The most typical dish of Vilnius (koldūnai)
Koldūnai (dumplings) have become a link between different culinary traditions in a diverse cuisine of the city of Vilnius and are made in almost every household. Residents of Vilnius remember them as the most delicious dish of the inter-war period that was served everyday and during holidays. The important thing is that this dish was called in the same way in the main languages of the city – Polish, Lithuanian, Russian and Belarussian. The word itself most likely is of Tartar origin. There are plenty of recipes for dumplings, however, according to the famous feuilletonist Melchior Wańkowicz (1892-1974), who praised Vilnius dumplings highly in his reminiscences, the most real ones are stuffed with equal parts of chopped beef and mutton, and sheep fat. It was necessary to add marjoram. And of course, Wańkowiczius advised everyone to wash them down with a glass of the herb mixture Trejos devynerios, which he adored.
The smell of smoke from of the ancient days (kindziukas)
The most original and perhaps the most archaic Lithuanian meat product in Aukštaitija, Dzūkija and Vilnius region was most often referred to as kindzius, kindziukas, kindziulis, and on the left bank (Užnemunė) of the Middle Nemunas people called it skilandis. The word skilandis has been more than once mentioned in the acts of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania written in the Ruthenian language since 1506. This testifies to the fact that in the 16th century yet no analogous of this delicacy were known beyond the borders of ethnic Lithuania. Today it is already being made in Lithuania’s neighbouring countries Belarus and Poland where it is called kindziuk. To make kindziukas a cleaned stomach of a pig (for a smaller kindziukas a bladder is used) is tightly stuffed with coarsely chopped, salted port (neck, ham, in case it is lean – bacon) that is well seasoned with garlic, pepper and bay leaves. The sewn up or tied stomach is kept pressed down for several days and then it is smoked in cold smoke for several weeks. After that it is cured and matured; the longer it is being cured the better it tastes.
Litvaks’ contribution to Vilnius cuisine
The title itself betrays that one of the most favourite dishes of the Lithuanians – kugelis (savoury potato pudding) of grated potatoes and pork scratching baked on a baking tray came from the Litvaks’ cuisine. In the Yiddish language kugel means round, hence, its original form differed from rectangular Lithuanian kugelis. In Lithuania kugelis became popular in the 19th century as a cheap and filling dish served in the inns that were most often rented by the Jews. In Vilnius region it is also referred to as babka, is baked with scratching, pig legs or ribs, as well as sauerkraut. Another famous dish of the Litvaks’ cuisine, which became a favourite with the Lithuanians and Poles in the time of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, is pike stuffed in the Jewish way. In more remote places it became known as pike in the Polish way, and in the Yiddish language it is called gefilte fish. Today the simplest fish-balls are called like that, but the Litvaks used to make this cold festive dish in a special way: a cleaned and gutted pike (or any other large fish, e.g. a carp, bream, pikeperch) is sliced, carefully skinned and boned. Stuffing made of fish, onions and breadcrumbs is put into the skin and slices are stewed in stock made of the fish head and scales and are left to set. Today the Lithuanians seldom prepare the pike in this way, however, half a century ago this dish was without fail put on a rich Christmas Eve table along with other traditional dishes.
Contribution of Lithuanian Tartars to Vilnius cuisine
The Lithuanians should be grateful to the Tartars for certain culinary products and dishes. It is thought that at the end of the 14th century, when moving from South Ukraine to Lithuania, the Tartars brought along the cucumber, the radish and bulbous vegetables. The Tartars of Vilnius environs were famous for vegetable growing. Also, the Tartars presented residents of Vilnius with a hot street snack beliash – a leavened dough pie filled with hot stuffing made of fat chopped meat and onions. It is true that a real Tartar beliash is never made of pork and has a different shape. The festive Tartar cake šimtalapis pyragas (a cake made of hundred leaves) (referred to as listkowiec by the Polish Tartars) – a gyrated sweet poppy seed and raisin roll – is a great favourite with the Lithuanians.
The famous Karaite kibin
The Karaites have a favourite saying about their cuisine: “we were conquered by Vytautas, and the Karaite kibin has conquered Lithuania”. Indeed, today the kibin, alongside the Tartar beliash, is the most popular piquant snack of the residents of Vilnius. Unfortunately, if one wanted to try a real Karaite kibin, he would have to spend much time on finding one in Vilnius. It should be rather big, easily recognised crescent cake with a rough edge filled with mutton or beef (but not pork!), with fragrant juices of the filling streaming out of it on taking the first bite.
Legacy of the refined cuisine of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania
It is a widespread opinion that the ancient cuisine of noblemen of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, or refined cuisine (the French analogue is culinaire raffiné) that disappeared in the 18th century, was a collection of dishes of the Old Russians, Poles, Tartars and Germans. For example, balandėliai (stuffed cabbage-rolls), which are similar to Oriental dolma – stewed rolls of minced meat and grains –are derived from it, however, in Lithuania they are wrapped in cabbage rather than in vine leaves. However, a combination of different traditions is characteristic of nearly all “high” cuisines of the Middle Ages: chefs of noblemen had to surprise their masters and their guests with their ingenuity. Nonetheless, the refined cuisine of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania distinguished itself for its own peculiar flavour. Of course, first and foremost, it distinguished itself for abundance and strangeness of game dishes: noblemen of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania enjoyed European bison fried on skewers, elk nostrils, bear paws and beaver tails, let alone boar meat, venison, hare-meat or forest birds. Cookery books of the 19th century and memoirs have preserved recipes of only less impressive but none the worse dishes of refined cuisine that were prepared in estates: buckwheat pancakes with caviar, šaltibarčiai (cold soup) with crayfish or Lithuanian zrazai – thin beef cutlets with onion and bread crumb filling stewed on a very low fire.
Vilnius beverages
First of all Vilnius became famous for its mead: that was the only Lithuanian town in which fraternities of craftsmen, forerunners of workshops, operated in the middle of the 15th century. Craftsmen united into brotherhoods (fraternities) on the confessional and professional basis, for example, furriers were Orthodox believers, and tanners were Catholics. However, public mead feasts held several times per year during holidays in which any resident of Vilnius irrespective of his/her estate could take part, who received an invitation, was the most obvious activity of the brothers. It was in the middle of the 20th century that making of mead came to an end in Vilnius. At the beginning of the 20th century one could come across the mixture of herbs Trejos devynerios in a first-aid kit in every household. A popular legend has it that this was the only successful invention of an unsuccessful pharmacist of Palanga in the 19th century, though the recipe is believed to be much older: in Poland this mixture of herbs is known as Trojanka litewska. Furthermore, in Poland it was made famous by the witty Lithuanian Pole Melchior Wańkowicz (who referred to it as Trisz Divinis) who shamelessly made his guest drunk on it. “Pour alcohol over a handful of 27 herbs and in several weeks it draws. When guests come you pour a small glass of it into good vodka and fill the infusion with alcohol. In this way you drink it to the end of your days”, wrote that Pole who could be considered to be almost a resident of Vilnius.
Vilnius is the centre of a gastronomic thought of the 19th century
In the 19th century cookery books, which had a huge impact on later culinary literature in Lithuania and far beyond its borders were issued by three authors in Vilnius. The books combined the traditions of the refined cuisine of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and Polish and French cuisines, and started to form a narrow-minded (bourgeois) taste in Lithuanian cuisine.
Jan Szyttler (1763-1850). In his youth he worked in the royal kitchen in Warsaw and learned from Stanislaus Augustus’ personal cook Paul Trémo. After the break-up of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth he worked as a cook with the Polish and Lithuanian noblemen and during the period of French administration he served the General Governor of Lithuania Dirk van Hogendorp. Around 1820 he took up his residence in Vilnius and took to writing. He is regarded to be the first author of systematic cookery books who wrote in Polish, and he is thought to have written about several dozens of books. The most famous of them are Kuchnia myśliwska czyli na łowach (1823), Kucharz dobrze usposobiony (1830), Kucharka oszczędna (1835).
Wincenta Zawadzka was a daughter-in-law of the most famous printer in Vilnius Józef Zawadzki and the compiler of the legendary cookery book “Kucharka litewska”. In 1854-1938 as many as 14 editions of the book were published and in 1907 the book was translated into the Lithuanian language.
Anna Ciundziewicka (1803-1850) is a noble lady who was born and spent her married life in the estates near Minsk. She only learned in Vilnius. Later she published anonymously a housekeeping manual “Gospodyni litewska”, which contained many recipes (1848). The book was reprinted at least 10 times and equally valued both in Lithuania and Belarus.
Original interpretation of obshchepit (public catering) in Vilnius
Soviet obshchepit (literary – public catering) was undoubtedly the original though unwelcome culinary culture. Dismal canteens from Vilnius to Vladivostok served the same dishes at the same price made according to the recipes approved in Moscow, which were standardised to the smallest parts of the gram. Nonetheless, the soviet authorities in Vilnius managed to make use of the scarce possibilities provided by obshchepit in an resourceful and interesting way: during the soviet era residents of Vilnius liked visiting pancake houses, dumpling bars, zeppelin houses, cheburek houses, shashlik houses, restaurants specialising in game dishes, milk and juice bars, a special café for children, a café on the observation deck of the TV Tower. The majority of public catering enterprises, especially in the Old Town, took pride in the interiors created by famous architects and sculptors; unfortunately, today almost all of them have been destroyed. It is symbolic that the only surviving masterpiece of the soviet culinary-architectural heritage was the first café in the hotel “Neringa” designed by the brothers Algimantas and Vytautas Nasvyčiai (Gedimino pr. 23): it had the “natural” interior of a streamline form reminding one of the style of Alvar Aalt but representing the dunes of Nida, with furniture of an original design and non-ideologised wall painting. The jazz band that was perhaps the best in Lithuania used to play there, Vilnius bohemia and intellectuals gathered there, famous personalities developed in that atmosphere.
