Many bars and restaurants in Spain change the name of their ‘ensaladilla rusa’ to Ukrainian salad or kyiv salad
Strangely, the Russian salad (ensaladilla rusa) has always been a staple of Spanish cuisine. Until now. For reasons related to Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, the signature Spanish dish is getting a facelift.
It all started last week, when the Mesón Martín restaurant in Malaga changed its menu to read “ensaladilla kyiv” instead of “ensaladilla rusa” and added a small image of the Ukrainian flag next to it. The initiative quickly spread and other bars and restaurants renamed their Russian salad to Ukrainian salad.
A restaurant now calls him “Olivier”. Jacobo Vázquez, owner of La Casería on Avenida Ángel Caffarena, said: “I hated to call it Russian salad, but I didn’t know what to call it instead.” So he took the question to social media and the resounding response was “Olivier”, named after the nominal creator of the salad, 19th century chef Lucien Olivier.
“If they want to eat Russian salad, they can do it in Russia,” Vázquez said.
The Russian salad normally consists of a few basic ingredients, such as potatoes, eggs and mayonnaise, but can also contain tuna, olives, apples, carrot peppers and prawns, to name a few. name a few.
A meme that has made the rounds on social media plays on the Spanish word for egg, “huevo,” which can also refer to testicles: “At my house today, we ate Ukrainian salad. It’s like Russian but it has more balls.
In fact, the dish wasn’t even originally invented by Lucien Olivier, although he created a salad of vegetables, game, seafood and a secret sauce for the Hermitage restaurant in Moscow. No, the first Russian salad recipe actually appeared in “The Modern Cook,” written in the 19th century by Italian-British chef Charles Elmé Francatelli, who was head chef to Queen Victoria.
For this reason, the staff of El Balneario in Los Baños del Carmen preferred to rename their dish kyiv Salad, in solidarity with the Ukrainian capital.
In Gutiérrez Puerto, in the port of Malaga, it was a Russian who had the idea of renaming the Russian salad “Ukrainian salad”. A few days after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, a Russian stopped by to enjoy a beer and a tapa on their terrace.
“He said he was very upset with the situation,” the restaurant staff said, “and would we mind changing the name ‘Ensaladilla rusa’ on his bill to ‘Ensaladilla ucraniana’, as he wanted the photograph and post it on social media as a sign of support.
Since then, others have come and asked for the same, and that’s how the Ukrainian salad was born.
Boycotting the names of dishes is nothing new; during the Iraq War, the United States changed “frites” to “freedom fries” after the French government objected to the intervention in 2003. The veto lasted while Saddam Hussein was in power , then modified.
Hopefully the invasion of Ukraine will be over soon and we can change the name of the Russian salad.
Images: archive