Episode 5: Dinner Bells
I’ve often heard that the Russian language, when spoken, is harsh, guttural, and fierce. I think those who hold this opinion have not heard actual Russian. Maybe they’ve heard villains, soldiers, or border guards in movies barking orders or shouting or issuing commands and threats. But they’ve never heard whispered conversations, or poetry, or this song.
This version has lyrics included on the screen, so I won’t write them here. The song, with its lovely, haunting melody, is an ode to evenings in Moscow. You don’t have to understand the words to feel the emotion. And you don’t have to be from Moscow to know the longing and love for home that this song evokes.
My dad used to sing and hum all kinds of songs, some of which I knew and some that I didn’t. This one featured often in his repertoire, usually in the evening, after dinner.
Let’s talk about dinner. Let’s talk about Russian food, in general. Russia, or the Soviet Union, as it was called then, is a collection of peoples, with their own culinary traditions and a rich variety of food. Ukrainian and Russian foods tend to have many similarities, as do foods native to Belarus. That’s because Russia, to a great extent, adopted foods from those areas. Other parts of the Soviet Union, such as Armenia, Georgia, Azerbaijan, and Uzbekistan, have culinary traditions that are firmly rooted in the Middle East and Central Asia. So, you get wonderful lamb kabobs or stuffed grape leaves, the way my Armenian uncle George used to make them, or amazing Georgian dumplings, formed to look like little drawstring purses and filled with all kinds of delicious meats and veggies.
In my family, we mostly stuck with the basics of meat and potatoes with the occasional side dish thrown in. Soup was almost always the first course, anything from basic chicken soup, to borscht (beet soup), to cabbage soup, to a barley and pickle soup (don’t knock it ’till you’ve tried it; it’s delicious!). In warmer weather the soups were cold — cold borscht with sour cream or a sorrel soup with fresh cucumbers and hard boiled eggs. That last one was my favorite. Sorrel is a spinach-like leafy green that has a tart flavor, which, when added to chicken broth, flavors the entire soup with a fresh tanginess.
Main dishes were typically stewed beef or chicken with potatoes or noodles. I’ve never really cared much about the protein part. But potatoes and noodles are a different story! Potatoes could be stewed, pan fried, mashed, or simply boiled and served with fresh dill and butter. And noodles, boiled and then pan fried until the bottom turned crisp! Don’t even get me started!
Vegetables were more rare. For one thing, they weren’t always available in grocery stores. You could normally get carrots and maybe onions, but other vegetables were harder to find. When my parents did acquire veggies or fresh fruit, they almost never ate them. These were for the children, who needed the vitamins! Adults made do without.
But there were almost always mushrooms! Added to soup, fried with potatoes and onions, or pickled, they made up a substantial, and delicious, part of our culinary tradition, especially in the summer. That’s when, out in the Russian countryside, we would forage for fresh white mushrooms and the more elusive “lisichky”, Russian for “little foxes,” the ones known in the West as chanterelles. Tiny and hard to find, they were fun to look for among the ferns and mosses of the forest.
Belye, or white, mushrooms are also known as King mushrooms, and with good reason. These are easier to find among the trees, as some of them can get huge! We would go out for hours, hunting these giants, and any other edible mushroom we could find, bringing back baskets full of edible goodness to be fried, pickled, or dried for later use.
Belye, or white, mushrooms are also known as King mushrooms, and with good reason. These are easier to find among the trees, as some of them can get huge! We would go out for hours, hunting these giants, and any other edible mushroom we could find, bringing back baskets full of edible goodness to be fried, pickled, or dried for later use.
My mom did make one veggie-based dish fairly often. It’s called Tzimmes, an abomination made with carrots and prunes.
Not a traditional Russian dish, it’s actually served on Jewish holidays, but living in the Soviet Union, we wouldn’t have known that. No matter. I hated the stuff. Mushy carrots and slimy prunes! No thanks!
During family gatherings there were also “Zakuski,” hot and cold hors d’oeuvres, that included red salmon roe on toast, sliced smoked salmon, cold potato salad, beet salad with garlic, a variety of pickled and fermented veggies, and kholodets! That last one is the Russian version of aspic, or jellied broth, made with with eggs, meat, or whatever else you can find, and served cold. You’re welcome!
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