26/07/2026
Lithuanian cold beet soup, known in Polish as chłodnik litewski, is one of the most beautiful dishes of the old Polish-Lithuanian borderlands.
It comes from a region where cultures, languages and kitchens have been meeting for centuries — Polish, Lithuanian, Ruthenian, Jewish and local Podlasie traditions.
This was never a closed, isolated cuisine.
It was a cuisine of travelling routes, manor houses, village homes, summer gardens and simple ingredients taken from the field, the forest and the dairy.
At its heart, chłodnik is a summer soup made with young beets, cucumber, radish, dill, chives and buttermilk. It is served cold with a boiled egg, and sometimes with young potatoes on the side.
It is the kind of food that makes perfect sense in July: refreshing, light, colourful and nourishing. After riding through the forest on a warm day, a bowl of cold beet soup gives both comfort and freshness.
For us, this dish is more than just soup.
It is a taste of the borderlands — a reminder of the old Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, of village gardens, summer kitchens and the kind of food that was made from what was growing nearby.
Here in Podlachia, it feels completely natural: young beets, fresh dill, local dairy, a boiled egg, and a meal eaten slowly, outdoors, after a day in the saddle.
Chłodnik litewski is summer in a bowl — simple, local, historical and full of colour.
Our riding holidays are exactly about that - local nature and history mixed together.
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Basia from Podlachia
