Moldovan Food History

Historical period

A framework: prehistoric farming on the chernozem, including the Cucuteni-Trypillia complex; Greek and later Roman contact on the Black Sea and Danube; the Principality of Moldavia from the 14th century; Ottoman suzerainty from the 16th; Russian annexation of Bessarabia in 1812 and the colonisation of the southern steppe; Romanian administration 1918-1940; the Moldavian SSR, the 1946-47 famine, collectivisation and the industrial food and wine system; independence in 1991; the Russian wine embargoes; and the large-scale labour emigration that has reshaped village life since.