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Pelmeni are small dumplings of thin wheat flour dough wrapped around a minced meat filling, traditionally frozen and boiled. The name comes from the Finno-Ugric Permian words pel, ear, and nyan, bread, pointing to Ural and Siberian folk origins among peoples such as the Komi rather than to Slavic Russia itself; the dish entered Russian print only in the 1820s and 1830s, regarded until the mid nineteenth century as purely Siberian. A separate theory traces the dumpling form to Chinese jiaozi carried across trade routes, a derivation food historians describe as standing in genuine tension with the dish's own Finno-Ugric name.
Facts
Origin Period, From (Year)1837 is the date of the earliest known print reference, in Ekaterina Avdeeva Notes and Remarks About Siberia, not necessarily the date the dish itself was first made, which is unrecorded. Origin RegionThe Ural Mountains and Siberia, among Finno-Ugric peoples such as the Komi, later adopted into wider Russian cuisine. 1 Cross-Tradition Connections
In Cuisine
Uses Ingredient
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Dissenting Readings (1 dissenting reading)
Origin Period, From (Year)
Food historians Pavel and Olga Syutkin describe what they call the paradox of pelmeni: the dish is most likely of Chinese origin, derived from jiaozi dumplings carried east along trade routes, yet its own name is demonstrably Finno-Ugric, from the Permian words pel, ear, and nyan, bread, pointing instead to indigenous Ural and Siberian folk roots among peoples such as the Komi. The Syutkins also note that dumplings resembling pelmeni reached Russia independently from Crimean Tatar, Dagestani and Central Asian sources in different centuries, so a single clean line of descent may not exist at all.
A dissenting reading, from an independent lanePavel and Olga Syutkin, The Paradox of Pelmeni (The Moscow Times), The Moscow Times, 2022
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