Romanian food and culture
Romanian Food | Domestic Life | Special Occasions | Meals and Customs | Food Glossary
The Romanian is a study in contrasts. Like the Romanian climate which is icily cold in winter and fiercely hot in summer, the Romanian can be consumed with melancholy listening to the doine (poignant country songs of love and longing) or elevated to a passionate frenzy when dancing the hora or the colusari. Gypsy violins can make him cry but the sound of flutes and nai (panpipes) or cimpoi (bag-pipes) will evoke songs and laughter. He likes his tea very weak and his coffee very strong, his pickles very hot and his desserts very sweet. Like the powerful wind called the crivetz, which whips up the snow in the winter and drives the yellow dust in the summer, the Romanian soul is alternately gay and animated or sad and despairing – but seldom dull.
Aside from these extremes of temperament and taste, the two-thirds of the
Romanian population engaged in agriculture do show a form of moderation
when it comes to their work. The rich fertile lowlands and the Wallachian
Plains yield bounteous crops with little effort, and for centuries the
people contented themselves with their own needs and little more.
Probably it is those same fertile pastures, orchards, vineyards, and
fields of grain that enticed the Roman conquerors about 100 C.E. In
exchange for the grain and the gold that they took from the land, they
built bridges and roads; but more important they built the beginnings of
an identity and left a language and culture that is proudly preserved to
this day. The strength of the Roman cultural identity can be better
appreciated when one realizes that Romania was and still is almost
surrounded by Slavic peoples and even counts within her own population
more than a dozen ethnic groups. Despite this, more than 85 percent of the
population speak Romanian, which is closely related to the other Romance
languages of Latin, Spanish, French, and Italian. Further, their
homogeneity is displayed not only in their almost universal temperament
and tastes but also in their religion, for the vast majority of the
population are members of the Romanian Orthodox Church.
Romania today is composed of the areas of Transylvania, Banat, Wallachia,
and Moldavia, with the Transylvanian Alps and parts of the Carpathian
Mountains forming her interior. In former times, Bucovina and Bessarabia
were also a part of Romania – but never all these areas at one time.
Because of the tug-of-war for her lands, parts of Romania developed
differently, strongly influenced by invaders. For example, Transylvania,
originally a Romanian province, before 1000 C.E. became a Hungarian
province, but in the 1200s was settled by German colonists, thus adding to
the population of Romanians, Hungarians, and Szecklers (of non-Hungarian
origin). At this time Hungarian domination spread to most of Romania, and
the original Romanian population was kept in ignorance and subservience
for almost 800 years.
In the 1400s, the Turks conquered Moldavia and Wallachia and placed Greeks
on the thrones. In the late 1600s a contest of power between Austria and
the Ottoman Empire further suppressed the Romanians and added Hungarian
peasants to the oppression.
By the late 1700s, Russia joined the battle for Romania's lands and by
1812 Bessarabia became Russian. But a surge of Romanian nationalism
resulted in the creation of Romania as an independent kingdom in 1881, and
rather than wars, she made treaties with Russia and the Austro-Hungarian
Empire and gained some internal stability.
In the powerful desire to throw off their subservient yokes and gain
independence, the Moldavian peasants began a surge of anti-Semitism that
later became government policy and led in the early 1900s to a mass exodus
of Romania's Jews.
Towards the end of the First World War, Romania's siding with the Allies
gained her more territory at one time than she had previously ever known.
Back into her fold came Transylvania, Bucovina, most of Banat and
Bessarabia. In the wake of this good fortune, Romania rescinded its
anti-Semitic policies and attempted much-needed land reform policies. This
too was short-lived and growing political pressures and Fascist sympathies
led again to Jewish repression, censorship, and alignment with the Germans
during the Second World War. By 1944, Russian armies swept into Bessarabia
and Bucovina and deep into Romanian territory to secure her surrender. The
gradual spread of communism began, as did the shift from a basically
agricultural economy to a more industrialized one.
Because of the repressive history of Romania, it is all the more
intriguing that the country has retained her ancient Roman cultural
identity and language – even the Romanian Orthodox religion. With the many
territorial exchanges and foreign rulers, and despite the sufferings of
her people, Romania mirrors her history in her cuisine but not in her
identity. From the Southern Slays of the former Yugoslavia came the
sarmales and ghiveciu, from Hungary the tokany,
gulyas, and paprikash, from Austria the strudels,
tortes, and wiener schnitzel, from Turkey the pilafs,
baklava, halva, dolmas, and strong Turkish coffee, and
finally from Russia the taste for soured soups, blini, and a
variety of dark breads made from rye and coarse wheat flours. In some
areas the German love of potatoes predominates over the inherent Romanian
love of mamaliga, Romania's staple "bread of gold" made from
cornmeal.
Aside from cuisine, one other Slavic tradition has become important in
Romania. This is the reverence for wheat as the symbol of life. A part of
the Romanian Orthodox funeral service is the blessing of a plate of
mounded wheat sprinkled with sugar, raisins, and nuts. This is similar to
the Ukrainian kutya, the Russian kutija, and the Serbian
koljivo or zito.
Romanians are noted for extremes in temperament and taste, and diversity
in history and cuisine, but some things have remained comparatively
consistent. Although increasingly Romanian women are stepping into
full-time jobs away from their homes, they still retain their age-old
respect for their men; the Romanian man comes first. And although
Romanians are devotedly religious, they have embraced Christianity in
addition to, not instead of, paganistic rites and superstitions.
All share one other characteristic: they believe firmly that old age is simply a disease, not an inevitability. Health spas, mineral baths, drinking waters, the assiduous application of herbs and sometimes even a spell or two are believed to do the trick. From infancy to adulthood the taking of special waters, teas, and herbal brews are as much a staple as their beloved mamaliga. Hence too the serious devotion paid to the skills of the kitchen by all Romanian women: what can be more important than food and herbs?