Smetana (cream)
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Smetana is a Central and Eastern European variety of sour cream similar to crème fraîche, much heavier and sweeter than the Western European variety.
The cream is called smetana in Bulgarian, Czech, Russian, Belarussian, Slovenian, and Ukrainian (written сметана in the Cyrillic alphabet), kwaśna śmietana in Polish, smotana in Slovak, smântână in Romanian, Schmetten or Schmand in German, and vrhnje in Croatian. Smetana is widely used in many Eastern European cuisines, for example, blended into borscht (beet soup), or served on the plate with vareniki (boiled dumplings) or pelmeni. There are also very popular salads with smetana.
In Zagreb and Zagorje region of Croatia vrhnje is added to local version of low-fat cottage cheese, perhaps sprinkled with salt, paprika and chopped onions, scallion, garlic, radish and/or horseradish, and eaten with dense, intensely yellow corn bread. While virtually every Croatian dairy produces cottage cheese (sir) and vrhnje, connoisseurs hold that only that purchased from a kumica (literally godmother), a [milkmaid] selling her own products on [farmers' market] is the real item. Eurosceptics were recently using sir i vrhnje as a symbol of local products that would allegedly disappear under European standardization ([BBC article]).
When comparing brands or suppliers of smetana, the Russian practice is to note the fat content of the varieties. Fat content can range from 10% (runny) to 35% (thick), most common, as would be found in a Russian supermarket, are 10%, 15% and 20%. Addition of thickeners (e.g. gelatine), even though not forbidden by relevant regulations (at least in Russia), is regarded as cheating and the product considered substandard and unsuitable for culinary use since some recipees are easily spoiled by presence of thickener.
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