I will skip the introductions as this is part two of a post and continue where I left off in the last post. Romanians usually eat, rather anticlimactically, 3 meals a day, unless you are too poor or following one o’ them new-fangled intermittent fasting things the kids seems to like these days.

Try the Estonian avocado with typical Romanian Sriracha

Eat at Pie’s!

To do the linguistic part first, breakfast is called “mic dejun” (similar to French I would say, mic meaning small). The mid-day meal is “pranz”. And the evening meal is “cina”.

To start with breakfast, it can be either eggs (fried – in the one proper way, not like you Americans and your 50 ways of frying an egg –  scrambled, boiled or omelette) or cold cuts. Most often cheese accompanies either the eggs or the cold cuts as a side, along with some raw vegetables (onion, radishes, tomatoes, bell peppers most often). More traditional, as in 100 years ago, it would mostly be bread or mămăligă with branză (cheese), slană (basically pig fat, sort of like eyetalian lardo) and raw onion. Romanians eat lots of raw onion, red onion being preferred as somewhat milder in taste.

My pictures do not do it justice

Mama Pie’s homemade noodle soup

Lunch and dinner traditionally are somewhat similar, and are usually a first course which is mostly liquid and a second course which mostly solid. Dessert is included to make the standard 3 course meal.

For the liquid part, Romanians distinguish primarily between supă – which is generally a clear broth with dumplings or noodles – and ciorbă – which is denser and has lots of vegetables and sometimes meat.

Ciorbă is further categorized. There is borş – which is soured with either the eponymous borş or with verjuice made from unripe grapes or fruit, or the juice from pickling cabbage. There is peasant style, which is less sour and has more vegetables in it – making it quite think (and hated by kids, me included, who tend to try to eat the broth while skipping the veggies which are left in the plate until angry parents tell you to eat them). There is a style made with sour cream incorporated into the broth – which is most often called a la greque. And there is ciorbă de burta which stands alone, a tripe soup made with sour cream but soured with vinegar.

Smantana is often added – superfluously in my view – to peasant style ciorbă, although adding it after cooking has a different effect then incorporating it into the broth during the cooking process.

Not that I would ever be hungover, mind you.

Really sour ciorbă is seen locally as a hangover cure. In fact, there is a traditional very sour one called Ciorbă potroace and this is traditionally eaten the second day after a wedding. In the past, wedding feasts were some of the rare occasions when people got fresh meat and plenty of it. They would get various poultry to roast. The neck, feet and innards (hearts and such) were used to make the broth which would be amply soured. The next day, after plenty of food and liberal libations, a meal of ciorbă de potroace was seen as good for recovery. There was also a silly superstition not to give chicken feet to school aged children because it was going to make them do badly at exams. No idea where that came from.

My family version of ciorbă de potroace was New Year’s turkey ciorbă. The tradition was to roast a turkey for New Year’s dinner and use the not-thighs-and-breast parts to make a really sour ciorbă which would be the first meal after sleeping in the next day, suitable due to the long night and plentiful libations.

And homemade bread, I guess

Duck legs and cabbage

Now, solid food can be mostly stews with cabbage, beans or potatoes for most people. Duck over cabbage is a preferred delicacy – an entire roast duck over a bed of cabbage. Beans are eaten with pork, often smoked rib or sausage. There are also moussakas and vegetable stews and roast chicken. Often sarmale – leaves stuffed with meat/rice mixture, most often cabbage or grape vine, but also my mother makes some good ones using young horseradish leaves. These are probably similar to such dishes in other countries. Romanians are also big about grilling – with pork being prominent and mici the national grilled dish – small caseless sausages. A local favourite is MBS or mămăligă with branză (cheese – feta style) and smantană (sour cream). Besides the main ingredients butter is usually added and sometimes soft boiled eggs.

One particularity of Romanians, usually older ones, is that they eat bread with everything. Soups, stews, meats, vegetables, a few slices of cheap white bread are always included.

I gained 3 pounds just googling that picture

On dessert, there is not much to say. There are usually crepes or cakes or ice-cream and such. One local favourite is papanasi – a highly caloric a deep fried cheese doughnut covered in sour cream and sweet preserves. Generally they come in pairs, two per portion. This is I think because originally one came just with sour cream and one just with sweet preserves, so they were two – one each way – but now they kept the number but add both sauces on both donuts.

Well, that is about it I would say. Probably the last time you have to suffer through a Romanian food post for quite some time.