Voices from Russia

Saturday, 3 March 2018

3 March 2018. From the Russian Web… A Russian Take on Ten Iconic American Foods

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Chicago Deep-Dish Pizza

The idea of baking a half-cooked pizza originated in Britain. Chicago Deep-Dish Pizza uses the same technique, but it’s completely different. You fry cornbread in olive oil until half-done; then, you spread cheese, tomato sauce, meat, or other types of toppings over it. You can try this famous pizza in many restaurants in Chicago.

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New Mexico Green Chilli                                                                    

The best way to get to know New Mexico’s culture is to try its green chilli peppers. They cook them throughout the state. In the chilli, besides the main ingredient, you add fresh pepper, tomatoes, potatoes, garlic, and beef or pork to the dish.

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Maine Lobster Roll

It’s an art form to prepare a flawless lobster roll. You can toast, steam, or bake the bread rolls before filling them. You can replace mayonnaise with melted butter. Finally, you can choose to use meat from the claws or from the tail to prepare this treat. However, no matter what you choose, this sandwich will perfectly brighten up a summer evening on the Atlantic coast.

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Vermont Maple Syrup

Canada may claim the maple leaf as its symbol, but Vermont, not Canada, produces what many say is the best maple syrup. Vermont is the largest producer of maple syrup in the USA; in fact, about 5 percent of the world’s total maple syrup supply comes from there. If you go in March, you’d get to see how they harvest the maple sap from venerable maple trees. There’s no sense in describing its taste… just try it.

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Kentucky Bourbon Whiskey

Despite the fact that the law says that you can make bourbon anywhere in the USA, about 95 percent comes from the “bluegrass state” of Kentucky. In fact, Kentucky’s Bourbon County gave its name to this type of corn whiskey (popularly called the “Spirit of America”). They’ve distilled hooch here for more than two centuries. Today, people all over the world know what bourbon is and millions come to Kentucky to get it.

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Philly Cheese Steak

Pat Olivieri, the founder of Pat’s Steaks, originated the recipe for Philly Steak sandwiches in the 1930s. This sandwich is very nutritious. It consists of a crispy oblong Italian-style loaf with chopped steak sprinkled with grated cheese or Cheese Whiz, usually with added onions.

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New Orleans Beignets

A trip to New Orleans isn’t really complete unless you visit Café du Monde, where you can sample fresh doughnuts sprinkled with powdered sugar. No doubt, Louisiana is the world standard for doughnuts. The usual fare is classic doughnuts without fillings, but you can find doughnuts with chocolate and fruit fillings.

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New England Clam Chowder

If in Boston, you need to try this creamy shellfish soup, usually prepared with seafood, potatoes, celery, onions, and cream or milk. The classic Massachusetts recipe strictly prohibits tomatoes, but they do show up in Manhattan Clam Chowder. Annual festivals occur in Boston, where restaurants compete in making the best soup.

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Texas Barbeque

Texas cooks make barbecue from beef, usually the shoulder. They rub the meat with pepper, salt, herbs, and other seasonings and let it sit before cooking it. You use a low fire in a charcoal grill (usually covered), so the process is rather slow.

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New York Pastrami on Jewish Rye Sandwich

The origins of the pastrami (a form of smoked beef) sandwich are in Romania, the recipe came to the USA at the beginning of the 1900s. The best place to enjoy this sandwich is Katz’s Deli, which deserves its motto… “Here the sandwiches are the best”.

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Editor:

The original list had twenty items, but I cut it to ten to eliminate unusual or odd foods and only include iconic “American foods”. I kept the original notes as is; even when they were a little wrong… after all, it’s a RUSSIAN take on iconic American food. My least favourite on this list? Without a doubt, it’s the Deep-Dish Pizza. It isn’t really pizza… my vote is for a classic New York-style pie. Mind you, I don’t hate anything on this list… but there are some that I could take or leave (mostly, leave). My vote for the fave on the list? Why, Pastrami on Jewish Rye (with horseradish mustard, if you please… the rye bread has to have caraway seeds in it), of course… pastrami rules the popular food roost and don’t you forget it!

After looking the list over, I realised that the list mirrored my own preferences… the best-liked last and the least-liked first. Who woulda thunk it…

BMD

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Tuesday, 6 June 2017

Great Achievement of the Junta in Kherson Oblast!

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Dear Friends!

They made the world’s largest buterbrod* with salo in Kherson. Today, all of Kherson is proud of its achievement; this is a real breakthrough on the international scene. After all, what did it matter that Kherson once had some of the largest factories on the post-Soviet space or even in Europe? Right now, these factories stand idle and stripped. After the 2014 coup, the junta forced many businesses to end economic ties with Russia, so, they closed down. In 2014-15, industrial production fell to about 15 percent of its previous level in Kherson Oblast. Today, factories in Kherson Oblast that employed thousands have no new orders and slowly fall into disrepair and ruin. However, don’t despair! The leadership, together with the people of the once-glorious city of Kherson, just made the largest buterbrod with salo in the world!

  • Buterbrod: open-faced Russian sandwich

In Respect,

Aleksei Zhuravko

6 June 2017

Aleksei Zhuravko

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Sunday, 13 March 2016

13 March 2016. From the Russian Web… DIG RIGHT IN!

00 Dig right in! Russian Cooking is the Best in the World! 100316

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Pitfalls await the unwary translator at every turn… literally, “Щи и каша, пища наша” (“Shchi i kasha, pishcha nasha”) is “Shchi and kasha, that’s our food”. That not only doesn’t rhyme, it has none of the “flavour” and “savour” of the Russian original. I’d say that its idiomatic English equivalent is, “Kasha and shchi, that’s for me!” That not only rhymes, it restores some of the original’s “taste”…

Be careful… “false friends” and false cognates abound… so, do have a care for the MEANING and the FLAVOUR of the language…

BMD

Monday, 15 February 2016

15 February 2016. In Praise of FRIED BOLOGNA… Don’t Knock It Until You’ve Tried It with Decent Human Beings!

00 fried bologna 150216

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Here are some Cabinet ruminations on this pearl of American Working Class Epicuria:

We had fried bologna with an egg. With toast and jam… the best breakfast ever. Easier than bacon.

No, but Dad liked Spam. Mom sniffed at it. I still like it!

Fried Bologna! Does that bring back MEMORIES? My mom used dill pickles, Velveeta, and raw onion… those WERE the days…

Luckily, I never grew up with Velveeta, but I did grow up with fried bologna.

Oh yes! Love that! We used sweet onion.

Yes… good stuff… if you didn’t have it, well, you missed out! Are you ashamed to like Velveeta, fried bologna, or a bag of potato chips with a cold beer? Well… you have some “issues” to attend to! As for me, I like what I like, and if someone sniffs at it and thinks it “low”, they can go and post their images of their precious little yuppie lunches on their blogs all that they want. I’ll stick with the real world and what I truly like. Ponder that…

BMD

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