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A blini (plural blinis or blini, rarely bliny; блины pl.), traditionally also called a blin is a Russian and more broadly Eastern European pancake traditionally made from buckwheat flour or nowadays wheat and served with smetana, tvorog, butter, caviar and other garnishes. Blini are among the most popular and most-eaten dishes in Russia. In the West, blini traditionally refers to small savory pancakes made with leavened batter. In modern Russian, the term most often refers to pan-sized leavened thin pancakes, although smaller leavened pancakes are also called blini and were much more common historically. Some English dictionaries record usage of the forms blin as singular and blinai or bliny as plural, which corresponds to the original Russian forms, but other dictionaries consider this usage so rare in English that they do not mention blin at all and only record the widespread modern regular usage of blini for the singular and blinis for the plural. Some cookbooks and restaurants use blin and blintchick as in Russian to refer to crêpes. Blintzes are an offshoot of blini. They are thin pancakes usually made of wheat flour (not buckwheat), folded to form a casing (as for cheese or fruit), and then sautéed or baked. The Old Slavic term for the Russian pancakes was probably mlinŭ, which transformed in Old Russian into mlinъ, blinъ (млинъ, блинъ), (cf. mlynets’ (млинець), Ukrainian for blin). While the Russian word блины́ bliný (plural of блин blin) refers in modern Russian also to the introduced foreign pancakes in general; meanwhile the term ру́сские блины́ rússkiye bliný (Russian pancakes) is often emphasized in Russia for differentiation. Aside from referring to pancakes, the word blin (блин) is used in Russian as a linguistic signal in communications. It is used when a person talks to others and is searching for the right words or to express their dissatisfaction as a euphemism for "damn." Blini were considered by early East Slavic people in pre-Christian times to be a symbol of the sun due to their round form.

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Related concepts (5)

Maslenitsa

Maslenitsa (Масленіца; Мaсленица; Пущаня; Масляна or Масниця), also known as Butter Lady, Butter Week, Crepe week, or Cheesefare Week, is an Eastern Slavic religious and folk holiday which has retained a number of elements of Slavic mythology in its ritual. It is celebrated during the last week before Great Lent; that is, the eighth week before Eastern Orthodox Pascha. The date of Maslenitsa changes every year, depending on the date of the celebration of Easter.

Pancake

A pancake (or hotcake, griddlecake, or flapjack) is a flat cake, often thin and round, prepared from a starch-based batter that may contain eggs, milk and butter and cooked on a hot surface such as a griddle or frying pan, often frying with oil or butter. It is a type of batter bread. Archaeological evidence suggests that pancakes were probably eaten in prehistoric societies. The pancake's shape and structure varies worldwide. In the United Kingdom, pancakes are often unleavened and resemble a crêpe.

Caviar

Caviar (also known as caviare, originally from khâvyâr) is a food consisting of salt-cured roe of the family Acipenseridae. Caviar is considered a delicacy and is eaten as a garnish or spread. Traditionally, the term caviar refers only to roe from wild sturgeon in the Caspian Sea and Black Sea (beluga, ossetra and sevruga caviars). The term caviar can also describe the roe of other species of sturgeon or other fish such as paddlefish, salmon, steelhead, trout, lumpfish, whitefish, or carp.