Kulaha

Kulaha is a traditional dessert of Ukrainian — above all Polissia and Sloboda — cuisine, a kind of thick sweet kysil based on berries and flour. It is a dish of slow, “oven” cooking that required time but demanded no sugar.

Kulaha was made thus: fresh berries (guelder rose, bilberry, wild strawberry, or others) were covered with water, rye (or buckwheat) flour and malt were added, and then it was simmered for a long time in the oven. During the simmering the flour's starch cooked and the malt sweetened the dish, so that the kulaha thickened and took on a pleasant sweet-sour taste. Sometimes the mass was left to ferment a little for piquancy. Kulaha was eaten warm or cold as a treat, especially during the fast, when sweets on honey and berries were permitted. It is a tasty example of the old sweet cuisine built on the gifts of the forest and the fields.