Meet Yuliia
Duncan Wright Photography
Yuliia is from Mykolaiv, Ukraine, in the country’s south. Growing up, Yuliia spent lots of time on her grandparents’ farm. She began cooking when she was 13, and the first dish she remembers perfecting, with the help of her beloved grandmother, was the classic French crepé. “I am professional at this one,” she says, laughing.
Yuliia’s grandmother was a wonderful cook and baker, which inspired Yuliia. By the age of 15, Yuliia was cooking for herself. “It’s like meditation for me,” she says. “It makes you calm.”
Mykolaiv suffered immensely as a result of the Russian invasion. And for Yuliia, cooking changed from something she did for pleasure to something she did for survival. Living mostly in underground shelters, with the war raging overhead, she would have to cook for her family with limited ingredients and limited time. “You have five minutes, and you need to make meals for the whole family,” she says. “I enjoyed cooking, but when the war started, I feel like this part of me broke.”
“If I don’t try to cook, I’ll lose the recipes from my culture. I don’t have a family book of recipes, my grandparents have passed away, I don’t have any place to keep this recipe – it’s just something in my soul.”
Yuliia arrived in Australia in 2022 and with time she gradually began to find her way back to cooking. After joining Free to Feed, she began thinking about how she could share her story and culture through food. “If I don’t try to cook, I’ll lose the recipes from my culture. I don’t have a family book of recipes, my grandparents have passed away, I don’t have any place to keep this recipe – it’s just something in my soul.”
She reflects on a simple recipe from her childhood: Korean salad, which arrived in Ukraine as a result of the Korean forced migration under the former Soviet Union. “It’s just grated carrots, spices and oil,” says Yuliia. “When Koreans came to our land, they took the ingredients we had and made something simple. It reminded them of their home. But we celebrate this as a culture.”
Yuliia wants everyone to know about Ukraine. She wants them to know about the history and the food and the hard times and the good times. She wants them to know her story and the story of her grandmother and her friends and her family. “I’m happy to tell people about what happened in my country two years ago, 100 years ago, what makes us proud, the food that grows,” she says. Yuliia is also happy to tell anyone willing to listen about her favourite meal – Ukrainian Borsch.
Borsch is a national heritage dish for Ukraine, and is on the list of Intangible Cultural Heritage in Need of Urgent Safeguarding. For Yuliia – as for many Ukrainians – the dish is an edible cultural tour, and holds within its bright-red depths all the secrets and stories and pride and joy of a country that has endured incredible hardship. “We live a lot of time under different pressures,” says Yuliia. “All this impact has influenced our meals and menus. And now we love this soup better than ever – it’s so rich, so tasty, it’s like all of Ukraine wedged together.”
Yuliia’s husband is still in Ukraine, unable to leave due to possible military conscription for men aged between 18 and 60. Despite everything she has endured, Yuliia is grateful to be in Australia, and to have rediscovered the joy of cooking as a way of keeping her stories, and the stories of Ukraine, alive. “It matters what I cook,” she says. “It’s helped me to feel better.”