Kissel or kisel[a] is a simple dish with the consistency of a thick gel, and made of sweet fruit, berry, grains (oatmeal, rye, wheat), peas, or from milk.

[citation needed] Grain-based kissels were known 9000 years ago in ancient Anatolia and Mesopotamia, they are mentioned in Sumerian and Akkadian texts.

[3] In French cuisine there was a similar dish known, called gelée – a berry-fruit jelly-kissel made with addition of gelatin based on fish waste.

[1] Contemporary fruit kissels are solidified with starch and the preparation prosess doesn't require fermentation, therefore they are easier to make.

[1] In the former Russian Empire, fruit kissels appeared in late 19th[1] century or at the beginning of 20th, when affordable potato starch became easily available.

[1] Among other dishes closely related to starch-solidified kissels are: rice pudding, flummery (British cuisine), Haferschleim (German), Lokum (Turkish), polenta (Italian) or mamalyga (Eastern-Roman).

In Finland, kissel is often made of bilberries (since they can often be found growing wild in forests, and are thus both easy to gather and free) as well as from prunes, apricots, strawberries, etc.

Kissel is mentioned in the Primary Chronicle, where there is a story of how it saved the city of Belgorod in Kievan Rus', besieged by nomadic Pechenegs in 997.

When the food in the city became scarce, the population followed the advice of an old man, who told them to make kissel from the remnants of grain, and a sweet drink from the last mead they could find.

[14] Another phrase common in Russia and Poland, "the seventh water after kissel" (Polish: siódma woda po kisielu, Russian: седьмая вода на киселе), is used to describe a distant relative.