a culinary symbol, and in 2022, it was the Ukrainian tradition of cooking it that UNESCO took under its protection as intangible heritage. However, this has not stopped it from being a staple on the Russian table, where it is prepared in every home and served in every canteen. Arguing over who has the right to it is a pointless pursuit; it is far more curious to look at where these traditions truly diverge.

And they diverge more gently than lovers of heated debates would like, and the line between them is blurred, because there are countless local versions in both. And yet, each way of life has its own favorite moves. Ukrainian borscht leans towards richness and thickness: it is traditionally lightened with lard pounded with garlic, often beans are added, and pampushki are served with it – soft buns rubbed with the same garlic. Russian borscht, which is always signed as "russian borscht" on western websites, is simpler: often on beef bone broth, with sour cream and a slice of black bread, and as for quirks, mushrooms, dumplings, or, as in old Moscow, prunes may be added. But these are not rules, but only tendencies: beans can be found in both, tomatoes have long been established everywhere, and in every home, borscht still turns out its own way. It is most convenient to survey these differences in a comparative table, and the conclusion is simple: what we have before us are not two foreign soups, but two native branches of one.

To each his own.

If you look closely, you'll find that borscht isn't just one dish, but a whole family, and its variety is surprising. Besides the usual red one, there's green borscht, a spring dish made with sorrel, which is much closer to its grassy origins than to beets. There's also cold borscht, the same borscht but served cold, which is slurped up like okroshka on a hot day. There's Lenten borscht, without a single piece of meat, made with mushroom broth, which was a lifesaver during long periods of fasting. There's naval borscht, where both the meat and vegetables are deliberately chopped into large pieces. And on top of that, every region, every family has its own time-tested recipe, passed down from grandmother to granddaughter, with its own additions and its own character. That's why the honest answer to the question of how to cook proper borscht is this: there isn't just one proper borscht, but dozens, and the most proper one is the one that was cooked in your home.

Why would a child outside of Russia need to know how to cook borscht

For a child growing up in America or Canada, a pot of borscht on the stove is not just a meal, but the smell of home and a living thread to their roots. It often happens that Russian words are difficult to recall, but grandma's borscht and the way the whole family sits down around it remain in memory for a lifetime. Through a simple thing like sharing a soup, a child feels their culture more warmly and strongly than through any textbook.

At Palme School, we teach children not just to speak and read Russian, but also everything that lies behind the language: its cuisine, holidays, customs, sayings, and proverbs that carry the folk memory. Explaining why borscht is named after a herb and why yesterday's is tastier than today's turns the language from a school subject into something familiar and delicious. We teach children from four to seventeen years old, separately bilingual and for those, To whom is Russian essentially a foreign language, online, in small groups, for forty minutes.

You can find out if this is right for your child for free. The school offers two trial lessons. The first is an introduction to a methodologist, who will assess your child's level and explain the program. The second is a real lesson in a group, with a teacher and other children. This way, you can immediately see how your child feels in a Russian environment and what interests them the most.

What is worth remembering

Upon closer inspection, borsch is far more fascinating than just a bowl of red soup. Its name comes from a wild herb, the red color is thanks to the beet that arrived late, and it's so old that it predates all arguments about who it belongs to. It's a common treasure of the Eastern Slavs, housing the Ukrainian tradition under the wing of UNESCO, its own Russian rendition, and hundreds of home recipes where each cook believes their borsch is the only correct one. And anyone can cook it who can keep three things in mind: a strong broth, a separate sauté, and the acidity that preserves the color. But, as you know, it's best the next day.