The king of Lithuanian cuisine!

June 23, 2022 7:11 PM

While most people think of Ireland when they think of potatoes, Lithuanian cuisine features the tuber most heavily. The nation is so potato obsessed that a Peruvian potato farmer can feel right at home. Try cepelinai, the stuffed potato dumpling named after Graff von Zeppelin, often termed the country's national dish. Try this kugelis, a savory potato cake. (Or this one, or this one, or the Kugelis Cook-Off winner - there are as many kugelis recipes as there are Lithuanian families). Perhaps a flatter potato? Bulviniai blynai is a tasty potato pancake. But that bar food that looks like French fries is actually fried rye bread (kepta duona).
posted by rednikki (6 comments total)

oh man, I wish there's even a single lithuanian restaurant where I am....
posted by cendawanita at 10:06 PM on June 23, 2022

I live in one of the key locations that Lithuanians migrated to and there's not one here either!
posted by rednikki at 6:08 AM on June 24, 2022

What did all these people eat before 1589? Was it really just bad tasting compared to the potato?
posted by sammyo at 6:36 AM on June 24, 2022

Hmmm, that kugelis looks awfully like my (Litvak Jewish) family's potato kugel... kugel being the generic term for a baked starchy cake, another alternative being the noodle-based lokshen kugel... and kugel is all over Ashkenazi cuisine, in savoury and sweet forms, the sweet ones being from the Polish areas.
posted by i_am_joe's_spleen at 1:48 AM on June 25, 2022

sammyo, turnips and rutabaga and parsnips and carrots and maybe beets? Flavor aside, none of those give you anything like the calories-out-per-calorie-in that potatoes can, as I understand it. Wheat is probably close, but less widely reliable. Chestnut trees might beat them but it takes a long time to get there.

I would like to know what the specific patterns of potato introduction to Lithuania were - through another adopting cuisine? Are there traces of the intermediary in Lithuanian recipes? Etc.
posted by clew at 2:20 PM on June 25, 2022

Shout out to the amazingly named Cepelinai/Zeppelina for it's airship inspired size.

Bring back airships! Serve dumplings to me on an airship!
posted by Gor-ella at 1:42 PM on June 26, 2022