Food

Ukrainian cuisine has a rich history and offers a wide variety of dishes. Many have been partly lent to other cuisines like German, Turkish and Polish. The cuisine of Ukraine has also influenced the cuisines of other neighbouring countries, such as Russia. Meat (especially pork), vegetables, fruit, mushrooms, berries, and herbs play a major part. Ukrainian food is filling, and is served in large quantities. You may have heard of Salo (salted pork fat, similar to bacon but with significantly higher ratio of fat to meat, or occasionally raw pig fat) and dreaded the time you will not want to offend your Ukrainian host by refusing to eat it. In fact, it is sometimes jokingly referred to as Ukraine's "official food". Salo is most often served with horilka (vodka in Russian) or Samohon (moonshine), sometimes with infusions of fruit, spices or hot peppers. But in Christian circles that would be rather uncommon to serve alcohol.