OPINION
On this occasion, there would be no wavering, no umming and ahhing, no indecision when it came to ordering. Dining at the swanky new Bob Bob Ricard restaurant in the City of London, one dish shone out from the menu and would be the centrepiece of lunch: Chicken Kiev.
As a long-time fan of the dish, I both relished the prospect of it well-prepared – crisp breadcrumbs, soft flesh of breast with the bone emerging like a little handle, and a fresh garlic sauce emerging from within as the knife cuts through – as well as its obvious poignancy.
And now I even knew how to pronounce it properly. As those brave TV and radio presenters – Clive Myrie, Nick Robinson, Lyse Doucet and others – have taught us as they broadcast from the besieged capital of Ukraine, after the "k" it's nothing but a long "e" before you reach the "v".
At least that's how they'll tell you to pronounce it in Ukraine. Because in Putin's homeland, they call it "Kiev", a transliteration from the Russian. So if you're pro-Russia, it's Kiev; if you're backing Ukraine, it's Kyiv.
"I'll have the salmon tartare and then the chicken Kyiv, please," I asked demonstrably. It was every bit as good as I had hoped. A beautiful lesson from the chef about how to get it right. As I savoured this perfect example of the dish, it occurred to me that it represents what could be a gentle rumble, building to a powerful crescendo.
Because there is one dish that has its place on the shelves and in the aisles of every supermarket in Britain, as prevalent as a banana, a pint of milk or a pile of onions. You just try to show me a food retailer that doesn't sell a chicken Kiev.
They're sold with the pro-Russian accent, for now – but now, as sanctions bite, shouldn't we show our support for Ukraine and rebrand them as Kyivs, as soon as practically possible?
🇺🇦🇺🇦 From today Chicken Kyiv will be back in the menu at Portico for the first time in over 40 years. 🇺🇦🇺🇦
— James Chiavarini (@ilporticolondon) March 1, 2022
With every order we will donate £5 to the Red Cross in Ukraine.
Please help by RTing to spread the love.#chickenkyivnotkiev
Change is coming. This week, Il Portico in London has put "chicken Kyiv" back on its menu for the first time in 40 years, donating £5 to the Red Cross in Ukraine for every order. The bar and restaurant chain Drake & Morgan, which has 17 outlets across London and Manchester, is also selling it under the Ukrainian spelling, with a donation for each sold.
As for supermarkets, "It's something we're reviewing at the moment," says a spokesperson at Sainsbury's. "It is being considered," offers the Morrisons spokeswoman.
Irish food producer Finnebrogue, owner of the Better Naked brand, tells The Telegraph it has already renamed its plant-based Kyivs.
Not that each one could even touch the heavenly offering at Bob Bob Ricard. As with so many dishes and recipes across the world, the chicken Kiev has been usurped and bastardised by retailers across the decades – a case in point being the horror of Tesco's pair of "three cheese" chicken Kievs.
We are also donating 50% of the profits from our Better Naked Kyiv to the humanitarian relief effort in Ukraine, starting with an immediate £10,000 donation to UNICEF and the International Committee of the Red Cross.
— Finnebrogue Artisan (@finnebrogue) February 28, 2022
But is the chicken Kiev actually a dish of Kiev or is it in fact a rather long, red herring of fake news? Tragically, given what has happened in recent days, the chicken Kiev was eaten as a symbol of a new era of outward-looking Russian internationalism in May 1990 when Mikhail Gorbachev addressed a gathering of senior diplomats and politicians at the then Soviet Embassy in Washington.
The Soviet Union had disintegrated, but Russia had a new internationalist eye on global consumerism. The dish was at the centre of that dinner. It was a Russian dish of old, now stocked in supermarkets around the world; indicative of the positive tentacles of the new Russia – useful, appetising, wholesome.
Except the Russians viewed the dish as theirs, from the Muscovy region of the Soviet Union, a dish of chicken with a butter sauce covered in breadcrumbs that was refined by a Ukrainian chef in the 19th century. He was from Kiev, hence the name. The chef came from Kiev, not the dish.
Although naming the dish as that of Kiev in fact adheres to the Russian playbook of suggesting it is an entity of Ukraine, while being firmly under the thumb of Russia. Indeed, a 2019 report in The Economist claimed that canteens in Russia served the dish but called it "chicken Crimea".
There is another theory that posits the dish was invented in the 19th century in a hotel in Moscow whose restaurant was called Kiev, while another suggests it was invented in Kiev in the kitchens of the city's Continental Hotel. But given the prevalence of garlic in the recipe, some argue that it is a French dish, named after Kiev to suggest some exotic glamour.
Indeed, there are indications that the Kiev is a version of the French dish, côtelette de volaille (stuffed chicken breast) – in which case, there is a version of it in an edition of Mrs Beeton's Book of Household Management of 1861 called 'chicken fried in batter' or fricandelles de volaille, in which pounded chicken pieces (as faithfully produced by modern-day supermarkets) are coated with egg and breadcrumbs, fried and served with parsley. But, as you would expect with Mrs Beeton, there is no hint of garlic.
Whatever its origins, its popularity here can be traced to one British woman in the 1970s – product developer for M&S, Cathy Chapman. In 1979, she presented chicken Kiev as part of a new range of ready meals for the middle classes. "It's not going to sell because of the garlic," sniffed a member of the board. But Chapman held firm, and so popular had the dish become by the 1980s, the Office for National Statistics used it to measure inflation.
However, right now, its origins are irrelevant. Because the fact is that, remarkably and uniquely, the word Kiev is on the packaging of a product in thousands of shops across the country, in high streets, shopping malls and hypermarkets. Today, Ukraine needs us.
British supermarkets should both rename their products Kyivs and dress their packaging in the blue and yellow colours of Ukraine. We can then eat it with pride and as a salutation to the courage of everyone in that city, and across Ukraine, being subjected to the vicious onslaught of kleptocrat Putin.
Chicken Kyiv. As the wise know, cut one open and you might be taken by surprise at the force and power of what comes from within.
Take a refreshing break from heavy winter dishes.