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August 30, 2005
Priatnogo Appetita
(Click to enlarge.)
The Russian Food Pyramid, courtesy of the Southeastern Michigan Dietetic Association.
The longer I live in New York, the more I miss Russian food. There I could eat a three-course biznes lanch and still feel less bloated and pickled than I do after two-thirds of a deli sandwich. Over-seasoning is ruining my life. New York food of any "nationality" is too salty, too sweet, too much. I miss the soothing blandness and innocent garnishes found in Petersburg cafes. I miss chicken bouillon and lapsha and dull white pap. I miss vinegar's starring role. I've been making hot broths and plain vanilla cupcakes: original, unevolved foods for an exhausted palate.
The Russian Food Pyramid makes me laugh. Why aren't Russians allowed fresh fruit, but condemned to dried? It's as though someone in Michigan researched his pyramid in 19th-century Russian literature (except for the artichokes and the Brussels sprouts, which I am not convinced are available even now). An examination of their English Food Pyramid convinces me, by apparent consistency of research methods, that this is so. I also like that vodka is so much a part of the Russian "diet" that it's included in the pyramid, though neither the English nor the Irish have a beer allowance. The rest of the Russian info was apparently gleaned from Polish sources: pierogies and holubkys?
This week's New Yorker (the Food Issue, yay!) has a nice little reminiscence from one Anya von Bremzen, of toddler days in 1960s Moscow, where connections secured her an unlikely place at the writing desks and dining tables of an exclusive little kindergarten for Central Committee children. (Not available online, I'm afraid.)
"Fish-fat time!" the teacher announced when her charges awakened. I thought she meant fish oil, which was administered daily at all kindergartens. Instead, I was approached by an elephantine nanny with a heaping spoonful of black caviar. It was my first encounter with sevruga eggs. They smelled metallic, like a rusty doorknob."Open wide...a spoonful, for Lenin," the nanny implored. "For Motherland, for the Party!" she said, pushing the caviar toward my locked lips. I started to gag.
"Don't you dare throw up!" she bellowed. "Or I'll make you eat every drop of your puke!"
My alienation intensified with every meal: veal scallops, poached sturgeon - this food, I knew, would horrify Mother.
Russians, Russianists, tell me what you ate and what you eat.
Posted by michele at August 30, 2005 3:59 PM
Comments
2 or 3 weeks ago i took my second attempt at making pilav. it rocked. i have an uzbek cookbook published in 1991 with photos. will scan it sometime.
Posted by: GweiL0 at August 30, 2005 8:38 PM
Since autumn is knocking on the door the vegetables at Peterburg's markets are cheeper than usual. Hence, I've had filled paprika with smetana for a week now. Mmmm :)
Also decided to stock up for winter!
Posted by: Camilla at September 1, 2005 1:16 AM
I'm Russian and I'd like to add that Vodka isn't a part of a regular meal for most of people here and that Kvas isn't like a beer because it's not alcoholic. Though Kvas looks like a beer.
By the way, thanks for this blog, it's a real pleasure to read it.
Posted by: Mikhail at September 1, 2005 2:54 PM
Speaking of kvas, I would love to discuss this difficult-to-explain-beverage in a thread.
In Sweden it could very well be put in a beer category: we have a similar beverage (though most seem to hate it and it doesn't taste half as good as kvas), called "small beer". It is a type of non alcoholic bread based mead.
Posted by: Camilla at September 2, 2005 11:37 AM
I think vodka is part of a regular meal. I have never been to a Russian restaurant where it wasn't on every table.
I love my mom's pyelmeni and golooptsi but I think a lot of quickie Russian places overdo the pepper on the former and underspice the latter.
Posted by: Karol at September 20, 2005 1:06 AM
I have found vodka on the table of many family meals in Russia. Seems rather traditional and not at all the intimidating experience that I thought drinking vodka with a Russian might become. Was rather more like an apertif, drank every 20 minutes or so, with a toast during the meal.
I am surprised that beef isn't listed among the meats .. or at the very least, beef tongue! I am also convinced that smetana should be featured much more prominently ... place it among the dairy products.
I have a rather nice little old Russian Cookbook. "Cooking the Russian Way" by Musia Soper, Spring Books, London, 1961 (the book says it was actually printed in Czechoslovakia). A friend picked it up for me at a yard sale. Has a large variety of recipes, Russian, Ukrainian, and other ethnicities of the former CCCP.
Posted by: W. Shedd at December 3, 2005 12:23 AM