Cook like Moldovans!

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Moldovan cuisine represents a synthesis of the natural riches of this geographical region - cereals, vegetables, fruits. Traditional baking on the one hand and the specific location of Moldova on the border between countries with different cultures, influenced the food system of Moldovans in different periods of history.

Moldovan cuisine has been preserved for centuries, absorbing all the best of Greek, Slavonic, Byzantine, Mediterranean cuisine. A great influence on the Moldovan culinary art was the Turkish cuisine. As a result, today's Moldovan meal attracts not only a tasting palette, which is based on a wide variety of vegetables, pork, lamb, beef, poultry, but also through a rich arsenal of culinary processing techniques. of the products, taken from neighboring countries.

However, the Moldovan cuisine has developed as an original, special one, having individual specific characteristics, managing to combine culinary methods and product combinations, incompatible at first sight (meat with fruit, desserts with wine, marinated fruits etc.).

There are few Moldovan dishes where vegetables are not used. Vegetables are boiled, cooked, chopped, fried, salted. They are consumed as separate food and as a garnish. Vegetables are prepared in combination with all types of meat (beef, pork, lamb, poultry, fish). They are also used as fillers for traditional baking (învârtită, plăcintă, saralii). Garlic, black pepper, paprika are used as spices in Moldovan cuisine. Also, fresh vegetables, dill, parsley, leeks, celery are used abundantly.

From the earliest times on the table of Moldovans (brânză) Moldovan cheese is served, which is made in brine in homemade conditions. The cheese is used not only as an appetizer, but also as an ingredient in different pieces of vegetables, eggs, dough and meat.

Although maize has appeared in Moldova relatively recently (17th century), it occupies an important place in the Moldovan menu. The young corn (in milk) is baked on the bacon, or it is boiled. It is used in the preparation of soups, salads, etc. From the corn flour is prepared the famous mămăligă, which in turn gave birth to a separate compartment in the Moldovan cuisine. The mămăligă is fried, baked, stuffed, consumed as a special dish and as a garnish. Combined with wheat flour, it is used in the preparation of a wide range of pastry and confectionery products.

Apart from the traditional methods of preparing the dishes (boiling, frying, chopping), the preparation of the dishes on open fire, on the grill, is fond of Moldovans. Thus, all types of meat (usually marinated in wine), fish, vegetables, mushrooms and even in some cases, fruits are prepared. In order to preserve their juice and give them the aroma, certain dishes are baked in leaves of vine, walnut, cabbage.

The dessert table of Moldovans isn’t less original. The large variety of fruits, dessert wines, nuts have allowed the appearance of a large number of combinations in the form of jellies, juices, sweets and compotes, fruits filled with nuts, fruit in wine, colțunași, plăcinte, copturi.

The experts in the culinary arts have a unanimous opinion, the value of the cuisine consists not in the number of existing dishes, but in the variety of taste and aroma shades, in the art of combining different products. According to these criteria, Moldovan cuisine, in our opinion, occupies one of the leading places among the cuisines of the world.

Want to learn how to cook Moldovan traditional food? Today is your lucky day!!!

1 ^st Day

Cooking adventure

Included highlights:

At "Casa Parinteasca" Craft Centre from Palanca village, you will get to know not only the Moldovan traditional costumes and ethnographic customs, but you will also learn how to cook the best known Moldavian dish – “sarmale”. Here we will also enjoy a very special lunch, trying also the “sarmale – cabbage or wine leaf rolls”. Traditional dishes will be served with the best local wine, while the organic herbal tea, accompanied by homemade jams will surprise you with their amazing taste.

After lunch we will visit the Honey Museum from Raciula, learn about the life of bees, taste different kind of honey and other honey products.

Back to Chisinau and on the way visit to Frumoasa Monastery.

Included meals:

Lunch

What People Say

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Dear Natalia, we want to thank you sincerely for your expert and skillful guiding during our trip to Moldova. Our experience in Dumbraveni – as we told you – will prove unforgettable for us always. You have a wonderful way with people which will take you far.

Have you ever wanted to go on a culture-wine-food tour? In California? France? Italy? Please, have some imagination! Be a little adventurous and go on one in Romania and Moldova.

It was my good luck to participate in a tour organized by Ways Travel, during which i checked out the many wonders of Romania and Moldova.

Our group on the bus was an international gang of nine – a Belgian, a German, a Norwegian, an Australian, a few Americans of interesting ethnic alloys and me, dual Dutch and American citizen. What can I say, it was an experience just sitting on a bus with these people and hear their war stories and get initiated into the workings of the behind-the-scenes travel industry.

Leader of our tribe was the fabulous tour guide Victoria, who speaks four languages, English, German, Russian, Romanian, one of those people who makes a simple bilingual person such as myself feel humble and uneducated.

The trip was a symphony of history, food, drink, music and dance. Dancing with the Gypsies no less. I tell you, it was fabulous, it was intoxicating. We got history – a dizzying whirl of wars and battles and bloody strife. Of conquests and annexations, of armies rampaging through the countryside, raping, pillaging and impaling. We heard colorful tales about Dacian tribes, the Roman Empire, the Red Horde, the Saxons, the Ottoman Empire, the communist era under Ceausescu. And let’s not forget to mention good old Count Dracula, Vlad the Impaler, who hailed from Transylvania. Really, we deserved every drop of hootch we got along the way to recover from all the tragedies we vicariously suffered through.

In Romania we loved the beautiful towns of Sibiu and Sighisoara. In Sighisoara we missed seeing the house where Dracula was born because a movie was being filmed and they’d closed it off for visitors. Fortunately, we had a liqueur and brandy tasting to cheer us up. We hadn’t had lunch yet and our stomachs were empty, which helped raise the mood quickly.

A highlight was our visit to the home of a Roma family in Transylvania and learning more about their culture and lifestyle. (You can read a story about this on my blog here.) Not all Gypsies are beggars living in the streets of large cities. It’s always a good thing to be disabused of your prejudices and preconceived notions.

We stayed in excellent hotels and lodges, as well as in a humble hostel run by a monastery. We ate fancy restaurant food as well as simple village fare. We saw exquisite as well as cheery architecture, visited opulent cathedrals as well as the modest underground monastery chapel in Orhei Vechi, not far from Chisinau. The vino flowing across the miles was a charming mix of the good, the bad and the holy. The holy being the wine we tasted in a monastery, blessed by the priests. Unfortunately, the blessing did not transform it into nectar of the gods, but the dinner there was quite gourmet, all prepared from food grown by the monks without chemical assistance.

We also visited Transnistria, which is a rather unique place, as most of you will already know. It is also home to the famous Kvint brandy factory and would you believe, we went there for a brandy dégustation – seven varieties of brandy. It was very informative, interesting and intoxicating. It was also lunch time, but fortunately there was food. We eventually struggled out of there, back on the bus, across the border that is not a border, and traveled down to the Purcari wineries in the south of Moldova where we were treated to . . . you guessed it . . . a wine tasting. Of ten types of wine. Not just any old village plonk, either. No, we got to sip the wine of kings, queens and tsars. Our livers got a workout that day.

I’m going to stop here. There was more, much more, but I don’t want to give away everything, because what you should do, really, is check out Ways Travel’s website at www.ways.md .

This trip has exceeded my expectations due mostly to your thoughtful guidance and warmth.

Thank you for sharing yout knowledge and passion about your wonderful country and for treating us like family.