In the Slavic home, everything revolves around the large brick oven, the pech': it heats, it cooks, and in winter one sleeps on top of it. The meal is not divided into starter-main-dessert but is organized around a base of warm porridge (kasha) or soup, accompanied by rye bread, preserved forest produce (salted or pickled mushrooms and berries), and washed down with a thick beverage (kissel) or a hot one (sbiten). Everything is placed on the table at once; everyone helps themselves. Festive dishes and offerings to the dead (kutia) mark transitions—exactly the territory of Baba Yaga, guardian of the threshold between the living and the dead.

The great secret of Slavic forest cuisine is the brick oven that retains heat for hours: you don't boil vigorously, you let things melt and confit slowly (tomlénié). With it, the forest in reserve: dried mushrooms hung in garlands, soaked berries, honey from wild hives. It is Baba Yaga's oven, the one that warms… or devours.