"If it comes from a box its American - If it’s made from scratch its Russian."

Irene is 27 years old and was born in Kiev, Ukraine. She left with her family via Vienna and Italy, and came to Brooklyn, New York when she was 5. When she was in 5^th grade she moved to the Suburbs of Rockland County, where she still lives with her mother, Evelyn.  

Irene’s earliest food memories are of hot summers spent in Israel, eating hot soup for lunch. Every day there would be borscht, chicken soup, or a variety of vegetable soups. She says it must be a Russian thing because Americans never eat hot soup in the summer.

Irene says she learned about the differences between Russian and American food early on from her American and non-Russian school aged friends. “Their food was normal, our food was weird. They ate PB&J and sandwiches. I never ate that. We ate smoked fish, fish roe or simple caviar, liver, cow tongue.”

I asked how she would categorize Russian food. “Whatever my mom cooked from scratch.” For example, if her mother cooked chicken, rice and salad, which sounds like a pretty typical American dinner, it was made more “Russiany” by Evelyn. The chicken was ground up and made into Cutleti, the salad, unlike American salads, never had any lettuce, just fresh vegetables and olive oil as a dressing, and the rice might be Kasha.

What then is American food? “Anything that comes out of a box.”  Irene and her sister would make Rice a Roni or macaroni and cheese after school. “American food is much faster and easier to make than Russian food.” The answer was fast and simple.

The differences between Russian and American foods were easy for Irene to determine. Distinguishing the difference between Russian and Jewish foods was more difficult. Jewish food is “food that we eat on Jewish Holidays. Kugel, chicken, traditional things. It’s usually bland and over cooked. When I think of Jewish food I think of Kugel but we never made Kugel in my house.  I think of it because they always have it at synagogue on the holidays.”

So what about chopped liver? “Its Jewish-y but I consider it Russian food.  Olivier (Russian salad) is definitely Russian; we could eat it on Passover but we wouldn’t.  Jewish food is more American Ashkenazy style food that we eat at synagogue and at Jewish events. Herring? “Russian. Defintely Russian.”

We could have talked and even argued about food and ethnic categories all day, except there was delicious, homemade, decidedly Russian food to be eaten.