#wild-herbs

In the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, “Borshch” Wasn’t Soup!?

Sources from the 16th–19th centuries describe drinks made from hogweed that were fermented and consumed instead of beer in Lithuania, Poland and neighbouring lands. Some of this evidence is directly connected with Grodno, Polesia and other territories of present-day Belarus. Based on these sources, I propose a hypothesis: early “borshch” may originally have been a fermented, probably low-alcohol liquid base similar to kvass or light beer, with the name only later passing to the soup we know today.