zacusca

Z10A1C3U1S1C3A1

noun

A vegetable spread popular in Romania, made with roasted eggplant, sautéed onions, tomato paste, and roasted red peppers.

Scrabble 20

Meanings

nounzacusca (uncountable)

alternative zacuscă

  1. uncountableA vegetable spread popular in Romania, made with roasted eggplant, sautéed onions, tomato paste, and roasted red peppers.

    He took a piece of fish, a mouthful of bread, a few spoons of zacusca and then wished us a good rest with the warmest […]

    2004, Augustin Buzura, Requiem for Fools and Beasts, page 438
    3 more examples

    Meanwhile your guide begins to unpack the picnic: slices of pork from local Durac pigs; zacusca, a tomato and pepper sauce made to your guide's mother's own recipe; wine from the grapes in her cobbled courtyard; and cheeses – salty cas and ricotta-like urda – recently made by the shepherd's wife.

    2009, Richard Hammond, Clean Breaks: 500 New Ways to See the World, page 116

    Breakfast was rye bread, beans, pickles and zacusca, a Romanian version of ratatouille, over-boiled so we used it as a spread.

    2010, Florin Grancea, The Pigs' Slaughter, page 16

    "Certainly," he answers, and so I get out some bread and the Zacusca (vegetable paste) to get him started, then I begin to make a sour soup with cabbage and potatoes and sour cream, of course.

    2016, Alice Ann Lake, My Romance In the Carpathian Mountains: A Past Life Retold

Origin

  1. Russianзакуси́ть (zakusítʹ)
  2. Russianзакуска (zakuska)
  3. Romanianzacuscă
  4. Englishzacusca

Borrowed from Romanian zacuscă. Doublet of zakuska.

Full word history & related roots →
Cite this entry
APA

zacusca. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 3, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/zacusca

MLA

“zacusca.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/zacusca. Accessed November 3, 2026.

Chicago

WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “zacusca,” accessed November 3, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/zacusca.

Source: zacusca on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.