Some of the best Georgian cuisine I've ever eaten was at Tbilisi restaurant in Warsaw (ul. Pulawska, 24) last April. On Yelp there is a helpful review that uses one of my favorite expressions in Russian (and, I guess, in Polish): teoretycznie. Theoretically, says Amelia K., the restaurant opens at noon.
Theoretically they also have everything on the menu. But after our absolutely fantastic evening there in April -- when our friend Babs was visiting from the States -- my husband and I went back again for a romantic lunch. Not. Almost everything we ordered was not available that day, including the amazing spinach balls we had been dreaming about for weeks.
Recently I've begun preparing the Russian cuisine course I'm offering in spring semester, and it has me thinking about my experiences in Soviet restaurants and cafes. Of course there weren't many options for dining out when I lived in Moscow in the late 1980s. But perestroika had brought about some reforms, which meant that over the year more and more places opened -- several new Georgian cafes and restaurants, a pizzeria near my institute, a Korean cafe... Some of the old places remained open as well, and I even went into the Praga one afternoon (though on crowded evenings my lack of bribing skills left me out in the cold).
It's fascinating how my own life has now gently turned into history... When talking about Soviet restaurant life to my students recently, I got very strange looks. What seems like normal life, like the byt of the capital city, to me, for them is incomprehensible, and I end up having to explain.
In the 80s, more often than not, rather than perusing the menu, you would sit down in a cafe or restaurant and ask the waiter: "what do you have?" -- since much of what you wanted would be unavailable that day anyway. Better to start with real choices rather than fantasizing about the unattainable.
Deficit. To get the feel for that expression, you have to pronounce it in Russian: defitsit, emphasis on the last syllable. I'm sure for real citizens of the Soviet republics, the word had even more resonance than it did for me in the late eighties, but given the problems with food shortages and distribution networks, I experienced it too. Whatever you might want -- from milk and cheese to beer and vodka -- the answer was as often as not "Netu. Defitsit." "There isn't any. There's a deficit."
Which is why I am so grateful now for this research into Russian cookbooks. My own love of cooking has developed primarily thanks to Darra Goldstein and other cuisine researchers and their classic volumes, some of which I've owned and others of which are present in my piles of stained xeroxes. The Winter Vegetarian includes a great chapter introducing Tolstoy and his kooky eating habits, plus my favorite borscht recipe and many others, and of course it is essential for me as a non-meat-eating lover of Russian cuisine. Vegetarianism, too, will figure in my course.
I've been making versions of the lobio from Darra Goldstein's Georgian Feast for years, and finally bought a copy of the book this week. It fits that technical term of "oldie but goodie" -- reading the introduction, I am thrown back to Soviet times. Those days are long gone; in Georgia today the anti-Russian sentiment runs high, and though I may have some nostalgia for the Soviet Union, most of the "ethnic republics" are delighted to live in post-Soviet times. If only the Russians would stay out of Ukrainian (and Georgian, and Kazakh, etc. etc.) politics.
I'm not sure how much Georgian food I'll be able to include in my course, but when friends find out I've made borscht yet again (our CSA is merciless with the beet deliveries!!), they always ask: did you make those cheese bread things? Indeed I did, last Saturday night, along with borscht for 20. Yum. In my family we call them "Georgian Cheese Bread," and they are in great demand -- even for Thanksgiving, even for baby showers. Once you've had khachapuri, you just want more. The Moscow version saved me during the year I lived there -- a quick jump off the bus between Iugozapadnaia metro stop and my institute enabled me to stock up for my dorm room. If I remember correctly, there was also a Georgian stand at the Barrikadnaia metro stop -- it's true, in those days it was more efficient to shop at metro stops and the stands near cafes than at stores. The groceries were frequently empty: defitsit.
My own khachapuri recipe (available on my other blog, here: http://readingannakareninachallenge.weebly.com/3/post/2013/01/-georgian-cheese-breads-khachapuri.html) comes from a different book, a gift from my Aunt Jane not long after I took her to the Georgian restaurant in Moscow in autumn 1988. I wish I remembered the name of that restaurant -- I had one classmate who quite literally went there to eat every day. It wasn't far from the Park Kul'tury metro stop -- I'll have to track him down and ask him if he can recall it. The way I make khachapuri had evolved over the years, and a Georgian might not recognize the item for what it once was. But it has a hallowed place in my kitchen, that is for sure.
The course is shaping up. Among other things I found a book by Yury Lotman that reproduces every menu from a year in the mid-19th century in the household of Petr Durnovo. Along with these menus, news items from the day are reprinted, giving readers a chance to imagine what the "table talk" may have been like at a given meal. Cuisine, after all, is only a part of the concept of "dinner" -- as Lotman reminds us, the conversations that emerge at table are even more fleeting than the food we put in our mouths.
Last week I taught Ivan Bunin's Cleansing Monday, the action of which takes place in restaurants and taverns all over old Moscow. His characters feast on foodstuffs I have to look up in the dictionary (grouse, okay, but burbot?), and I'll enjoy exploring those new vocabulary words in Russian next term.
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| Restauracja Gruzińska Tbilisi, Warsaw [photo by Amelia K.] |
Recently I've begun preparing the Russian cuisine course I'm offering in spring semester, and it has me thinking about my experiences in Soviet restaurants and cafes. Of course there weren't many options for dining out when I lived in Moscow in the late 1980s. But perestroika had brought about some reforms, which meant that over the year more and more places opened -- several new Georgian cafes and restaurants, a pizzeria near my institute, a Korean cafe... Some of the old places remained open as well, and I even went into the Praga one afternoon (though on crowded evenings my lack of bribing skills left me out in the cold).
It's fascinating how my own life has now gently turned into history... When talking about Soviet restaurant life to my students recently, I got very strange looks. What seems like normal life, like the byt of the capital city, to me, for them is incomprehensible, and I end up having to explain.
In the 80s, more often than not, rather than perusing the menu, you would sit down in a cafe or restaurant and ask the waiter: "what do you have?" -- since much of what you wanted would be unavailable that day anyway. Better to start with real choices rather than fantasizing about the unattainable.
Deficit. To get the feel for that expression, you have to pronounce it in Russian: defitsit, emphasis on the last syllable. I'm sure for real citizens of the Soviet republics, the word had even more resonance than it did for me in the late eighties, but given the problems with food shortages and distribution networks, I experienced it too. Whatever you might want -- from milk and cheese to beer and vodka -- the answer was as often as not "Netu. Defitsit." "There isn't any. There's a deficit."Which is why I am so grateful now for this research into Russian cookbooks. My own love of cooking has developed primarily thanks to Darra Goldstein and other cuisine researchers and their classic volumes, some of which I've owned and others of which are present in my piles of stained xeroxes. The Winter Vegetarian includes a great chapter introducing Tolstoy and his kooky eating habits, plus my favorite borscht recipe and many others, and of course it is essential for me as a non-meat-eating lover of Russian cuisine. Vegetarianism, too, will figure in my course.
I've been making versions of the lobio from Darra Goldstein's Georgian Feast for years, and finally bought a copy of the book this week. It fits that technical term of "oldie but goodie" -- reading the introduction, I am thrown back to Soviet times. Those days are long gone; in Georgia today the anti-Russian sentiment runs high, and though I may have some nostalgia for the Soviet Union, most of the "ethnic republics" are delighted to live in post-Soviet times. If only the Russians would stay out of Ukrainian (and Georgian, and Kazakh, etc. etc.) politics.
I'm not sure how much Georgian food I'll be able to include in my course, but when friends find out I've made borscht yet again (our CSA is merciless with the beet deliveries!!), they always ask: did you make those cheese bread things? Indeed I did, last Saturday night, along with borscht for 20. Yum. In my family we call them "Georgian Cheese Bread," and they are in great demand -- even for Thanksgiving, even for baby showers. Once you've had khachapuri, you just want more. The Moscow version saved me during the year I lived there -- a quick jump off the bus between Iugozapadnaia metro stop and my institute enabled me to stock up for my dorm room. If I remember correctly, there was also a Georgian stand at the Barrikadnaia metro stop -- it's true, in those days it was more efficient to shop at metro stops and the stands near cafes than at stores. The groceries were frequently empty: defitsit.
My own khachapuri recipe (available on my other blog, here: http://readingannakareninachallenge.weebly.com/3/post/2013/01/-georgian-cheese-breads-khachapuri.html) comes from a different book, a gift from my Aunt Jane not long after I took her to the Georgian restaurant in Moscow in autumn 1988. I wish I remembered the name of that restaurant -- I had one classmate who quite literally went there to eat every day. It wasn't far from the Park Kul'tury metro stop -- I'll have to track him down and ask him if he can recall it. The way I make khachapuri had evolved over the years, and a Georgian might not recognize the item for what it once was. But it has a hallowed place in my kitchen, that is for sure.
The course is shaping up. Among other things I found a book by Yury Lotman that reproduces every menu from a year in the mid-19th century in the household of Petr Durnovo. Along with these menus, news items from the day are reprinted, giving readers a chance to imagine what the "table talk" may have been like at a given meal. Cuisine, after all, is only a part of the concept of "dinner" -- as Lotman reminds us, the conversations that emerge at table are even more fleeting than the food we put in our mouths.
Last week I taught Ivan Bunin's Cleansing Monday, the action of which takes place in restaurants and taverns all over old Moscow. His characters feast on foodstuffs I have to look up in the dictionary (grouse, okay, but burbot?), and I'll enjoy exploring those new vocabulary words in Russian next term.
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I wish I could come back and take that course! (Though, unsurprisingly, I would advocate for more Georgian food)
ReplyDeleteEmma, do you think that I can use your Pkhali recipe and substitute spinach to try and make the fabulous spinach balls I had in Warsaw?
ReplyDelete