Zakarpattia

Zakarpattia Oblast lies within the Ukrainian Carpathians and borders Poland, Slovakia, Hungary and Romania. About 80 per cent of its territory is mountains and intermontane basins; the rest is the Transcarpathian Lowland. The land belonged at different times to Hungary, Austria, Austria-Hungary and Czechoslovakia; the oblast was formed within Ukraine in 1946. Besides Ukrainians, it is home to Hungarians, Romanians, Slovaks, Roma and Germans. This history explains the many layers of the local cuisine.

The highland base is shared with the Carpathians as a whole: sheep's-milk cheeses from the mountain pastures and maize-flour dishes. Ukraine's National Inventory of Intangible Cultural Heritage includes Hutsul bryndzia, made among other places in the Rakhiv area (2022), and plum lekvar, the tradition of making and eating a thick plum jam in the villages of Bene, Hecha, Botar and others (2022). The best-known dish of Hungarian origin is bograch, or bograch goulash: several kinds of meat with vegetables and paprika, first browned and then stewed for hours in a cauldron over an open fire, with pinched dough (chypetky) added. The name comes from the Hungarian word for a cauldron.

Zakarpattia is a winemaking area of Ukraine outside the Black Sea region. Vineyards lie on the south-western slopes of the Eastern Carpathians; the varieties grown include Traminer Rosé, Welschriesling, Leanka, Hárslevelű and Furmint, used for table and dessert wines. In vineyard area the oblast is far smaller than Odesa Oblast: 3,500 hectares against 40,300 at the beginning of 2004.

Zakarpattia is not the same as the Carpathians or Hutsulshchyna: only its eastern, Rakhiv part is Hutsul.