Zeamă

History

Zeamă (also spelled zamă) holds a special place in Moldovan cooking as a tangy chicken soup, its sourness traditionally coming from a fermented wheat-bran starter called borș, distinct from the beet-based Slavic borscht despite the similar name. This bran-fermenting technique is thought to reach back to Romanian and Moldovan peasant practices that predate the widespread use of lemon.

Served as a Sunday soup or at festive meals, zeamă is also known in Moldovan popular culture as a cure for a rough morning after a celebration, much like other sour soups across Eastern Europe. Every family keeps its own version, with or without noodles, more or less tart.

Ingredients — serves 4

• 1 free-range chicken (or chicken pieces)
• 2 carrots
• 1 celery stalk
• 1 onion
• 1 bell pepper
• 200 ml borș (fermented bran starter) or lemon juice as a substitute
• Homemade noodles or vermicelli
• Fresh dill, salt, pepper

Zeamă, step by step

1. Put the whole chicken or pieces in a pot, cover with cold water, and bring to a boil.
2. Skim carefully, then add the onion, carrots, and celery, roughly chopped.
3. Let it simmer gently for about 1 hour, until the chicken is very tender.
4. Remove the chicken, shred the meat, and return it to the strained broth.
5. Pour in the fermented borș (or lemon juice) to sour the broth to taste, then add the noodles.
6. Scatter with fresh chopped dill just before serving hot.

Cooking method

Technique: a classic chicken broth soured at the very end with a fermented starter, never boiled again after that point to preserve its tang.
Traditional equipment: a clay or cast-iron pot from Moldovan farmhouse kitchens.
Signs it’s ready: the sourness should stay balanced and refreshing, never overpowering the chicken broth’s flavor.

Nutrition, per serving

Calculated from the raw ingredient quantities above, using a whole chicken with skin, divided across four servings. That whole-bird calculation, bone and skin included, is why the protein and fat figures run high: 59 g of protein and 45 g of fat per serving, well above what a boneless-breast version of the same soup would give. A meaningful share of that fat renders into the broth during the hour-long simmer and can be skimmed off before serving, which most Moldovan households do as a matter of course.

Economic context

A whole chicken and a handful of root vegetables are both affordable, widely available staples in Moldova, which keeps zeamă well within the country’s daily healthy-diet figure above; the fermented bran starter that gives the broth its sour edge costs essentially nothing to make at home, a detail that matters for a soup as often associated with an everyday Sunday table as with any specific festive occasion.

Source: World Bank / FAO, Food Prices for Nutrition database (Cost and Affordability of a Healthy Diet) v4.0, 2024 data, CC BY 4.0, DOI 10.57966/41AN-KY81. Retrieved 29 July 2026. This figure describes the cost of a healthy diet in Moldova generally — it is not a costing of this specific recipe.

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