My Grandma's Beet Soup:
Ukrainian Borscht
Today I'm sharing my grandma’s Ukrainian Borscht Recipe I grew up eating in Ukraine every single week. This iconic red beet soup is made with beef (or vegetarian), cabbage, potatoes, carrots, garlic and dill, and then served with a dollop of sour cream and rye bread.
According to Wikipedia, Borscht is neither Ukrainian or Russian. It is national Slavic dish that has a history of centuries. Borsch is traditional beet soup cooked in every household of any former republic that belonged to USSR – Ukraine, Russia, Moldova, Belorussia etc. Not to mention all over Eastern Europe.
There are as many variations of traditional Ukrainian borscht recipe as there are regions and families. Everyone makes it differently, even within the same household.
Fun fact. All girls in my family, mom, grandma, sister, aunt and me, had their own borscht recipe. We all cooked in the same kitchen we used to share and yet everyone’s version of borscht was unique. Even my sister-in-law and mother-in-law cook theirs differently.
Theology as Sharing Recipes:
My Grandma's Red Beet Soup
Many people think of theology as talking about God, pure and simple. Some also think that theology is done primarily by academics who write books. Certainly this is one legitimate way of thinking about theology. Call it traditional theology.
But there's another way to think about theology: call it Culinary Theology. One of its primary practices is sharing recipes for healthy eating.
Think of "theology" as sharing good news in whatever way is possible. And think of good news, not as ideas about God and Jesus, but as any kind of "news" that offers possibilities for what process theologians call richness of experience in human life and in the world. I borrow this phrase from the understanding of spirituality offered by the Cobb Institute:
In a process-relational perspective, spirituality is how we are inwardly animated, enlivened, nourished by life-giving forms of experience and ways of living in the world. Alfred North Whitehead speaks of these qualities of felt beauty: here understood as satisfying forms of harmony and intensity in our relations with other people, the natural world, the heavens, and ourselves. In The Liberation of Life: From Cell to Community, John Cobb, speaks of them as forms of “richness of experience.” Spirituality, then, is the seeking and sustaining of rich experience in community with others and also, as Whitehead emphasized, the solitariness of the heart. [1]
If we think of theology as offering possibilities for rich experience or felt beauty or life-giving forms of experience and ways of living in the world, then sharing recipes for healthy eating, as illustrated by Olena Osipov in the video below, is a form of theology. She is sharing good news.
Her theology is not only in the content of the recipe she shares but in the joy of her sharing. And the value of her theology will be measured, not by her presentation alone, but
Of course we will naturally ask: But where is theos, where is God, in this? From a process perspective God is in the sharing and in the felt-connections with other people that food and food-preparation that emerge from it. The mind of the universe, God, is not removed from the world in self-satisfied pleasure, rather the mind is affected by the world in a spirit of love. What happens in the world happens in God. Richness of experience or felt beauty in the world, as enjoyed in healthy eating, is part of God's own life. This view is called pan-en-theism: a word which literally means "everything in God."
Does the recipe sharer need to use the word "God" in order for her sharing to be theology? Does she need to think about her act as theology in order for it to be theology. I think not. The theology is in the sharing of the good news. It is implicit theology.
Make no mistake. The other kind of theology has its value. We need academic theologians and culinary theologians. One is not higher than the other. But in a world where theology is too often limited to the academic, it is important to remember and honor the culinary. And to make clear that there are countless other forms of implicit theology that share God with the world by sharing good news, whatever it is, be it cerebral or emotional, auditory or visual, olfactory or edible. Interestingly, sharing recipes in a joyful spirit combines many of these portals. We don't just eat food, we smell it and see it; and we enjoy rich connections with others in the eating of. "My grandma's beet soup" becomes a sacrament, as holy as wine and bread, and tasteful, too.
1. https://cobb.institute/spiritual-integration/
But there's another way to think about theology: call it Culinary Theology. One of its primary practices is sharing recipes for healthy eating.
Think of "theology" as sharing good news in whatever way is possible. And think of good news, not as ideas about God and Jesus, but as any kind of "news" that offers possibilities for what process theologians call richness of experience in human life and in the world. I borrow this phrase from the understanding of spirituality offered by the Cobb Institute:
In a process-relational perspective, spirituality is how we are inwardly animated, enlivened, nourished by life-giving forms of experience and ways of living in the world. Alfred North Whitehead speaks of these qualities of felt beauty: here understood as satisfying forms of harmony and intensity in our relations with other people, the natural world, the heavens, and ourselves. In The Liberation of Life: From Cell to Community, John Cobb, speaks of them as forms of “richness of experience.” Spirituality, then, is the seeking and sustaining of rich experience in community with others and also, as Whitehead emphasized, the solitariness of the heart. [1]
If we think of theology as offering possibilities for rich experience or felt beauty or life-giving forms of experience and ways of living in the world, then sharing recipes for healthy eating, as illustrated by Olena Osipov in the video below, is a form of theology. She is sharing good news.
Her theology is not only in the content of the recipe she shares but in the joy of her sharing. And the value of her theology will be measured, not by her presentation alone, but
Of course we will naturally ask: But where is theos, where is God, in this? From a process perspective God is in the sharing and in the felt-connections with other people that food and food-preparation that emerge from it. The mind of the universe, God, is not removed from the world in self-satisfied pleasure, rather the mind is affected by the world in a spirit of love. What happens in the world happens in God. Richness of experience or felt beauty in the world, as enjoyed in healthy eating, is part of God's own life. This view is called pan-en-theism: a word which literally means "everything in God."
Does the recipe sharer need to use the word "God" in order for her sharing to be theology? Does she need to think about her act as theology in order for it to be theology. I think not. The theology is in the sharing of the good news. It is implicit theology.
Make no mistake. The other kind of theology has its value. We need academic theologians and culinary theologians. One is not higher than the other. But in a world where theology is too often limited to the academic, it is important to remember and honor the culinary. And to make clear that there are countless other forms of implicit theology that share God with the world by sharing good news, whatever it is, be it cerebral or emotional, auditory or visual, olfactory or edible. Interestingly, sharing recipes in a joyful spirit combines many of these portals. We don't just eat food, we smell it and see it; and we enjoy rich connections with others in the eating of. "My grandma's beet soup" becomes a sacrament, as holy as wine and bread, and tasteful, too.
1. https://cobb.institute/spiritual-integration/
Making Borscht Yourself
- Our Family’s Recipe and Beets Nutrition
- What Is Borscht?
- Is Borscht Ukrainian or Russian?
- What Does Borscht Soup Taste Like?
- Ingredients You Will Need
- How to Make Borscht
- How to Peel and Cut Beets and Other Veggies
- What Type of Stock to Use?
- What to Serve Borsht Soup With?
- How to Store and Freeze
- More Soup Recipes to Try