summary: It’s spring at last; Mlyntsi (Blini), ancient Slavic recipe (from the Middle Ages) made with buckwheat flour and lots and lots and lots 
of butter; this recipe is a keeper; A Cautionary Tale by Anton Chekhov about blini; a Bread Baking Babes (BBB) project; list of some of the international relief agencies addressing the Ukraine crisis
When I chose this recipe, there was only the smallest hint that a megalomaniac would actually go through with his dastardly plan to invade Ukraine. So while blinis are commonly associated with Russia, I like to think of this ancient pancake as Slavic.
Blini are called Mlyntsi in Ukraine.
Bread Baking Babes: Mlyntsi (Blini), April 2022
Since cancelling our subscriptionin 2015, we have been reading back-issues of SAVEUR magazine – from when SAVEUR was still dedicated to presenting lovely photos and beautifully written, detailed articles. The recipes included often seemed secondary. But not always….
In November 2001 issue, Darra Goldstein wrote about caviar. Amazingly, she did not wax lyrical on blini, aside from simply mentioning them, but she did include her blini recipe. It is a yeasted pancake recipe! It is by no means a secondary item in the article.
Possibly because it’s her book and she wasn’t confined by SAVEUR editors, Darra Goldstein does give a lot of detail about blini in her book “A Taste of Russia”.
The sturgeon’s glistening “black pearls”, whether spread gently on blini or piled on a piece of toast or eaten straight from a mother-of-pearl spoon — each egg popping delicately, and deliciously, in the mouth — have long been the stuff of legend and love, mystery and romance.
– Darra Goldstein, Caviar Dreams, SAVEUR No.54 (November 2001), p.86 (the article includes Darra Goldstein’s recipe for blini, but with some of her instructions missing)
Now an international favorite, blini are one of the oldest Slavic foods, dating back to the heathen tribes that worshipped the sun and created pancakes in its image. These earliest pancakes were called mliny, from the verb molot’ (“to grind”), and the word is still preserved in the Ukrainian, Serbian and Croatian tongues. Light and porous, blini are designed to soak up lots of butter.
– Darra Goldstein, Russian Pancakes (Blini), A Taste of Russia, p.102
This winter has been particularly cold and icy. And while the Spring Solstice is now long past – way back on 20 March, and Butter Week (marking the week before the 40 days of Lent) too is so long ago that tomorrow is Easter, it still seems fitting for us to celebrate the promise of warm weather in the northern hemisphere at last – let us not speak of the recent blizzard on the prairies….
If only we could also celebrate the coming of peace in the region where blini are traditionally made!
(continue reading →)
