Russian food gets a bad rap. It doesn't help that we have images of endless breadlines from the Soviet era in our heads, or that peasant staples like cabbage and turnips are no longer part of the American diet and evoke thoughts of smelly, overcooked masses of vegetables. For me, I wait all year for a summer of eating Russian cuisine, or even cafeteria food. There's something to its simplicity, and it seems more like real food than the processed junk a lot of people in America eat. What's sad is that our trends are spreading, but I hope the Russians stay in touch with their roots.
My first few weeks in Vladimir have gone by without any cooking extravaganzas. Since I normally eat steel-cut oatmeal at home for breakfast, I wanted to find something similar to have here. I found the kasha section of the store, and couldn't bring myself to buy rolled oats. They're too mushy compared to the steel-cut stuff. So I considered pearl barley, or maybe some sort of wheat. Then I found a bag of something that looked kind of like steel-cut oats, but had some word I didn't know. For a dollar or two, it was worth trying. It turns out it was barley, but the grains were cut. It cooks up easily enough, and is sort of like grits. Hmmm, cheese barley-grits?
The next craving to satisfy was Korean carrot salad, one of the few spicy dishes found in many Russian delis. I bought some carrots, and found a spice mix to flavor the salad. (I have also learned now how to say MSG in Russian!) Next time, I'll follow a recipe online and mix my own spices, but it turned out pretty well. I've been trying to eat a lot of veggies at home for dinner, since I eat a typical Russian lunch at the institute: small salad (I usually get the shredded beet/carrot/cabbage combo that comes with hard-boiled egg and mayo), soup, meat+carb (I always go for the buckwheat), tea, and maybe a pastry. The other day, the assistant director in our little institute brought me some fresh lettuce from her garden plot. Ah, fresh greens!
This brings me to another point about Russian food. While we've been eating whatever we want year round for decades, the Russians still eat quite seasonally. Now that it's summer, there are fresh strawberries, new cucumbers, and soon tomatoes, cabbage, potatoes & beets. There are some fruits brought up from the south of the country, and plenty of things imported, but the prices always reflect what's in season. Even girls in their 20s know how to make jam from the buckets of berries, and people regularly pickle a variety of produce (including watermelon – oy!). Part of this is possible because people still grow their own food as much as they can. The apartments in the city may be small and cramped, but many are able to escape in the summer to their plots of land, perhaps even to the dacha. Old women sell their excess on the side of the road, and those too busy to work in the garden gladly buy the fresh, local produce. (It's probably organic too, there's just no official system for denoting conventional vs. organic, perhaps because fewer pesticides are used in Russia than in other places.) Or, in my case, you can share your extra lettuce with your friends! So while I strive to eat mostly whole foods in the US, it seems so much easier here in Russia because that's still the culture of eating. Even in the cafeterias, the food is made fresh from scratch, without additional flavorings or colorings because it's not necessary. So the beef is a little grey. So the apples have a few holes. That's natural food.
My biggest exception to preparing my own food is the Russian dumpling: pelmeni. First of all, they're delicious: meat dumplings (I prefer a mix of beef & pork), boiled up, served with sour cream (and I like to add some sauteed onion & garlic to the mix). Second of all, they are incredibly easy to make when you are hungry RIGHT NOW. Boil water, toss them in, wait 10 minutes. This is because they are sold already frozen. To actually make them is rather time-consuming, though really not difficult. And, luckily enough, part of our cultural program includes some Russian cooking lessons. First up: pelmeni. Between making extra dough & filling to give a little demonstration, and a high proportion of vegetarians in the group, I've ended up with a fridge full of pelmeni and pelmeni-making ingredients. As much fun as it is to cut out circles in the dough and fold them by hand, I may have to cheat and use a pelmenitsa, a device for folding out pelmeni quickly.
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