The Minister of Culture and Information Policy of Ukraine Alexander Tkachenko said that the department intends seek in UNESCO to secure the status of Ukrainian cultural heritage for borscht. He wrote about this on his page in Facebook .
According to the minister, Ukraine soon intends to finally “put an end” to the issue of the national origin of the dish. “As my grandmother told me, and her grandmother told her: borscht is Ukrainian,” Tkachenko wrote.
He noted that in discussions about the kitchen there is no question of gastronomic identification. “It’s a matter of protecting an important cultural ingredient and part of history,” the official explained. To popularize Ukrainian cuisine, the Ministry plans to organize the first ever online festival “Culture and Tradition of Ukrainian Borscht Cooking” on December 18. It will be hosted by the famous chef from Kiev Evgeniy Klopotenko.
For the first time, the Ukrainian authorities suggested to add borscht to the list of intangible cultural heritage at the beginning October. It should also include a shirt with a flower, Borshchiv folk embroidery and Carpathian lizhnikarstvo – a technique for making blankets from sheep’s wool.