Tyurya

Tyurya, sometimes known as murtsovka, is a traditional bread soup in the Russian cuisine, sometimes considered a variant of okroshka. It consists of chunks of bread, often stale or semi-stale, or dried/baked into sukhari biscuits/hardtack, soaked in a flavorful liquid or, alternatively, plain water, with some vegetables (chiefly onion, garlic or sauerkraut) and vegetable oil added and flavored with salt and pepper. The base liquid could be anything that can be consumed cold, because unlike most other bread soups, tyurya was prepared and consumed without heat. Kvass was historically the most popular base for tyurya, due to it being cheap, plentiful and flavorful enough. A dairy base, like plain or sour milk, whey or kefir was considered fancy and was generally prepared for children, the elderly or the infirm.

History and preparation

In the most popular and probably original variant, tyurya was the cheap, cooling and filling meal for a peasant in the field. Several slices of day-old rye bread, diced onion and some fresh herbs were combined in a bowl and soaked with a liberal amount of kvass, then flavored with salt and optionally pepper. Some vegetable oil was often added, historically linseed, mustard or cheaper olive oil, as sunflowers only become popular in Russia in the late nineteenth century. When a family could spare some dairy, or when someone was ill, the festive, dessert tyurya, considered more palatable and easily digestible, was prepared, which was sweetened with honey or, later, white sugar.

References

General references

Tyuryas: William Pokhlyobkin, "Cuisines of our peoples", in Russian