Russia.

Start with the pantry, because it explains almost everything else. Rye, not wheat, is the historic bread grain — dense, sour, dark, and eaten with practically every savory dish. Buckwheat, toasted and simmered into kasha, is the default grain the way rice is elsewhere. Potatoes arrived late, in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and were resisted before they became indispensable. Dairy comes in a family of cultured forms that are not interchangeable: smetana (sour cream) for finishing soups and salads, tvorog (fresh curd cheese) for baking and breakfast, kefir and ryazhenka for drinking. Sunflower oil, pressed from a plant that Russia adopted enthusiastically, is the everyday cooking fat, with butter reserved for pastry and richness.

Soup is the structural centre of the meal. Shchi, built on cabbage, is the oldest and the most Russian; ukha is a clear fish soup, rassolnik is soured with pickle brine and barley, okroshka is a cold summer soup poured over with kvas or kefir, and solyanka is the loud, salty-sour one made from whatever smoked and cured meats the kitchen has. Borscht is eaten across Russia and beloved there, but its origin and identity are Ukrainian, and it belongs to Ukraine's culinary heritage rather than Russia's — a distinction worth keeping straight even when the same bowl appears on both tables.

The defining old technique was the russkaya pech, the huge masonry stove that heated the house. It gave falling, indirect heat rather than a flame, which suited long braises, slow-baked porridges, milk left to brown and thicken for hours, and the technique called tomlenie — something between stewing and steeping. Almost nothing was fried, because there was no direct fire to fry over. When cooking moved to the stovetop, dishes were rewritten for pans, which is why so many modern Russian recipes ask you to imitate gentleness rather than to chase browning.

There are really two Russian kitchens sitting on top of each other. One is the peasant and monastic tradition of grains, cabbage, mushrooms, fish and pies, shaped by the Orthodox fasting calendar that removes meat and dairy for a large part of the year and left behind a serious repertoire of vegan cooking. The other is the aristocratic kitchen of the nineteenth century, when French chefs worked in noble houses and produced beef Stroganoff, Olivier salad, Pozharsky cutlets and the grand pies of the Moscow restaurant era. The Soviet century then flattened both into a standardised canteen canon, with printed state cookbooks fixing recipes so firmly that many Russians still consider a dish wrong if it deviates.

Regionally, the country is too vast for one answer. Siberia freezes and stockpiles, and gave the whole country pelmeni. The northern coast and Karelia lean on fish, berries, mushrooms and rye pies. The Volga carries deep Tatar influence, and the southern steppe grows the wheat, sunflowers, tomatoes and peppers that make its cooking noticeably lighter. Shashlik, plov and other dishes now eaten daily in Russian cities came from the Caucasus and Central Asia and never stopped being recognisably theirs.