Cuisines of the Baltic: Estonia

The cuisines of the three Baltic countries –Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania –have many common features associated with similar geographical conditions: cool wet summers, clay and sandy soil, pine and oak forests with large stretches of bog and swamp, the proximity of the sea, many large rivers and lakes. The basic foodstuffs are rye and barley, swedes and cabbage, peas and hemp, mushrooms and berries of the forest (bilberries and cranberries) and fish (sprats, Baltic herring, smelt, turbot and pike). Potatoes were introduced in the eighteenth century, as were pig and cattle farming; potatoes, pig fat and milk thereafter became staple foods.