The Traditional Komi-Permyak dishes

In the course of time the Komi-Permyak people learned not only to get gifts of nature in the forests, but also to cook delicious and full meal, to carry stock in the birch bark, clay and wooden containers, which gave taste and aroma to vegetable marinades. The modern Komi-Permyak people continue to use gifts of forests and, perhaps, do not recognize the   deep connection that exists between them and Parma (one of the names of the north-west territory of Ural), which gives them vital energy and health. The modern cuisine is based on the centuries-old traditions, established on the cooking of national dishes. On the basis of valuable experience and ancestral knowledge, restaurants improve Komi-Permyak main courses in their day-to-day activity in a creative manner and continue their history in our days.

From the dawn of history gathering of berries and mushrooms, fishing and hunting formed the peculiar food for Komi-Permyak people. There are healthy and tasty herbage (bishop’s-weed, field horsetail, horseradish, sphingid etc.), berries (stone berry, wild strawberry, cowberry, cranberry, cloudberry, bilberry, blueberry, Arctic raspberry, raspberry, honeysuckle and etc.), also unique taste with light bitterness and resinous aroma of the game (capercailzie, grouse, black cock, woodcock) and wild animals (hare, boar, elk, bear).

Bishop’s-weed

Bishop’s-weed is a perennial herbal plant, which grows in the rich soils in greenwoods and mixed forests, in the clearings among bushes. The young leaves of bishop’s-weed and puff scapes are suitable for using in food as salad.

People add it into soups instead of cabbage and make puree. The leaves of bishop’s-weed have a pleasant smell, and used as seasoning to various dishes.You can make a marinade with vinegar and scapes of leaves and also to cook paste or garnish. In the folk medicine it is used to cure gout and rheumatism. The leaves have significant quantity of protein and comparatively small quantity ofcellulose.

Bishop’s-weed cream-soup

• bishop’s-weed – 480g
• spinach – 240g
• onion – 80g
• butter – 40g
• cream – 300g
• broth – 300g
• salt, pepper

Boil fresh sprouts of bishop’s-weed and leaves of spinach not for a long time in the small quantity of water. Brown thinly sliced onionon the butter. Grind up prepared bishop’s-weed, spinach andonion in the blender. Add salt and pepper.

Young field horsetail (pistiki)

Pistikiis a young field horsetail. This plant is reach of vitamins and very full meal. However, you will need a lot of time to gather even a little pail of it. People use horsetail tea in the scientific medicine as a diuretic, anti-inflammatory, hemostatic, bracing, healing and astringent remedy. Also, it is useful with heart failure and accelerate water-salt metabolism. In the folk medicine it is used with malignancy, external and internal bleeding, cholelithiasisand urolithiasis.

Komi-Permyak people consider that horsetail can substitute bread. They pickle it for the winter to cook national dishes for the whole year. Patties filled with young field horsetail are especially tasty and some housewives cook souffle and pelmeni(Russian dumplings).

Young field horsetail porridge

• milk – 180g
• eggs – 1 or 2
• young field horsetail–30g
• salt to taste

Add salt to milk, eggs and chopped horsetail, mixe it and put in the oven in a ceramic cup. Remain the cup open until the ruddy crust appears. Serve it hot or cold.

The beer (Sur)

Take a gvozdyanka (a type of pot) and fill it (but not to the brim) with malty dough with the addition of chopped straw, a few pinches of wheat or rye flour and put it into well-heated stove. Soar it during the whole day. Take gvozdyanka out of the stove and pour batch with boiled water up to the top. Leave it for a while. Open a plug on gvozdyanka, and you will see flowing, viscous, sweet liquid – mash. When mash stops flowing, drown the batch again, then remain and filter it. You should filter the mash in a liquid condition. The first part of prepared mash is made for cooking of parenki –a baked root crop, desserts, and this is a great drink. Keep the mush in the cold place. Sour the mush with a special barm. Mature the beer for 7or 9 hours and it will be dark, viscous and scummy.