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Date Published: 22/03/2022

ARCHIVED - Russian salad renamed in Spain after Ukraine invasion

ARCHIVED ARTICLE

Many bars and restaurants in Spain are changing the name of their ‘ensaladilla rusa’ to Ukrainian salad or Kyiv salad

<span style='color:#780948'>ARCHIVED</span> - Russian salad renamed in Spain after Ukraine invasion

Strangely, Russian salad (ensaladilla rusa) has always been a staple of Spanish cuisine. Until now. For reasons connected with Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, the signature Spanish dish is getting a makeover.

It all started last week, when the Mesón Martín restaurant in Malaga changed its menu to read ‘ensaladilla Kiev’ instead of ‘ensaladilla rusa’ and added a little picture of the Ukraine flag beside it. The initiative has caught on fast, and other bars and restaurants have renamed their Russian salad as Ukrainian salad.

One restaurant is now calling it ‘Olivier’, though. Jacobo Vázquez, who owns La Casería on Avenida Ángel Caffarena, said, “I hated calling it Russian salad but couldn’t decide what to call it instead.” So he put the question to social media and the resounding response was answer was ‘Olivier’, 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,” said Vázquez.

Russian salad normally consists of a few core ingredients, such as potatoes, egg and mayonnaise, but can also contain tuna, olives, apple, carrot pepper and prawns, to name a few.

One meme that has been doing the rounds on social media plays on the word for egg in Spanish, ‘huevo’, which can also refer to testicles: “In my house today, we ate Ukrainian salad. It’s like the Russian one but it has more balls.”

Actually, the dish wasn’t even originally invented by Lucien Olivier, though he did create a salad of vegetables, game, seafood and a secret sauce for the Hermitage restaurant in Moscow. No, the first recipe for Russian salad actually appeared in ‘The Modern Cook’, written in the 19th century by Italian-British chef Charles Elmé Francatelli, who was the head chef in the kitchens of Queen Victoria.

For that reason, the staff at El Balneario at Los Baños del Carmen have preferred to rename their dish Kyiv salad, in solidarity with the Ukrainian capital.

At Gutiérrez Puerto in Malaga port, it was a Russian who came up with the idea to rename the Russian salad ‘Ukrainian salad’. A few days after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, a Russian man stopped off to enjoy a beer and a tapa on their terrace.

“He said he was very upset about the situation,” said staff at the restaurant, “and would we mind changing the name ‘Ensaladilla rusa’ on his bill to ‘Ensaladilla ucraniana’, because he wanted to photograph it and post it on social media as a gesture of support.”

Since then, others have come and requested the same, and so Ukrainian salad was born.

Boycotting the names of dishes is nothing new; during the Iraq war, the USA changed ‘French fries’ to ‘Freedom fries’ after the French government opposed the intervention in 2003. The veto lasted while Saddam Hussein was in power, and was then changed back.

With any luck, the invasion of Ukraine will be over soon and we will be able to change back the name of Russian salad.

Images: Archive

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