Porridge was an important food. Slavs not only cooked it in water, but also in milk, or they at least added milk to it and also butter, and sweetened it with honey and fresh or dried fruit. Porridge was made from millet, but also different kinds of wheat, barley and oats.

Rye was typically used to make bread, which was a basic food for Slavs, particularly for those, who lived in the north. They also made fermented wheat bread, not only simple flatbread. Flatbread was mostly an exception, when there wasn’t much time to let it ferment, rise and bake it. The dough for fermented bread was probably made in a wooden kneading-trough (the one that looks like a bucket), it wasn’t washed and bits of dough remained at the bottom and on the sides. Next time they scraped them off, poured warm water over them and let them rise. Bread was made black and white, ordinary or celebratory. Slavs often baked black, coarse-grained bread.

Baked goods were sweetened with honey and dried fruits (mostly pears, but also different kinds of berries like strawberries, blueberries, raspberries, blackberries and elderberry). They also probably sprinkled it with poppy seeds and filled it with cream cheese or other sweet and savoury fillings.

Legumes, peas, lentils and beans were made the same way like today, Slavs probably let them soak before cooking and sometimes let them sprout. They used beetroot and made sauerkraut and pickled cucumbers. There is no information about vegetable recipes, but they were most likely diverse and simple. Slavs not only grew their own food, but they also foraged – orach, goosefoot, young nettles and dandelions leaves, sorrel, onions, garlic and so much more.

Very popular was food that tasted sour with added different herbs and spices. They used vinegar, soured milk, buttermilk and whey, sour herbs and fermented foods.

Meaty soups and also with herbs and vegetables, milk and sourdough, with added mushrooms, cumin, marjoram, garlic and other ingredients, sometimes thickened with flour, semolina or groats (just like that or roasted). Slav also ate broths. Soups, porridge and legumes were greased with butter, lard and vegetable oils that were often made from own grown or foraged plants (rapeseed, flaxseed, hemp seed, poppy seed or hazelnut).

The second important basic food after grain was meat. Common people had their own livestock, especially cattle and pigs. The meat was cooked, baked over a fire or in ashes and also dried. With salt, mustard, garlic and different herbs. People ate the whole animal (including offal or marrow), nothing went to waste. Eggs and poultry was mostly for the upper class, who also ate meat that was prepared in different and more complicated ways, or venison.

Slavs ate dairy products, especially cream cheese and cheese from cow’s milk.

Drinks were an important part of normal life.  Even common people didn’t drink only water (from springs, rivers and brooks). The most popular and typical slavic drinks were mead and beer. Both were alcoholic and prepared with different ingredients and spices. In olden times, beer was also made without hops. Wine was a common drink mostly in the south, but in the north, northwest and northeast wine was a privilege of the upper classes and christian rituals. Slavs probably made different kinds of fruit wine from grown or foraged plums, blackthorn berries, rosehips, elderberry and others.

Common was also the medicinal and magical use of herbal teas and decoctions.

Translated from BERANOVÁ, Magdalena. Slované. Dotisk druhého vydání. Praha: Libri, 2022. Historická řada (Libri). ISBN 978-80-7277-538-5.