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Russian-English Culinary Glossary

© Dr. Donald R. Houston

This glossary is by no means complete. It is simply an attempt to provide you with the more common words that you might see either here in recipes, in a Russian restaurant or, if you get lucky, in Russia or Ukraine if you happen travel there. Many words will look familiar as they are simply taken from French, German, English, Latin or Greek. In translation they may be spelled differently but they look familiar so you should have no a problems with them. Remember that the words are in phonetic Russian. In Cyrillic they look very different.

A
Abgora - generic term for unripe grapes
Abrad or Abardin - citrus usually tangerine or mandarin oil made from fruit's skin and/or its flowers
Abrikos - apricot
Abrikotin - Liqueur made of fruit and stones of apricots; used mostly in deserts
Aganch - Armenian confection made of grain, raisins, nuts and honey or sugar syrup
Agar - agar, gelatin of vegetable origin
Agonovij sirop - maple syrup
Agorn - maple sugar
Ajran - milk based drink similar to yogurt from North Caucasus and Azerbaidjan
Ananas - pineapple
Antrekot - boneless cut of meet/steak fried
Apelsin - orange
Arbuz - watermelon
Arisa - Armenian porridge made of wheat, meat and spices
. Artishok - artichoke
Asip - Kirgiz dish made of lam's innards
Atkanchaj - Kirgiz drink made of tea and milk
Avsen' (also called ovsen', govsen', usen', tausen', mitusen', misen' and bigusen') - Traditional Russian
dish served on March 1st (pre-christian celebration of Spring) made with beef or pork brain and tongue cooked with vegetables and spices
Avutorga - pickled row of mullet fish fish caught in Black Sea
Azu - Tatar stew made with beef, vegetables and spices

B
Banan - banana
Boda - water
Bodka - vodka
Borsch - Thick Ukrainian soup based on beet rootr>
C
Chai - tea
Chiryeshniya - cherry
Chisnok - garlic

D
Dadli - candy made from honey and nut-crumbs covered fruits
Delibal' - a term used in Eastern parts of Russian, Asia and Black Sea regions describing toxic honey (honey made from the nectar collected from the laurel flowers)
Deenya - melon
Dezha - a vessel used in production of sour-dough based rye bread. It is most commonly used on the North-West of Russia
Dezhen' - (1) rye bread/pirog; (2) paste made with cottage cheese, milk, cream, and oat meal
Dich' - wild game
Dinya - melon

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