Forget burgers, Ukrainians want an emoji for Borscht

Can we pause on the burger emoji debate for a second? People in Ukraine want a different dish to get some emoji love.

The people behind Ukraine's official Twitter account want to create an emoji for borscht—a traditional sour soup made from beetroot, carrot, celery, potato, onion and garlic.

Here's a mock-up of the soon-to-be-proposed borscht emoji:

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"Borscht (or “borshch”, as we say in Ukraine) is one of the most famous dishes in Ukrainian culture," a spokesperson for Ukraine's Twitter account told Mashable.

They say they were surprised by the impassioned debate prompted by the incorrect-ingredient-stacking in both Apple and Google's burger emoji. They decided to use this opportunity to shine a light on their plan to get Ukraine firmly planted on the emoji map.

The spokesperson says that Ukrainians and their Eastern European neighbours have enjoyed the "outstanding taste of beetroot, cabbage, potato, beans, and whatever else" for centuries.

The people behind the campaign believe that borscht has had a truly enormous impact on the world. In fact, they'd even go so far as to say the dish has fed famous poets, scientists and politicians just before making important discoveries.

"Lots of poets, scientists and politicians have made a contribution to the world history after a hot bowl of borscht (true story!)" the spokesperson says. "We think this historical course should find its righteous place in a proud family of food emoji."

This isn't the first time a country's traditional cuisine has been translated into emoji form. Earlier this year, Apple made a major change to the paella emoji after a Twitter campaign pointed out that the previous emoji was inaccurate. Seemingly, the ingredients used by Apple in iOS 10.2 didn't match the ingredients favoured in traditional Valencian paella recipes. Thankfully, all has now been rectified!

The spokesperson says they're currently looking at the Unicode emoji criteria so they have their best shot at convincing the committee to make this borscht emoji dream a reality.