TRIUMPH OF EPICUREANISM

As the off season draws to a close, Ukraine staged quite an event, the First Ukraine’s Stars of Culinary Art Festival organized by the Kyiv City State Administration, the Kyiv International Contract Fair, the Association of Ukrainian Cooks, and Kyiv State Trade and Economics University. The organizers set the goal of promoting the culture of nourishment and the quality and level of service. This purpose was served not only by tasting the traditional Ukrainian food but also the increasingly popular ethnic dishes of the world, as well as by holding workshops and master classes of the leading cooks.

It is no secret the past few years have revealed a tendency of a rational and well-balanced nutrition, when a person thinks over what to prefer-calorie-rich Ukrainian varenyky (something like ravioli —Ed.) or a vegetarian salad.

A whole lifetime might not suffice for the common man just to see, let alone savor, so many culinary masterpieces presented at the four-day festival in Kyiv’s Sports Palace. And those who visited the exhibition did not lose out. For example, it was an exotic thing for the man in the street that such a gift of the sea as fish roulade with mousse and truffles should require mushrooms imported from France.

“This dish emits a charming fragrance,” Dnipro chef Vyacheslav Hrybov, who collects recipes from all over the world and was awarded the Festival’s gold medal, told The Day. “Even if a cook makes a slip, the aroma will cover it up.”

The “Godmother’s Courtyard,” a banquet dish presented by Sienia’s and Hogy’s Tavern chef Ihor Sukhov, can only be described as a rural idyll. This buckwheat-meal estate has room for a whole household: a hut made of traditional Ukrainian fatback, domestic duck, and an overseas pineapple as the Godfather and Godmother, miniature bags with chicken-fillet-stuffed pancakes, with appetizers represented by southern eggplant, cheese, quail, and rolled cold cuts.

165 public-catering facilities and organizations from sixteen oblasts showed a unique exhibition of achievement in culinary and restaurant business. Meanwhile, seventy contestants vied for gold, silver, and bronze medals, the titles of master cook and master confectioner, and, finally, the Festival Grand Prix eventually won by Kyiv’s Dnipro Restaurant whose masters came off best in such categories as bartender, waiter, and cook. In addition, you simply could not take your eyes off “Millennium,” a specially laid table to celebrate the new epoch.

The festival became a gourmet paradise for over 40,000 visitors. It also revealed Ukraine’s huge potential in the propagation and development of both its own and world cuisine.

As the off season draws to a close, Ukraine staged quite an event, the First Ukraine’s Stars of Culinary Art Festival organized by the Kyiv City State Administration, the Kyiv International Contract Fair, the Association of Ukrainian Cooks, and Kyiv State Trade and Economics University. The organizers set the goal of promoting the culture of nourishment and the quality and level of service. This purpose was served not only by tasting the traditional Ukrainian food but also the increasingly popular ethnic dishes of the world, as well as by holding workshops and master classes of the leading cooks.

It is no secret the past few years have revealed a tendency of a rational and well-balanced nutrition, when a person thinks over what to prefer-calorie-rich Ukrainian varenyky (something like ravioli —Ed.) or a vegetarian salad.

A whole lifetime might not suffice for the common man just to see, let alone savor, so many culinary masterpieces presented at the four-day festival in Kyiv’s Sports Palace. And those who visited the exhibition did not lose out. For example, it was an exotic thing for the man in the street that such a gift of the sea as fish roulade with mousse and truffles should require mushrooms imported from France.

“This dish emits a charming fragrance,” Dnipro chef Vyacheslav Hrybov, who collects recipes from all over the world and was awarded the Festival’s gold medal, told The Day. “Even if a cook makes a slip, the aroma will cover it up.”

The “Godmother’s Courtyard,” a banquet dish presented by Sienia’s and Hogy’s Tavern chef Ihor Sukhov, can only be described as a rural idyll. This buckwheat-meal estate has room for a whole household: a hut made of traditional Ukrainian fatback, domestic duck, and an overseas pineapple as the Godfather and Godmother, miniature bags with chicken-fillet-stuffed pancakes, with appetizers represented by southern eggplant, cheese, quail, and rolled cold cuts.

165 public-catering facilities and organizations from sixteen oblasts showed a unique exhibition of achievement in culinary and restaurant business. Meanwhile, seventy contestants vied for gold, silver, and bronze medals, the titles of master cook and master confectioner, and, finally, the Festival Grand Prix eventually won by Kyiv’s Dnipro Restaurant whose masters came off best in such categories as bartender, waiter, and cook. In addition, you simply could not take your eyes off “Millennium,” a specially laid table to celebrate the new epoch.

The festival became a gourmet paradise for over 40,000 visitors. It also revealed Ukraine’s huge potential in the propagation and development of both its own and world cuisine.