Zur occurs five times in the King James Bible as the name of various people and a state.

The sour rye soup is a soup  made of soured rye flour and meat (usually boiled pork sausage or pieces of smoked sausage, bacon or ham). It is specific to Poland, where it is known as zur or zurek, and a variant is known as barszcz bialy ("white barszcz") which is made with wheat flour instead of rye. The soup is also found in the cuisines of other western Slavic nations such as Slovakia (kyslóvka) and the Czech Republic (kyselo). A variation of this soup is found in Lithuania.