I think a better translation would be "cabbage pie" rather than "cake". In English cake generally implies a dessert item. A pie is a pastry dough with a filling which can be either sweet or savory.
Kapustnik is not that popular outside of Russia and is not particularly associated with the Jews. My dear mother, from Galicia, made a terrific bulbanik (potato kugel or pudding) but never a kapustnik. Where is your wife's family from?
Cabbage casserole would have been an even better description, as this is cooked in a casserole dish. "Pie" has a desert connotation as well, and is almost always prepared in a round pie dish.
Pies are usually round but not always. A casserole does not have a pastry crust. J's wife apparently has a rectangular dish but you could make a kapustnik in any shape and it would still be a cabbage PIE. There is a long tradition of savory pies - at one time the dough itself would have been the cooking vessel. Dessert pies are fairly recent since sugar was not widely available before the 18th century.
"Bulba" is the word for potato in both Belarussian and Ukranian - where my mother was from the Jews owned the businesses, the Poles ran the government and owned the estates and the Ukranians were the peasantry and the majority. In Yiddish it was sometimes referred to as a "kaisl" - a little cheese, because the grated potatoes formed into a mold had the texture and appearance of a loaf of cheese.
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What kind of cake is this? It looks like a sponge cake of some sort.
It is more like cabbage cheese quiche.
I think a better translation would be "cabbage pie" rather than "cake". In English cake generally implies a dessert item. A pie is a pastry dough with a filling which can be either sweet or savory.
Kapustnik is not that popular outside of Russia and is not particularly associated with the Jews. My dear mother, from Galicia, made a terrific bulbanik (potato kugel or pudding) but never a kapustnik. Where is your wife's family from?
K
Thanks K, cabbage pie would have been more descriptive. Wife is from the Jewish quarter of Kiev.
Cabbage casserole would have been an even better description, as this is cooked in a casserole dish. "Pie" has a desert connotation as well, and is almost always prepared in a round pie dish.
Kapustnik is the name.
I have it from a reliable source that Bulbanik is a Bielorussian plate.
Pies are usually round but not always. A casserole does not have a pastry crust. J's wife apparently has a rectangular dish but you could make a kapustnik in any shape and it would still be a cabbage PIE. There is a long tradition of savory pies - at one time the dough itself would have been the cooking vessel. Dessert pies are fairly recent since sugar was not widely available before the 18th century.
"Bulba" is the word for potato in both Belarussian and Ukranian - where my mother was from the Jews owned the businesses, the Poles ran the government and owned the estates and the Ukranians were the peasantry and the majority. In Yiddish it was sometimes referred to as a "kaisl" - a little cheese, because the grated potatoes formed into a mold had the texture and appearance of a loaf of cheese.
K
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