Every August, food writer Olia Hercules’ parents, Olga and Petro, hold an extended family gathering in their garden in Karkhovka, in the south of Ukraine, which they jokingly call the Summit. Under the branches of wisteria and wild grapes, they eat Olga’s egg noodles with duck, remember now-departed relatives, laugh, sing and cry. “There is something therapeutic about it,” Hercules says. “You’re nourishing yourself, and there’s a softness to the environment that makes talking feel easy. We don’t have a therapy tradition in Ukraine, but we do have this.”
Except she doesn’t know when the Summit will happen again. When we speak seven days into “the nightmare” that is Putin’s war on Ukraine, Karkhovka is under siege. Hercules’ parents were stoic at first, she says, “but then atrocities started happening around them and our calls became shorter. I know my mum is protecting me: she doesn’t want me to see her cry.” Her brother, Sasha, is in Kyiv being trained to fight – “he is literally in his normal clothes with a gun, crawling around on the floor with no knee pads” – while her husband, Joe Woodhouse, a food photographer, is going to Essex to pick up bulletproof vests, which they will send to Ukraine via Berlin, along with ballistic combat underwear, helmets, boots and night-vision goggles; all are destined for her brother’s regiment. Until a week ago, Sasha ran an eco bike business in Kyiv; now, he is one of a group of 130 urban defenders.
In the past seven days, Hercules has been rallying her Instagram followers to raise funds for the Ukrainian resistance, and pointing people in the direction of ways they can help. She has shared photographs of her family and friends to put faces to a fast-developing humanitarian crisis; in one post, we see Olga cutting ripe tomatoes in her kitchen – it is summer, a simpler time – and underneath is written: “Let’s not forget that Ukraine is not headlines, it’s people.”
Hercules has joined forces with her friend, Russian cook and writer Alissa Timoshkina, to launch #CookForUkraine, a global initiative to support Ukraine via Unicef UK, which follows in the footsteps of #CookForSyria, the massively successful charity appeal that since its launch in 2016 has raised more than £1m through supper clubs, bake sales and cookbooks. Restaurants add a suggested donation of £1 to every bill, or a Ukrainian-inspired dish to their menus, and send the proceeds to charity; cooks around the world have been encouraged to make something to sell, or to post on social media, to raise funds for the appeal and to drum up awareness not just of a Ukraine in crisis, but of a country with a rich culinary culture. Search #CookForUkraine on Instagram, and you’ll find poppyseed cakes and cookies inspired by pysanky (Ukrainian decorated eggs), borsch, chicken kiev and even chef’s knives made by bladesmith Clement Knives, their handles the colours of the Ukrainian flag, which the company is raffling. Since launching last week, the appeal has so far raised £55,000 and counting.
“It might be confusing, at a time like this, to see all these beautiful pictures of food being circulated,” Timoshkina says, “but food is an important tool for education, a basic thing that everyone can relate to. What better way to learn about a people than through their food?” For her, leading #CookForUkraine is an act of defiance; she is, she says, at once “extremely ashamed to be Russian” and “determined to distinguish Russia from Putin”. She emphasises the common ground between Ukraine and Russia, once again illustrated by food: “Our tastebuds show that we are more alike than apart,” she says.
Hercules says, poignantly, how horror brings people closer together. This is true both of her friendship with Timoshkina, which has taken on a new dimension in the past week, and of her family; for her brother, she feels both terrified and a new respect. Her voice breaks: “I hope I see them in Karkhovka again,” she says of the family gatherings under the canopy with egg noodles and duck. “I really hope so.”
Interview by Mina Holland
Olia Hercules’ recipes to #CookForUkraine
Eggs with horseradish mayonnaise and wild garlic
These eggs are traditionally served during Easter as part of a bigger feast. If you want to make them when wild garlic is not in season, simply use another soft herb – you can never go wrong with dill when you make Ukrainian dishes. If you don’t want to make your own mayonnaise, use shop-bought – you’ll need about 100ml – and just stir in the horseradish and lemon juice.
Prep 10 min
Cook 5 min
Serves 4–6
6 eggs
A handful of wild garlic flowers or dill, to garnish
For the horseradish mayonnaise
2 egg yolks (freeze the leftover whites to make meringues)
1 tbsp dijon mustard, or other smooth mustard
20g horseradish root, peeled and finely grated, or 1 tbsp jarred horseradish sauce
Juice of 1 lemon
Salt and black pepper
100ml rapeseed oil, or any mild vegetable oil
For hard-boiled eggs with a soft yolk, put the eggs in a pan of cold water and put on a medium-high heat. Watch them, for as soon as the water comes to a rolling boil, you must turn the heat down to low and set a timer for four minutes. When the time is up, drain the eggs and submerge them in cold water.
For the mayonnaise, put the egg yolks in a medium bowl. Add the mustard, horseradish, lemon juice and a generous pinch of salt, then whisk. Slowly start trickling the oil into the bowl, whisking all the time. When all the oil has been incorporated, you should end up with a delightful, pillowy horseradish mayo. Taste it and add more salt and some pepper if the flavour seems underwhelming.
Shell the eggs, cut them in half, then spoon a little horseradish mayo on top, sprinkle with wild garlic flowers or dill and serve.
Puffed omelette with broccoli
Ukrainians have a special love for sour milk products, and especially eulogise smetana, a type of soured cream made all over central and eastern Europe, says Olia. A really good-quality cultured cream or creme fraiche can do wonders for a dish, enriching it at the same time as providing tart freshness. My mum makes what I call a puffed omelette using smetana, and there is something almost Japanese about its delicate, custardy texture. This omelette is extremely light and satisfying, and you can substitute almost any other vegetable for the broccoli: thickly sliced tomatoes or cauliflower, spinach, chopped spring greens, green beans or spring onions.
Prep 10 min
Cook 15 min
Serves 2 for breakfast, or 1 for a light meal
100g broccoli
1 tbsp rapeseed or vegetable oil
15g butter
3 eggs
100ml yoghurt or whole milk
Salt and black pepper
Cut the florets off the broccoli, then trim the tougher outer layer off the stalk. Cut the sweet inner core of the stalk into slices about the same size as the florets.
Heat the oil and butter in an 18cm nonstick frying pan, ideally one for which you have a lid; otherwise, a makeshift lid, such as a plate, will do. Add the broccoli – including the stalks, if using – and start browning it over a medium heat.
Meanwhile, whisk the eggs with the yoghurt or milk and season quite generously. You want the egg mixture to become really voluminous, so use an electric whisk if you have one.
When the broccoli is nice and browned – “rosy-cheeked”, as Ukrainians would say – turn up the heat to high and gently pour in the egg mixture. Immediately cover the pan, cook for one to two minutes, then lower the heat to the minimum possible and cook for another minute or two. When you lift the lid, you will be met by the flamboyant creature that is our puffed omelette: it should have a light, fluffy texture and, if you used yoghurt, a pleasantly sour note.
Curd cake with caramelised apples
My friend Jan once drunkenly asked me to cook for his dad Anton’s 70th birthday. Anton grew up in Derby – his Polish father, Alfredo, had settled there after the war, when he was demobbed from the Carpathian lancers. Sernyk, a traditional cheesecake eaten across Poland and Ukraine, was one of Anton’s childhood favourites, something that connected him to his Polish heritage, so I decided that’s what I would make. Struggling to find good-quality cottage cheese the day before, I panicked and bought ricotta, and adapted my mum’s original recipe to suit that cheese’s moister texture. Happily, it was a huge success, and this cake is now also one of my son’s favourites. I hope someone will make it for him when he is 70.
Prep 15 min
Cook 40 min
Serves 8-10
200g unsalted butter, softened
200g apples, cored and sliced
1 tbsp brown sugar
200g golden caster sugar
3 eggs, separated
1 tsp vanilla extract
500g ricotta, or good-quality cottage cheese
120g fine semolina, or polenta
Salt
Melt 25g of the butter in a frying pan on a medium heat, add the apples and cook for two to three minutes on each side, until they start to turn golden. Sprinkle in the brown sugar, cook the apples for another minute on each side, until caramelised, then transfer to a bowl and leave to cool slightly.
Heat the oven to 200C (180C fan)/390F/gas 6 and grease a 20cm square or round cake tin with butter. Lay the apples in the base of the tin.
Put the butter and 150g caster sugar in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the whisk attachment and whisk until fairly fluffy. Break the egg yolks with a fork and gradually add them to the mix, whisking them in well as you go, then whisk in the vanilla extract and cheese. Transfer the mixture to another bowl, then fold in the semolina or polenta (if you use the latter, you’ll will get a cake with more texture).
Wash and dry the mixer bowl and whisk attachment, then add the egg whites and whisk until they start frothing up. Add the remaining 50g caster sugar and the salt, and keep whisking to soft peaks.
Take a large spoonful of the egg white mixture and fold it quite vigorously into the butter and cheese mixture, to loosen it up. Gently fold in the rest of the egg white mixture, then pour over the apples in the cake tin. Bake for 30 minutes, or until the cake is a little wobbly, but not liquid: it will set more firmly as it cools.
Leave the cake in its tin to rest and cool down, then slice and serve. Unsweetened tea with lemon goes perfectly with this.
Recipes extracted from Summer Kitchens: Recipes and Reminiscences from every Corner of Ukraine, by Olia Hercules, published by Bloomsbury at £26. To order a copy for £22.62, go to guardianbookshop.com
To find out more about the #CookForUkraine initiative, go to justgiving.com/fundraising/cookforukraine
