Kulaga

Kulaga is a thick, sweet-and-sour dish made by slowly heating grain and fruit. Handed down in Belarus, Russia, and elsewhere, it is made with grain flour. Versions in which fruit is cooked and thickened with flour and versions made with rye malt share the same name but differ greatly in how they are made.

Sweetness from Malt

A Russian cookbook describes a method in which rye malt is mixed with boiling water and left to stand, and then rye flour is added. Once the mixture has cooled, bread is added and it is left until it turns sour; kalina berries are added if available, and the mixture is heated slowly in an oven, then cooled before eating. Malt is sprouted grain, and its enzymes convert the starch in grain into sugar. With this method, sweetness can be drawn from the grain without using sugar.

Adding bread to develop sourness and producing sweetness with malt are separate processes. The result changes with temperature and time, and when the tartness of fruit is added, the dish takes on a flavor that grain alone cannot provide. Kalina is a red-berried member of the viburnum family, and whether it is added also depends on the recipe.

A 1990 book on the history of Russian cuisine also states that in central Russia, a dish made by combining rye flour mixed with hot water and fruit and heating it in an oven was called kulaga. Malt is not mentioned there. Even among dishes that combine grain and fruit, ingredients and methods differ.

Cooking Berries and Thickening Them with Flour

A Belarusian cookbook published in 1993 includes a kulaga in which wild berries are cooked in water, and honey or sugar and rye flour are added. It is one example that uses whatever fruit is available at the time, such as strawberries, bilberries, raspberries, or lingonberries. The book says that pancakes, bread, milk, or the like are served separately alongside it.

Versions that make use of the sweetness of malt and versions that make use of the tartness of berries gathered in the forest are both called kulaga.

Glossary