[Sca-cooks] cooking with Kasha

[Phil Troy / G. Tacitus Adamantius]

Also sprach Jadwiga Zajaczkowa / Jenne Heise:
>  > I, unfortunately, didn't save the post where
>>  someone was talking about seeing kasha that
>>  wasn't buckwheat.
>>
>>  I think I have found the source for that
>>  misconception.
>
>S'not a misconception. It's a linguistic difference. 'Kasha' or 'Kasza'
>in Slavic languages is just grain porridge; usually made from groats
>(crushed grains).
>
>The term 'kasha' used to apply to roasted buckwheat groats is an
>Americanism, probably a surivival of certain Eastern European
>subpopulations.
>
>The OED says of kasha: " A gruel or porridge made from cooked buckwheat
>_or other meals or cereals_."
>(Emphasis mine.)

[Puts on slightly shifty-sounding Cockney accent...]

Look... It's quoit simpul...

Kasha is groats, in countries that speak Slavic languages. In Russia, 
the preferred grain eaten in that form is often, but not exclusively, 
buckwheat.

In the US, where such grain products are generally boxed and labelled 
for the end consumer by companies like Wolff's, buckwheat is the 
grain used to produce this product which was probably originally 
intended for, and probably ultimately made popular by, Russian Jewish 
immigrants to the US. In that situation, most Americans of my 
acquaintance have their first exposure to kasha in the form of kasha 
varnishkas (kasha with mushrooms, onions, and egg bow pasta), kasha 
"pilaf", kasha-filled knishes and pierogen, etc., and the kasha in 
question for these applications is almost invariably buckwheat 
groats. Hence the association between buckwheat groats and "kasha", 
an association which companies like the Wolff's Kasha people actively 
encourage. However, that's not what the word really means.

Similarly, I gather the word "porridge" does not in fact denote 
oatmeal, specifically, as the approved grain for porridge. It just 
happens to be the dominant grain in countries where porridge is now 
eaten. In porridge-eating countries, porridge is usually made from 
oats, but it doesn't follow that porridge needs to be made from oats.

Polenta. Same thing. It is now considered the default setting to make 
it from corn [maize] meal. Previously it had been made from anything 
from wheat to barley to chestnuts. Polenta does not, though, in fact, 
denote "maize", not as nomenclature.

If you're looking for non-buckwheat examples of kasha, you're not 
going to find one, not in a grocery store, not in a health-food 
store, any more than you're going to find a box labelled "porridge" 
that doesn't contain oats. However, that doesn't mean they don't 
exist. It just means that the name has been co-opted, but you can 
still make kasha from just about any grain of your choosing, so long 
as that grain is in the form of groats. One might try to draw the 
line and argue that a grain like quinoa (I'm clutching at straws, 
now), not having been recognizable to somebody's 19th-century Russian 
Jewish grandma, is ineligible as a source grain for kasha, and there 
might be some substance to that argument, but that still doesn't 
support an argument that kasha must be buckwheat.

<phew>

Adamantius

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