Ukrainian chefs pivot from culinary revival to survival cooking amid Russian invasion

Ukrainian chefs who were preparing to launch a revival of ethnic Ukrainian cuisine are now cooking for survival following Russia's invasion. World Central Kitchen (WCK), founded by Spanish chef José Andrés, established emergency food stations across Ukraine and neighboring countries after the invasion began on 24 February. Chefs including Ievgen Klopotenko, Igor Mezentsev, Eleonora Baranova, and Volodymyr Yaroslavskyy are partnering with WCK in 12 cities including Lviv, Kyiv, Kharkiv, Odessa, and Mykolayiv to feed citizens and military personnel. In Mariupol, Russian troops cut off water, electricity, heating, and blocked food and medical aid, with Mayor Vadym Boychenko reporting citizens drinking snow for water. UNESCO is currently deciding on Ukraine's 2021 application to include borscht as Intangible Cultural Heritage, spearheaded by Klopotenko with historical research dating to 1584. Chefs Olia Hercules and Alissa Timoshkina are organizing #cookforukraine fundraisers for UNICEF. Borscht, with its many variations documented in Hercules's 2020 cookbook 'Summer Kitchens', represents both cultural diversity and Soviet-era homogenization under Stalin's commissar Anastas Mikoyan. The situation in Mariupol grimly recalls the Holodomor famine of 1932-1933 that killed millions of ethnic Ukrainians.