海角大神

Celebrity chef Yevhen Klopotenko has a theory as to why the use of cooking spices was banned in Ukraine under Soviet rule.

鈥淚f you allow people to use spices, you are allowing them to be creative,鈥� says Mr. Klopotenko, whose signature shaved head 鈥� save for a riotous top of blond curls 鈥� is reminiscent of a legendary Cossack warrior emblazoned on anti-Russia T-shirts here.

鈥淎nd if you are allowed to be creative,鈥� he adds with a grin, 鈥測ou might also learn to do a revolution.鈥�

Mr. Klopotenko offers that anecdote as a way of explaining his passion for Ukrainian cuisine. Like many budding chefs with international educations and ambitions, he focused early in his career on mastering the world鈥檚 renowned cuisines.

Then came Ukraine鈥檚 Maidan revolution in 2013, when tens of thousands of Ukrainians filled Kyiv鈥檚 Maidan square for days before toppling the pro-Russia regime. A year later, Russia occupied Ukraine鈥檚 Crimean Peninsula and launched the first operations aimed at occupying Ukraine鈥檚 Donetsk and Luhansk regions.

鈥淪omething changed inside me鈥� as a result of those events, he says. 鈥淚 didn鈥檛 want any part of the old Soviet system; I knew I wanted to be in the real Ukraine.鈥�

Thus began a decadelong search for old Ukrainian recipes, lost food-preparation practices, and ingredients introduced to Ukraine by foreign traders plying Black Sea trade routes but later suppressed by Soviet rulers.

Mr. Klopotenko is at the forefront of a growing movement 鈥� a revolution, one might say 鈥� to jettison the bland and standardized cooking imposed during the Soviet era and to rediscover the rich, varied 鈥� and even sometimes spicy 鈥� traditional Ukrainian cuisine.

This food movement is part of a broader quest to uncover and fortify Ukrainian identity 鈥� through language, art, literature, music 鈥� in the face of a war launched by a foreign leader who claims Ukraine does not exist except as part of Russia. Asserting that food is inseparable from national identity, a variety of chefs, community kitchen organizers, food producers, and researchers are making food a key element in a cultural reawakening.

鈥淭he war we are facing now, that seeks to erase Ukrainian culture and raze it, is nothing we haven鈥檛 faced before, but it is a reminder of how food has been used in the past to suppress the Ukrainian spirit and way of life,鈥� says Olena Braichenko, a Ukrainian food researcher and author.

鈥淔ood is the real language of love and a basic part of how people show their care towards their loved ones,鈥� she says. 鈥淲hen so much of that part of us was taken away, it buried who we are as a people,鈥� she adds. 鈥淏ut now as we uncover these food traditions, we are reestablishing who we are.鈥�

Food as identity and culture

Ms. Braichenko, author of 鈥淯kraine: Food and History,鈥� cites borsch as an example.

In the Soviet Union, borsch 鈥� the signature Ukrainian soup with beets as a base 鈥� was standardized and limited to a few ingredients. 鈥淏ut when we look into past references and recipes,鈥� she says, 鈥渨e find that in Ukraine, it is in fact a dish of tremendous regional variety based on local ingredients and time of year. It can be green or red,鈥� she adds, 鈥渂ased on the harvesting season, and it can have meat, or no meat, or fish, or mushrooms.鈥�

(And in Ukraine, just don鈥檛 write it or pronounce it as 鈥渂orscht鈥� with a T, the Moscow spelling.)

When Ms. Braichenko says Ukraine has lived through earlier Russian efforts to 鈥渆rase鈥� identity, she is referring to laws during the Russian Empire banning the public use of the Ukrainian language. Then came the Holodomor, the human-engineered famine of the early 1930s that killed millions of Ukrainians as Soviet leader Josef Stalin collectivized private farms.

Ukraine鈥檚 is a village-based culture where survival has long been linked to keeping a productive garden, the noted food author says. That instinct for survival by garden plot explains why so many Ukrainians insist on maintaining their vegetable gardens in the midst of war, she says 鈥� and why so many refuse to evacuate their villages despite the dangers they face.

The sense of community engendered in villages where the cuisine was based largely on garden produce and other locally sourced ingredients is the main point of the restaurant Trypichcha (whose name means 鈥渢hree ovens鈥�) in Kharkiv, Ukraine鈥檚 second-largest city and a frequent target for Russian bombs.

鈥淲e鈥檙e like a museum of food for people to experience and remember the foods and preparations of the past,鈥� says Mykyta Virchenko, Trypichcha鈥檚 chef and co-owner. 鈥淏ut we鈥檙e not only about food,鈥� he adds. 鈥淢ore important to me is that we are about creating a community based on our identity and our culture.鈥�

After responding to Russia鈥檚 full-scale invasion in February 2022 by setting up a community kitchen serving soldiers and war victims, Mr. Virchenko opened a four-table restaurant that August. His objective: provide a besieged city with a place to gather over a meal inspired by both Ukraine-specific dishes and a rich tradition of absorbing the influences of other cuisines.

Two years later, Trypichcha is five times larger and often packed with diners sampling a traditional beef-and-pepper stew, or a tahini made from the seeds of Ukraine鈥檚 signature sunflower.

But what matters most to Mr. Virchenko is how his food is the vehicle for creating 鈥渃onnections鈥� and strengthening identity.

鈥淪omeone eating here said to me once that we are helping to bring about the birth of a new community, but to me that community was already there,鈥� he says. 鈥淲e are just providing the place for that community to come together and be nurtured.鈥�

Rediscovering disregarded recipes

The idea that traditional Ukrainian cooking would one day be part of a movement to assert national identity might have amused many Ukrainians in the postindependence era of the 1990s, Ms. Braichenko says. 鈥淎s we opened up to the world and craved so many things from the West, we turned our attention to French cuisine and lived in the shade of an inferiority complex about our simple village foods,鈥� she says.

Even Mr. Klopotenko, who had earned international cooking honors, admits he thought the idea of 鈥淯krainian gastronomy鈥� was 鈥渁 joke鈥� 鈥� until that change inside him after the Maidan protests and Crimea鈥檚 occupation.

He started combing old church libraries for recipes and lists of locally produced foods from before the Russian Empire. He investigated 19th-century food market offerings, discovering that before Soviet rule 鈥� which imposed strict limits on which crops farmers could grow 鈥� Ukrainians had access to a wide variety of products from around the world. He visited used-book shops looking for cookbooks and food histories.

And he opened his restaurant 100 Rokiv Tomu Vpered (whose name means 鈥�100 years back to the future鈥�) in Kyiv鈥檚 Potil district on the site of the ancient castle grounds of the kings who ruled Ukraine more than a millennium ago. The menu celebrates the Ukrainian gastronomy Mr. Klopotenko once thought laughable with dumplings, pickled vegetables, and braised meats.

And of course, it features borsch.

鈥淲hen I was a boy, my grandmother prepared borsch, and since she was cooking in Soviet times, I thought it was a Soviet dish,鈥� he says. 鈥淣ow I know she was cooking Ukrainian all along.鈥�

Oleksandr Naselenko assisted in reporting this story.