Slang vocabulary is full of various concepts. People who do not rotate in a certain environment may not always be able to understand what words such as, for example, “shuher”, “fraer”, “mokruha” mean. Special dictionaries and materials on the Internet help you navigate the meanings of jargon. There may be several in individual words. The ambiguous jargon refers, for example, to the word "balanda."
Criminal and army semantics
Soldier and prison brawl is a tasteless, poor quality food, usually liquid soup. This concept appeared not so long ago - during the First World War. Then, due to the lack of necessary products, the soldiers had to feed with a stew, which consisted of almost one water. Some vegetables or cereals could be added there. Most often, the main ingredient was raw potatoes, which were chopped or grated into the soup without peeling. Carrots, sprouted wheat, dill, onions, and nettles could also be added to the balance. Before boiling, the components were not subjected to any heat treatment, they were prepared already in a pot with water (and sometimes remained half-baked).
Later, from the army vocabulary, this word passed into prison. This expression is now used not only in places of deprivation of liberty, but sometimes in everyday life in order to describe food of inadequate quality.
Figurative meaning
Balanda is also meaningless, non-informative chatter. In this sense, this word is used, for example, by the writer Vasily Grossman in the novel Life and Fate: the description of Tungusov’s actions says that he "weaved the balance." This value arose, apparently, in an associative series: a person’s speech can be as empty as an army’s military stew.
Dialect meaning
The word is also used by the peoples of Mordovia, meaning that balanda is one of the national soups. Prepare it in the spring. Main ingredients: finely chopped thistle and quinoa leaves. They, along with carrots, are first boiled in boiling water, then onions, dill, milk are added and left over low heat. When the balance begins to boil, semolina is sieved into it and left to cook until puree. After removing from heat, grated boiled yolks are added to the soup.
Sometimes called a quill grass grass.
In Ukraine, this word means a dish of potatoes. It is first boiled, then kneaded and seasoned with kvass or brine.
Also, balanda is some kind of dish cooked quickly, in haste.