How have you been served borscht?

[kare_raisu]

I am interested in the regional variations and accoutrements,

[MACDAD]

Borscht is one of fav's. Traditional borscht is pinkish and made with red beet's, served with a dollup of sour cream and chive snips. You can also add tiny beef strips and that would make it a russian borscht. this soup is great hot or even chilled on a hot summer night

[monavano]

Borscht can be served with sour cream already added, or served on top. Same pertains to dill. I think it's all in the presentation.

www.piealamona.blogspot.com

[ekammin]

My grandmother (frim Transylvania) made two kinds of borscht. One was what one usually thinks of, beet borscht, bright red, often served with a blob of sour cream (unless it is made with a beef base, and you are Kosher), and a boiled potato.

The other was cabbage borscht, beef stock, some tomato, and plenty of cabbage.

[monavano]

Yes! I forgot...boiled potato in borscht. Had it at a Polish cafe and my mom remarked it was just like she remembered. I love it an just about any version!

[DrTini]

Borscht is one of those dishes that is "native" to a lot of places, and thus has a lot of variation. Clear borscht ("barszcz czysty" in Polish) is just beet broth, served hot or cold, to which you can add bunch of different things: hard-boiled egg, chopped cucumber, shredded beet, sour cream, fresh dill, meat-filled dumplings. The Ukrainian-style borschts I've had and made are more hearty, vegetable soups, with beets, potatoes, cabbage, and other veggies, plus sometimes shredded meat or kielbasa. As long as there is a beet in there somewhere (the word borscht or barszcz comes from the word "beet"), to a certain extent, it's borscht.

[Humbucker]

There's also Hong Kong style borscht which has Beef, tomato, carrot, cabbage, sometimes bean sprouts and no beets.

[applehome]

Hong Kong style borscht...

Is that like, American chop suey... Mexican pizza... Kosher bacon... Peking ravioli...

I'm sure there are beef based beet and cabbage soups from all over, but something has a particular name because of a specific ethnic or regional origin.

There certainly are one country's interpretation of another's - Japanese yoshoku is full of French and German items. But is that the case here? Was there a tremendous eastern european influence into hong kong that brought about it's own version of a classic eastern european dish? Or is this some irritating modern terminology like the other examples?

[kare_raisu]

Perhaps it made it to Hong Kong by way of White Russian Refugees - fleeing the revolution. They were certainly in China.

[HLing]

In general the Chinese call of the soup made with Beef broth, pieces of beef, potatos, carrots, tomatoes and cabbage (asin the poster ekammin's 2nd version) what's literally translated to be Russian Soup. (Luo Shong Tang)
I can't imagine that offending anyone?

[monavano]

Exactly. I made a Ukranian style (actually, I've always called it Hungarian, oops) with those ingredients, including sauerkraut. I put sour cream on that too.