Izhevsk
Food
It doesn't look better in light
December 1, 2003
Dinner was not good; I’m going to loose a lot of weight. My stomach’s growling,
I think that’s the sign to go to bed before I start thinking about everything I
don’t have to eat.
Fortunately, Tatiana Macarovna brought me Russian ice cream and Russian chocolate
because I told her I’ve never had either; the ice cream was simple and good while
the chocolate, Blashenstvo brand was excellent, many people (all Russian mind you)
say Russian chocolate is better than Switzerland’s or Belgium’s; I disagree, but
it is definitely very good based upon my limited chocolate consumption.
As I ate my chocolate and ice cream I became fixated on the fact that whenever a
tram went past the school the lights dimmed until it had passed, this could become
annoying if I think about it too much.
December 4, 2003
I woke up late today, a blessing seeing as how it forced me to miss breakfast.
The bell signaled the end of my second class so I headed down to the ground floor
for lunch. The cafeteria stands opposite the school’s entrance, I washed my hands
in one of the seven or eight sinks, took a deep breath, and headed in. I hung my
coat on the 2 x 4 with nails sticking out of it (a.k.a. the coat rack) and prayed
for a culinary miracle.
The food is served Russian style: sour cream on nearly everything. They don’t serve
any drinks other than juice or tea; I pick up my juice as my stomach hides behind
the façade of my smile to humor the lunch lady.
The pressure to order builds, the longer I wait the more food the lunch lady gives
me. This is the most pressure I’ve felt since finals, my mind races… thus far I’ve
had stewed lentils, salad, pilaf, soups, breads, and both juice and tea.
The salads aren’t salad as we know it, but a plate of shredded vegetables covered
in oil or mayonnaise… Oh no! She’s reaching for a salad… I quickly sputter out “No
salad today, thank you!” In one third is cut up green onions, another third is purple
stuff, and the last what appears to be cabbage of some sort. She begins to find
something to give me; I need to think quicker…
The soups are always served with sour cream, even if asked not, but are consistently
good... “Soup please.” Okay, I bought myself some time, think Justin, think… The
pilaf keeps getting worse; I just don’t understand how you can take rice and meat
and make it so bad, there’s nothing else in there other than spices.
No pilaf on the menu, how about the pastries; they are really hit or miss. The first
roll I had was stuffed with some brownish-grey stuff that was painful to choke down.
Later I had the some roll with rice and eggs, which was ok and later with apricots,
which was poor. I also had a croissant sprinkled with poppy seeds before rolled,
edible. A roll I had yesterday was a hot dog type thing with a roll wrapped around
it. A fairly good roll is a flat bread-type thing with mashed potatoes on top. There
it is… “That please!”
I contemplate my options: do I venture on or walk away? The lunch lady seems to
be looking around for something else… she’ll just keep giving me food if I don’t
do something and I feel bad leaving much of it. Walk away Justin, walk away… Thank
goodness, one more meal survived… my stomach thanks me.
I move to the table on the serving counter’s right, look through the pile of spoons
and take the only one that doesn’t have any visible food stuck to it. The “cafeteria”
has a few old, crooked tables; the chairs are but stools, a piece of wood with two
bent metal bars screwed on to create make-shift legs.
My soup is flavorless, it must have been boiled for hours, the roll is very good
and the juice cannot go wrong. After savoring the flavor of the roll I put my dishes
on a table near a window looking into the kitchen. The student on cafeteria duty
gets up and cleans my table. Every student has to take turns with kitchen and cloak
room duties so for these days miss school since they are all-day jobs: the lunch
room is open much of the day, children coming and going as they please. There is
no closing time, it closes when they decide it does and everyday differs.
December 5, 2003
I “indulged” on the first American food I have seen in a week, a 70 ruble pizza,
which turned out really quite poorly on American standards, but good in comparison
to… well everything else here. It had onions, tomatoes, a little cheese, mushrooms,
and… you may want to sit down for this one… mayo, I guess because it resembles mozzarella
in that they’re both white!?
I only ate half and “shared” the rest with the group, it was enough to satisfy me
and not too much to make me projectile vomit across the café. The beer my friends
got me was Russian and had no flavor.
After eating we played pool, 30 rubles a game, that’s about the same in the US,
almost a dollar. It was a fun night.
December 6, 2003
I’m alone, even babushka is gone; I’m kind of bored. I have a pounding headache,
I believe because I haven’t had a single bit of nutrition in a week; when I move
too fast it just hurts. I dislike food here and eating is a chore. I just went through
the “food” in this house and so decided not to eat until Monday; my motivation is
dissipating...
December 7, 2003
Kathryn and Johnny invited me over for tea and I happily accepted. One dish the
servants brought out was Udmurtian pastries with potatoes in the middle, almost
like a mini mashed potato pie. They were excellent and as I ate the best food I’d
had in days, Johnny continued on about the city’s billionaires (in US dollars) who
struck it rich from the oil industry, but I was too pre-occupied with nourishment
to pay much attention.
December 10, 2003
School was ordinary: class, lunch, class. I also discovered my favorite Russian
food thus far: perepechi, well they're actual Udmurtian, the Udmurtian national
dish (which I had at Johnny’s apartment).
December 11, 2003
After class I went to Alexander’s house for dinner (a friend of mine who is obsessed
with Michael Jordan and basketball); his girlfriend made us cold soup, which had
some cucumbers, ham, hard boiled eggs, and other stuff it in, it’s typically only
served in the summer, but they wanted to treat me. We also had bread and “meeting”
cake.
December 12, 2003
I had the worst food ever invented in any country during any time in history today;
however I feel I should do more than just state my disgust with it, so this is only
a teaser… I will reveal its every disgusting detail just before I stop writing tonight.
That’s my weak attempt at suspense and drama, pretty bad I know.
After talking to Katya for a couple hours, she headed into the bathroom and some
time later I headed into town. I walked out to the bus stop, which is an iron clad
structures with little stores selling snacks, drinks, and cigarettes. The odds are
great that there is at least one other stand near by selling magazines or fruit
and always beer; there are beer stands everywhere. What I found odd at first is
the difficulty of buying vodka, it’s so stereotypically Russian I believed it easy
to find, but the alcohol of choice is beer. Vodka is for occasions like weddings,
birthdays, new years, parties and is sold in nicer stores, not just from beer vendors
freezing their tails off in kiosks on the street corner.
Tea is popular and I’m okay with that, I really am… I can drink it now and I can
accept the tea drinkers the world over. What gets me is that no one drinks water.
Water, the body’s nourishment which is about 50% of my body; water is something
that our bodies need, but the people here just pass it off as if it's not important
or needed. What are their bodies made of? Kapusta (cabbage)? I’ve replaced my water
intake with cabbage, my body is little more than 5% water and that other 45% has
been replaced with cabbage. About as often as Haley’s Comet is viewed from earth
do Russians seem to drink water, and that water is mostly steel mill pollution excess-infested
nuclear waste run-off with a touch of water as opposed to the transparent odor-free
substance I’ve grown to love. I have yet to see a single person drink water other
than me.
So now I come to water replacements: juice is a good substitute and is cheap on
American standards, but still expensive for most locals. Milk in a bag, hmmm...
tastes normal, but it’s uncommon. Vodka comes from the Russian word voda meaning
water, in other words vodka is “little water” but even that has lost its place in
Russian culture. Beer is where so many people get their nutrients, not the healthiest
of choices, but what other option do you have? Wine maybe? Or some nuclear waste
run-off?
Now on to food, if I can call it that. I understand I’m a picky eater and so I must
forgive the Russians on their terrible taste, but only to a small degree. Some food
here is quite good and should be recommended… most is not. My favorite food here
and something I would eat quite regularly in the US if it was available is the Udmurtian
national dish, with a thin crispy crust and filled with twice baked potatoes… yum.
Pilaf is also good, contrary to initial belief, the pilaf’s quality is based upon
the water used to make it so at the school cafeteria I’ve found it to be the gourmet
selection compared to the unheard of parts of a cow passed off as meat. In fact
meat is served in pilaf and is low quality, but the rice is good so long as the
day’s tap water is consumable.
Soup, as I mentioned is always a winner because they boil it until it has little
flavor.
I tried, but can't drop meat that quickly; meat is simply “meat” and it’s a
surprise every time, never knowing what animal or part of the animal it comes from,
typically it's not good.
Now moving on... the last two good dishes are blini, baking powder-less pancakes
served with sour cream and second bread - the highlight; it’s great, especially
with cheese, my favorite and most common meal, especially when served with a side
of juice.
On to the acceptable… pecheneo are bread cookies, very plain and tasteless, and
not as good as sugar-filled cookies, but they’re better than anything else in my
apartment. There’s this stuff called “cheese” at Izhstal which is breadstick-resembling
smoked cheese; it's very chewy and pretty good. Pizza here is ok at best, yet
much better than most food, I still wouldn’t recommend it: it’s just going to be
a let down.
Vstechy cake is good, mashed potatoes are common and bland so meat is typically
added and that’s a bad idea. Potatoes are also very popular in soups and add a lot
in a good way. Fruits and vegetables I’m told are popular in the summer, but now
cost too much to buy so don’t really exist. Mushrooms are very popular and typically
picked personally from forests, but again not many are around now.
There are a few different bakery products, only two of which are good so the chances
of getting the right one is rare (before knowing what any were called). The good
pastries are bulka-ser, which are rolls covered with melted cheese, pretzel bread
rolls with kosher salt are good and they’re called pletyonka, finally there is peroshki
and this is truly Russian roulette. Some have raisons, apricots, or other junk in
them. The only one I’ve had that’s been ok was with rice and egg.
Sour cream is in everything, butter is with everything, caviar is popular and cheap
by American standards, but still expensive for Russians so rare. The salads are
not lettuce, but other vegetables with sour cream or oil and should never be ordered!
Many times it’s like coleslaw or cut up beats or carrots, yuck. Macaroni is pasta
and tough to ruin, but it is usually over cooked in the school cafeteria. This is
why I left the apartment, for tea and then ecstasy...
I departed ways with Tatiana and met Katya from my class at Planetta Pizza, which
was excellent. We had a 30 centimeter cheese pizza for 70 rubles; I’ll be back there.
After the heavenly meal Katya and I walked around town and I had to ask why she
felt embarrassed to ask me to have lunch with her today. She said it’s very rude
for a girl to invite a boy out, plus girls won’t invite boys out because they fear
rejection or embarrassment and the reputation of being rude and “easy.” Typically
the man makes the decisions on when to go, where to go, with whom to go, etc. So
I’m beginning to make executive decisions now, but still need to work on it.
Back to the pizza; the pizza was the best meal I’ve had and the conversation superb.
It was also very bad because now I have an enormous and unquenchable craving for
American food and to make matters worse, Johnny, met us and took us out to Baskin
Robbins for dessert (a relatively new addition to the town).
Upon returning home I was surprised to see my host sister, Katya sitting around
the house doing nothing. This morning she took about 45 minutes in the shower and
then another… well I don’t know how long, I left after 15 minutes of her drying
her hair. Naturally I figured she had some big plans, but no… she didn’t leave the
house all day. So she was all dolled up with nowhere to go?
When I arrived she invited me to eat some food she had made while I was gone, the
worst food on earth, holendets (холендец - write that down in case you're going
to Russia): raw pig fat served with water and mustard. It consists of fat and grease
with hardened grease on the top, literally like bacon grease. I was told, for lack
of better explanation, “it’s like taking the pork, bacon, and ham out of the pig,
then throwing the rest into a blender, cooking some of it so there’s more grease
than meat, adding the rest raw and throwing it in the fridge.” It's served in
cubes, rolled in cold water for about 15 seconds, covered in mustard, then eaten...
I hope the pizza stays down, it was so good.
December 14, 2003
After church we went to another sit down restaurant, I forgot its name, but excellent.
I had a good long talk with Johnny, who told me about the Udmurtian government,
politics, opportunities, and food. The Udmurtian president is supposedly a real
jerk; the last few people to run against him have left the republic and are not
respected anymore.
The republic didn’t have a president until communism fell, at which time he erected
the presidency. He was in favor with the communist party and as communism fell the
same people still ruled, but in the democracy. He had so much power he created the
Udmurtian presidency by “buying” it according to Johnny. He created the president’s
palace, which is bigger than the white house, in one year and it cost a fortune;
the people’s money, which could have been better spent.
Politics here are corrupt and only the rich can afford to run.
December 15, 2003
On the way home I had dreams of Planetta Pizza, but instead had a liter of juice
for dinner… it provides nutrients and hydration, not to mention it only costs 25
rubles talk about the all-around package.
At the apartment, Katya told me about a huge ice palace in the central square they
began this week. She seems very excited and happier then I’ve ever seen her. It’s
like this ice palace has injected some sort of pride in her. She went on about this
palace and Udmurtia, telling me all about the growing season and natural water springs;
Udmurtia is known as the land of springs and of green tomatoes because of their
minimal growing season.
December 16, 2003
Ah yes, it was indeed Planetta Pizza, my favorite restaurant in Russia, perhaps
the world considering how much better it is than anything else that is available
in its proximity. I savored every last bite of my meal and passed my compliments
on to the chef via some 16 year old pimple-faced kid before departing.
December 22, 2003
I found some food I enjoyed at lunch, it felt slightly uncomfortable, as if I had
been transported to a parallel universe. I had bulka mar, which is the roll with
poppy seeds and kapyeta, which is cabbage boiled for hours, not bad; it has no flavor.
On the way out I saw the rolls with potatoes on them called vatryshka c kartoshkouy
(there are a few versions of this and all are good) so grabbed one to inhale before
heading upstairs.
I was going to eat on the way to class, but I was informed when a person eats in
the presence of another it’s common to share; it’s rude to eat with other people
around unless you have enough to share. Even in the streets beer is passed around
and when people do come together for a meal, there are “community dishes;” people
just eat out of them with their forks and spoons instead of dishing onto their plates
then eating it.
Katya reminded me of this behavior when I returned home later in the day. Her favorite
is a small bowl of jelly and honey on the table; she just sticks her spoon in there
and eats it plain. To accompany her at dinner, I had a glass of milk, which at first
I thought was expensive, but I found out it's uncommon because people don't
tend to like it, it’s about 8 rubles for a liter of 3.4%, the most popular type.
I grabbed a snack with my milk and I found it odd that everyone eats when they want
to in this apartment; the family never seems to eat together, much less at the same
time.
December 23, 2003
Seth’s host family taught us about national and republic foods: the Tartar "national"
food is a crunchy tasteless bread stuff with honey, not quite a meal, Udmurtia’s
dish is perepechi, Uzbekistan’s is pilaf, and Russia’s is peroshki. I wonder what
the United States’ would be: pizza, hamburger, McDonald’s? Can a "national
food" be, well not a food, but rather a fast food chain restaurant?
December 26, 2003
I had dinner with Nick and a couple others after class. He got a leaf in his soup
when it was served, which means you’re going to get a letter in the mail… and the
Russians don’t think they’re superstition.