Two of the most interesting foods worth mentioning are salo -- or pig's fat -- as well as the delicacy, cow's tongue. Another dish is something called stooden -in Russian, or aspic - in English. Aspic is a gel that you eat with meat. The way this dish is made is to cook beef or some other meat at a low temperature for many, many hours, and then let it sit in the fridge until the broth becomes firm, like a gel (or literally like jello), and then it's taken out and eaten cold!
Aside from the various traditional soups and salads available, you will also be offered many familiar staple foods, such as bread, potatoes, pork, beef, sausages, fish, poultry, rice, buckwheat, salted cucumbers or cabbage, a traditional potato and mushroom dish, shashlyk -- or Russian k-bobs with meat and vegetables, pirozhki -- or pastries with potatoes, meat, cabbage or cheese inside, and, last but not least -- caviar. Salmon caviar is a very popular choice and is usually spread on crackers, bread, or blini. You'll also find that Russians eat many berries that aren't as popularly known in America.
And perhaps you'll be surprised at some of the things that Russians DON'T eat. Some of the things that don't seem quite as popular in Russia (or are even heard of) are peanut butter, apple sauce, Cheddar cheese, American-style sandwiches, most Mexican foods, and many Italian pastas and dishes (like lasagna or spaghetti). Perhaps you might say that whereas Americans seem to specialize in a variety of baked casseroles and pastas, Russians specialize in a variety of hot and cold soups and inventive mayo salads.
OK, that gel dish described up there and pig's fat is too close to those incredibly nasty pickled pig's feet that my husband seems to love. If he goes grocery shopping by himself, a jar of that seems to find itself in my kitchen. And if he doesn't finish off the jar when he gets home, the "liquid" gels in the fridge making it super disgusting when he eats it next time and tries to feed it to my gullible children. Trust me, I'll be scanning the menu for that word "stooden"-- aka steer clear of this item! We have cow's tongue in our grocery stores. I just have to close my eyes as I walk past that. What in the world do you do with it???? And why would you want to do anything with it????
Here is a picture of it for those of you whose grocery stores are not graced with this apparent delicacy:
We saw lots of people enjoying the gelled meat as an appetizer...I found it slightly less appetizing.
ReplyDeleteThis brings back horrific memories. . .Thanksgiving dinner 2007 had beef tongue, cold, raw fish and a host of other strange things--all covered in dill--I used to love all things dill, not so much anymore. I did enjoy the caviar, which was served on boiled quails eggs. Yummy!! Kras does have a few restaurants you might like: Subway--yes, just like ours here!! Well, almost. There is also a California Pizza--at which they give a 10% discount to Americans; and there is an Il Patio (there is one of these in Moscow, also near the TGI Fridays) which serves halfway decent Italian food--trifle expensive, but still good. There was a coffee shop we went to in the mornings a lot that served awesome Crepes with Strawberries. Aidan loved that. The grocery stores do sell Ramen like noodles and yogurt and few other items that you can buy and prepare for yourself.
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