Romania tourist information

Romanian cuisine is diverse, blending the dishes of the several traditions which it has come into contact with, as well as maintaining its own character. It has been greatly influenced by Balkan cuisine but also includes influences from the cuisines of other neighbours, such as Germans, Serbians, and Hungarians.

Recipes bear the same influences as the rest of Romanian culture: from Roman times there still exists the simple pie called placinta in Romanian and keeping the initial meaning of the Latin word placenta, the Turks have brought meatballs (perisoare in a meatball soup), from the Greeks there is musaca, from the Bulgarians there are a wide variety of vegetable dishes like zacusca, from the Austrians there is the snitel and the list could continue.

One of the most common dishes is mamaliga, a cornmeal mush, long-considered the poor man's dish (N-are nici o mamaliga pe masa - He hasn't even a mamaliga on the table), but it has become more appreciated in recent times. Pork is the main meat used in Romanian cuisine (Pestele cel mai bun, tot porcul ramane - The best fish will always be the pork or Cea mai buna leguma e carnea de pui si cea mai buna carne de pui e carnea de porc - The best vegetable is the chicken meat and the best chicken meat is the pork), but beef is also consumed, and a good lamb or fish dish is never to be refused.

Different recipes are prepared depending on the season or for special events. For Christmas, a pig is traditionally sacrificed by every family and a wide variety of recipes are prepared, including: carnati (or carnati) - a kind of long sausages with meat, caltabosi (or cartabosi) - sausages made with liver and other intestines, piftie - made with difficult to use parts like the feet or the head and ears, suspended in aspic, and also tocatura (a kind of stew) is served along with mamaliga and wine (so that the pork can swim) and of course sweetened with the traditional cozonac (sweet bread with nuts or lokum - rahat in Romanian).

At Easter, lamb is served and the main dishes are roast lamb and drob - a cooked mix of intestines, meat and fresh vegetables, mainly green onion, seved with pasca (pie made with cottage cheese) as a sweetener.

The principalities of Wallachia and Moldavia - for centuries under the suzerainty of the Turkish Ottoman Empire - secured their autonomy in 1856; they united in 1859 and a few years later adopted the new name of Romania. The country gained full independence in 1878. It joined the Allied Powers in World War I and acquired new territories following the conflict. In 1940, it allied with the Axis powers and participated in the 1941 German invasion of the USSR.

Three years later, overrun by the Soviets, Romania signed an armistice. The post-war Soviet occupation led to the formation of a Communist "people's republic" in 1947 and the abdication of the king. The decades-long rule of dictator Nicolae CEAUSESCU, who took power in 1965, and his Securitate police state became increasingly oppressive and draconian through the 1980s. CEAUSESCU was overthrown and executed in late 1989. Former Communists dominated the government until 1996, when they were swept from power by a fractious coalition of centrist parties. In 2000, the center-left Social Democratic Party (PSD) became Romania's leading party, governing with the support of the Democratic Union of Hungarians in Romania (UDMR).

The opposition center-right alliance formed by the National Liberal Party (PNL) and the Democratic Party (PD) scored a surprise victory over the ruling PSD in December 2004 presidential elections. The PNL-PD alliance maintains a parliamentary majority with the support of the UDMR, the Humanist Party (PUR), and various ethnic minority groups. Although Romania completed accession talks with the European Union (EU) in December 2004, it must continue to address rampant corruption - while invigorating lagging economic and democratic reforms - before it can achieve its hope of joining the EU, tentatively set for 2007. Romania joined NATO in March of 2004.