Belarus' food is influenced by two main factors, local agriculture and the influence of neighbouring countries. The national culinary traditions have been a mixture of Baltic, Slavic, Jewish and German dishes.
They use a lot of cabbage, root vegetables, cucumber, onion and garlic. Legumes, grains, mushrooms, fruit and berries are also eaten a lot. Caraway, coriander, horseradish, calamus, mustard and juniper are widely used spices.
Potatoes have a special place in Belarusian cuisine and are used in many dishes, e.g. draniki, kolduny, pyzy, potato sausage, kletski and babka.
Meat has not always been as accessible and was usually only served on festive occasions. Pigs, sheep, cattle, poultry and venison are mostly eaten.
Since Belarus does not have a coastline, most of the fish come from lakes and rivers (suter, sturgeon, pike, eel-crab, bream, eel, trout, perch, carp).
They use a lot of dairy products such as cheese, sour cream and butter.
The breads from Belarus are heavy and are slightly tart and in old recipes a lot of caraway, flax seeds and sunflower seeds were used.
