Buckwheat porridge: why Europeans can’t stand it
In all the territories of historical growth of this grain crop, buckwheat is still eaten, but it is still considered a “cheap” food, although, for example, in northern India and Nepal it can rarely be found on sale. The local population knows this product, they traditionally fry buckwheat with spices, but they are very reluctant to consume it, despite the fact that its beneficial properties are now known to the whole world.
In China, buckwheat grows of worse quality than, for example, in Russia, and therefore the Chinese began to buy it in Ukraine and Belarus. In the Celestial Empire, buckwheat is also considered not a prestigious food, but even there it has become fashionable to take care of one’s health and Chinese doctors recommend buckwheat to their patients… drink. Now it is brewed as a tea and they try to drink at least two glasses of infusion a day.
In Korea and Japan, buckwheat has always been common, but in the form of flour. Koreans still bake fluffy fragrant buns from it – sae meduk, and the Japanese cook delicious WOK noodles with a characteristic brown color.
In addition to Asian and Slavic countries, buckwheat is also eaten in Israel. The Jewish people lived on the territory of the Russian Empire for a long time, and this could not but affect their taste preferences. Buckwheat porridge cooked in the Jewish style is called “varniškes” and in addition to buckwheat, it includes wheat flour and onions.
In Western Europe and America, buckwheat has always been considered fodder for livestock due to its unpretentiousness to growth. Moreover, nutritionists all over the world claim that boiled (without salt) buckwheat is bitter and has a clear chemical taste. This is quite surprising to all immigrants from the USSR, who know perfectly well that this is not the case. But it turns out that any adult who tastes boiled buckwheat for the first time feels exactly this bitter and unpleasant taste, and only those people who have eaten this porridge since childhood have formed its sweet taste in their memory.
Buckwheat porridge in the vastness of the Soviet country was eaten by everyone, regardless of age. Accustomed to it from childhood, representatives of the peoples of the USSR often fed their children with this porridge, because life in the now sovereign countries, which were once Soviet republics, remains difficult to this day.
Nutritionists say that it is really necessary to get used to the consumption of boiled buckwheat from childhood, only then you can enjoy its taste. But it is necessary to eat it, today only this cereal is able to normalize blood pressure, hormonal background, blood sugar levels, raise hemoglobin, increase immunity, remove toxins and excess cholesterol from the body. And only immigrants from the USSR and their children manage to do this without wincing from the bitterness of buckwheat.