Category: "Food"

Feedback from Kiev

August 1st, 2012

I was reading student feedback from Kiev today. The most common comment? "My host family feeds me too much, and then I feel bad because I don't finish and then they tell me I'm wasting food."

Chuckle. If that's your worst problem in Kiev, you are doing really well.

But it brings to mind the American stereotype of the Jewish mother: "You're so skinny. Eat! Eat!"

It's actually not the Jewish mother. It's the Eastern European mother. Russians, Ukrainian, Poles and Bulgarians... they all do exactly the same thing. And in the 20th century where did many of the US Jews emigrate from? Eastern Europe.

It also is amusing to talk to Russians about the food in a Jewish deli in the US. Blintzes? Those are Russian bliny. Kasha varnishkes? The Russians make that, too. Some Russians even become indignant. "Why do you call that Jewish food? It's Russian food! It doesn't belong to the Jews!"

That's a holdover of generic antisemitism in Russia. It makes me laugh when I'm not thinking of the grimmer sides of it.

Tatar/Russian cooking class

August 9th, 2012

Today our students were treated to a cooking class at the Mirage, Kazan's first five-star hotel.

Tatar cuisine:

  • Home style salad
  • Azu, a Tatar beef stew, served with match-stick potatoes on the side
  • Lapsha, a Tatar chicken noodle soup
  • Esh poshmak (Russian: треугольники), which are meat-filled, triangular pastries
  • Shak-shak, a wheat noodle desert drenched in a honey/sugar syrup

Russian cuisine:

  • Pelmeni, the Russian version of ravioli
  • Kotlety, ground meat patties, served with mashed potatoes on the side.
  • Pirozhki, baked pastries stuffed with meat

You can see the pictures of the cooking class and commentary on my Picasa stream.

After the cooking class we had a tour of the hotel itself. The executive suites were stunning; the standard rooms decent (though smaller than I might like). Then we toured the restaurants and bars of the place. They had a lovely pool. The air in the pool room is heated to 28°C, and the water in the pool is 2°C cooler. Then there is a work-out room. They were proud to say that Julio Iglesias (and a crowd of other famous folks that I can't remember) had also stayed there.

After that we had some free time, and then we had a Jazz concert at a local museum. One busy day...

Medicated tootsie rolls

August 15th, 2012

This is a Russian tootsie roll supplemented with a massive dose of iron and vitamin C. Very tasty. Kids are given this when they are sick or just for general health purposes. The name of the product means hematogenesis. My colleague Viktoria buys it just because it tastes good.

During the Soviet era the item was so popular that there was often a shortage of it.