Work through the list in order. Hide the notes when you know what to do.
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Eat draniki
Pancakes of raw grated potato fried until the edges turn lacy and crisp, served with sour cream or machanka. There is almost no flour; the starch does the binding.
The batter cannot be made ahead; grated potato darkens within minutes. The version stuffed with meat is called kolduny and is a dish of its own.
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Try machanka
A thick gravy of pork, smoked meats and sour cream, into which you dip pancakes or draniki. The name literally means the thing you dip into.
It comes in a clay pot or a deep bowl, with the pancakes stacked separately. The pancakes are unsweetened and thick rather than thin and sweet.
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Try potato babka
A bake of grated potato with crackling and onion, cooked in a clay pot until the top browns. Dense, filling and served with sour cream.
The top should be dark and crisp while the middle stays moist. Its relative is potato kishka, the same mixture baked in a casing.
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Try kholodnik in summer
A cold beetroot soup on kefir with cucumber, herbs and half a boiled egg, bright pink in colour. Served with hot boiled potatoes on the side.
Hot potatoes with a cold soup is the classic serving rather than a mistake. The season runs May to September; in winter it is rarely made.
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Try vereshchaka
Pork ribs braised in a sweet-sour sauce built on kvass or beer with onion. An old gentry dish, served with pancakes or buckwheat.
The sourness comes from kvass rather than vinegar, which makes it milder than expected. It is sometimes served in a pot sealed with a disc of dough.
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Eat kalduny
Dumplings, or draniki with a meat filling inside, served with sour cream and crackling. The name comes from an old word linked to sorcery.
Potato kalduny are larger than draniki and take longer to fry. The dumpling version is boiled in broth and served in it.
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Try palendvitsa and salo
Air-dried spiced pork loin sliced thin, and salted salo with garlic. Cold cuts sold by weight at the market.
Palendvitsa is drier and leaner than salo, and an easier place to start. The Komarovsky market lets you taste before buying.
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Try forest mushroom dishes
Ceps and chanterelles in a sour cream sauce, mushroom broth, dried mushrooms in soups and fillings. In autumn mushrooms are a main ingredient here rather than a garnish.
Dried ceps give a more concentrated flavour than fresh and are used all year. In season the market sells mushrooms by the bucket.
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Try zhur and krupnik
Zhur is a sour soup on oat or rye starter with smoked meats; krupnik is a thick barley soup with mushrooms and potato. Winter dishes of village origin.
The starter is set days in advance, and the sourness in zhur is soft and lactic. The fasting version of krupnik is built on mushroom broth.
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Try klyotski dumplings
Potato balls with or without a meat filling, boiled and served in broth or with crackling. The ones with a filling are called klyotski with souls.
The dough mixes raw and boiled potato, which is what holds them together. They come with sour cream and fried onion.
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Try local baking Desserts and pastries
Pies with berries, curd cheese and poppy seed, honey cake and sour cream biscuits. Home baking sold by the slice in bakeries and at the market.
Poppy seed and curd fillings are more common here than chocolate. Blueberry pies are seasonal, July to August.
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Buy forest berries and honey Desserts and pastries
Blueberries, lingonberries, cranberries and wild raspberries at the market in season, plus honey by variety: linden, buckwheat, heather. Berries are sold by the cup.
Blueberry season is July and August, cranberry from late September. Buckwheat honey is dark and faintly bitter; linden honey is pale and floral.
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Drink kvass Non-alcoholic drinks
A fermented rye bread drink: sweet-sour, lightly fizzy and barely alcoholic. In summer it is poured from street barrels.
Barrel kvass is live and slightly cloudy; the bottled kind is often just flavoured soda. Kvass is also the base of cold okroshka soup.
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Try birch sap Non-alcoholic drinks
A clear sap collected from tree trunks in spring, faintly sweet and nearly neutral. The season is three or four weeks in March and April.
Fresh sap keeps only a couple of days, so most of it is preserved and comes out sweeter. It is sold at markets and in shops in three-litre jars.
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Try krambambulya Local alcohol
A honey and spice infusion with cinnamon, clove and pepper, drunk cold in small glasses or hot in winter. A historic gentry drink.
The hot version works like mulled wine and is served in winter. Its relatives are bison grass vodka and infusions on cranberry and rowan.
