Gagauz cuisine refers to the culinary practices of the

Gagauz people The Gagauz ( gag, Gagauzlar) are a Turkic people living mostly in southern Moldova (Gagauzia, Taraclia District, Basarabeasca District) and southwestern Ukraine (Budjak). Gagauz are mostly Eastern Orthodox Christians. The term Gagauz is also o ...

. Its emphasis on dairy products and meats can be traced to the Gagauz's

nomad A nomad is a member of a community without fixed habitation who regularly moves to and from the same areas. Such groups include hunter-gatherers, pastoral nomads (owning livestock), tinkers and trader nomads. In the twentieth century, the po ...

ic past, while the importance of grains as a staple food reflects their current farming lifestyle. The Gagauz maintain a unique method of processing milk and preserve meat,

curd Curd is obtained by coagulating milk in a sequential process called curdling. It can be a final dairy product or the first stage in cheesemaking. The coagulation can be caused by adding rennet or any edible acidic substance such as l ...

s, and

sheep milk Sheep's milk (or ewes' milk) is the milk of domestic sheep. It is commonly used to make cultured dairy products such as cheese. Some of the most popular sheep cheeses include feta (Greece), ricotta (Italy), and Roquefort (France). Sheep breed ...

cheese in animal skins. Prepared dishes include a version of

head cheese Head cheese (Dutch: ''hoofdkaas'') or brawn is a cold cut terrine or meat jelly that originated in Europe. It is made with flesh from the head of a calf or pig (less commonly a sheep or cow), typically set in aspic, and usually eaten cold, ...

, or cold cuts in jelly prepared from the heads and feet of livestock (traditionally served during holidays), and ''kurban'', which combines

bulgur wheat Bulgur (from tr, bulgur, itself from fa, بلغور, bolġur (bolghur)/balġur (balghur), groats ), also riffoth (from biblical he, ריפות, riffoth) and burghul (from ar, برغل, burġul ), is a cracked wheat dish found ...

porridge with meat from a ritually slaughtered ram. Gagauz meat dishes are often accompanied by peppered sauces. Many family holidays and rituals are connected with the baking of bread, wheat loaves (''kalaches''), and unleavened flatcakes. Pies are also common, with popular variants being layered pies stuffed with sheep milk cheese and doused with

sour cream Sour cream (in North American English, Australian English and New Zealand English) or soured cream (British English) is a dairy product obtained by fermenting regular cream with certain kinds of lactic acid bacteria. The bacterial culture, ...

before baking, pies with crumbled pumpkin, and sweet pies made from the first milk of a cow that had just calved. Red

wine Wine is an alcoholic drink typically made from fermented grapes. Yeast consumes the sugar in the grapes and converts it to ethanol and carbon dioxide, releasing heat in the process. Different varieties of grapes and strains of yeasts are m ...

is served with most meals.

References

External links

Gagauzia {{cuisine-stub