Khersonskyi Borshch (херсонський борщ, catfish borshch)

The most beautiful thing is that the fish is not hidden. Som, catfish from the river, sits in the bowl in pale flakes under beet-crimson broth, and the first spoonful tastes of mud-bottom water, tomato sourness, dill, and the sweet earth of beets. This is Kherson food, southern and river-fed. The steppe gives you vegetables; the Dnipro gives you the rest.

This is a lean borshch, the kind you make when the table still wants generosity but the pot is not built on pork ribs. The catfish is baked separately so it stays clean and meaty, then the hot broth is ladled over it at the end. If you boil the fish hard in the borshch, it clouds the pot and disappears. Bake it, and it keeps its dignity.

The one thing that decides the dish is the zasmazhka, the slow-sweated onion and carrot. Add it near the end so its sweetness sits brightly on the broth instead of flattening into the stock. Aunt Nadia would have written, "until the smell changes," and she was right: the onion goes from sharp to sweet, the carrot stains the oil orange, and suddenly the pot knows where it is going.

Make a big pot. There is no tradition of a small one. Tomorrow the beet, the fermented tomato mors, and the fish will have made better friends.