Black Bread

Like black bread? Me, too.

Thinly sliced black bread with butter and caviar. Black bread with a piece of sheep's milk cheese and sprigs of green onion. Black bread spread with thick buckwheat honey.

I'm intrigued as to why English recipes for Russian black bread always include things like molasses, cocoa and espresso powder. While black bread goes WITH lots of things, not many things go IN it - the recipe for real Russian black bread is utter simplicity.

My personal favorite is a bread called Darnitsky. Called "gray bread" in Russian, the only ingredients in Darnitsky are whole rye flour, wheat flour, salt, water and yeast. When you cut it open it is gray and soft inside and has small, evenly spaced holes.

My next favorite is Borodinsky. This is a dark rye whose dry ingredients are limited to rye flour, whole wheat flour and rye malt. A small dollop of molasses is added with the salt and yeast, and each loaf is topped with aromatic coriander seeds. Borodinsky is a dense bread that makes excellent garlic croutons.

An important thing to understand about Russian food is that most of it is highly regulated by state standards called GOSTs. All bread labeled Borodinsky must contain 80% whole rye flour, 15% whole wheat flour and 5% malted rye. A Reinheitsgebot for bread, if you will.

You can put cocoa and grated lemon in your rye bread if you want, but the Russian government's official position is that such additives are nonsense. And most of the bread-eating public seems to agree. Expensive hearth-style breads with creative ingredients (and without the GOST stamp of approval) are starting to appear in upscale supermarkets, but the majority raises an eyebrow and buys traditional bread.

Bread lovers in Russia will tell you that where you buy your bread is just as important as the GOST stamp. The best bread comes from bread factory stores.

When I'm in Korolev, I go to Freshest Bread (in the photo), the store operated by the local bread factory, Kaliningradkhleb. According to the factory's official history, it was once part of a chain that belonged to the legendary Moscow baker Ivan Filippov. Nationalized and then privatized (or re-privatized?), the bakery is still there, and its bread is supremely good.

Компот

Here's another French word I love in Russian - компот (kom-POTE).

Компот is a fruit drink that Russians put up for the winter in big 3-liter jars like the one you see here on my windowsill. Unlike the French or English compote it takes its name from, Russian kompot does not involve simmering the fruit for a long time. Here's how you do it:

Put your washed berries or sliced fruit in a sterilized 3-liter jar. Fill the jar to the top with boiling water. Let it sit a few minutes. Pour the hot water back into a pot, using a strainer to keep the fruit in the jar. Add a cup of sugar to the water and let it boil thoroughly. Pour the sweetened water back in the jar and close the jar the best way you know how. It takes a month or two for the full flavor of the fruit to leach into the drink, but once it does it's heavenly! Some of my favorites are red current (pictured here), quince and peach. Serve the kompot in a glass pitcher and make sure some of the fruit gets into each glass.

Gogol-Mogol and the "M" Trick

Some people like to have a гоголь-моголь (GO-gol MO-gol, a raw egg beaten with sugar) for breakfast, some people don't. I stay away from raw eggs but I'm very interested in the name of the drink. Repeating a word with an "m" instead of the first consonant is a funny little habit that you hear a lot when you talk with people from the Caucasus region. Think шашлык-машлык (barbecue-marbecue) or чай-май (tea-mea). It doesn't seem to mean anything in particular when people do the "m" trick; it just injects a feeling of relaxation into the conversation.

I usually hear Armenians do the чай-май thing on food words, but the other day a Russian relative who grew up in Tbilisi, Georgia was over for tea and he did the "m" trick on a word that had nothing to do with food. He was talking about construction materials and I sat up straight in my seat when he did it. I was too shy to pull out my notebook and write it down at the moment and now, of course, I've forgotten it - a fitting punishment.

Mamalyga

At lunch today I put cornbread on the table. My father-in-law put on his glasses and exclaimed "It's mamalyga! Where did you find it?"

I told him it was from Trader Joe's.

Mamalyga is polenta. I believe the name mamalyga is used in lots of places from Hungary to Georgia. Here's a very appetizing picture of people eating mamalyga with delicious condiments in Abkhazia. Apparently the name comes from "melega," an old Italian word for corn (or sorghum, depending on where you look).

Lahmajoun, and a mystery herb revealed

First off, the lahmajoun:

I know you can get lahmajoun in Moscow, but I only eat it in L.A. It's a paper-thin Armenian pizza sold in pairs, the sides with the toppings facing each other and a square of paper in between. You roll each one up and eat it with hot tea. Lahmajoun is supposed to be mildly spicy, but this particular lahmajoun stopped at being just savory. Still satisfying.

And now for the mystery herb:

[01/15/10 NOTE: this is actually summer savory, NOT oregano, which is what the saleslady called it!!]

My mother-in-law always chops up a bunch of this very pungent herb and puts it in potato salad or potato piroshki. She calls it citron and I always assumed it was some exotic Armenian herb you could only find at an Armenian grocery in Los Angeles. I've never seen it anywhere else in the U.S. and never at markets in Russia.

I saw some on sale at the store today, and since the place was otherwise empty I asked the saleslady what it was called in English. After a moment she remembered the name - oregano!

I took it home and compared the aroma to a good bottle of dried oregano. The dried oregano smells slightly sweet, like it's already on its way into a bottle of Italian seasoning. Aside from being much stronger, the fresh oregano has a hint of the smell you get when you touch a tomato plant. And it has none of the sweetness of the dried oregano.

My father-in-law remembers picking wild oregano in the hills when he was a boy, and he says the smell was enough to knock you down.

If you can get fresh oregano, try this potato salad:

Start with cooked, chopped potato (starchy, not waxy)

Add chopped bell pepper, halved kalamata or other purple olives, a good handful of chopped fresh oregano, a little bit of finely diced onion

Dress it with olive oil and lemon juice

Лапша

Now that he's in school, my son's Russian is getting better every day. The other day I heard him say, "Не вешай мне макароны на уши!" ("Don't hang macaroni on my ears!") The actual Russian expression is "лапшу вешать на уши," or hanging noodles (lapsha) on someone's ears, and it means "to tell a lie." I suppose he heard the expression at school and didn't know the word лапша so he substituted Italian macaroni for Russian noodles. Curiously, Russians use the word macaroni for any pasta product, not just elbow macaroni. The word lapsha is reserved for homemade noodles.

According to Vasmer, лапша was borrowed from Tatar laksha, meaning little pieces of dough cooked in a stock.

Natural

A question on ProZ.com today reminded me about all the nuances of the word натуральный (na-tour-ALL-nee, "natural") in Russian. It can mean roughly the same thing as "natural" in English, but it can also mean homemade or homegrown. And it can mean plain, like if you serve baked fish without a sauce or eat yogurt without fruit or honey added.

Решето

We bought a sunflower head at the market today - now we'll have to dry it and then pull the seeds out and toast them.

While we were picking through the box choosing the head we wanted, a tiny old woman told my son "Смотри, у тебя решето почти полное" ("See, your seed head is almost all full"). I've always known the word решето to mean colander or strainer. Now I'm thinking it can mean anything with a grid- or mesh-like structure. Neat, huh?

Sunflower seeds and oil are such a huge part of Russian cuisine that I was surprised to learn that Helianthus annuus was actually brought to Europe from the Americas.

Лисички

These are my favorite mushrooms - лисички (lee-SEECH-kee, chanterelles). We have found baskets and baskets of them in the mountains east of Seattle and I always buy them at the market when we're in Russia.

I saute them in butter until all the liquid is gone, and then I add sauteed onion (from a separate pan) and salt to taste. Some people add sour cream, but I don't thinkit's necessary when you have meaty лисички. Serve with steamed or boiled potatoes.

We love mushroom-hunting in the late summer. Funny, but there is a fair amount of disagreement in Russian and U.S. mushroom books on which ones are edible. To be on the safe side, I stick to hunting the supermarket varieties.

Here is a list I put together of the Russian and English names for some common mushrooms and the Latin names linking them.

Russian common name	Scientific name	English common name
Шампиньон	Agaricus silvaticus	Button mushroom
Шампиньон тонкий, Шампиньон желтокожий	Agaricus xanthoderma	Poison yellow meadow mushroom
Лисичка	Cantharellus cibarius	Chanterelle
Лисичка ложная	Hygrophoropsis aurantiaca	False chanterelle
Лисичка серая	Craterellus sinuosus	Chanterelle
Белый гриб	Boletus edulis	Porcini, king bolete
Бледная поганка	Amanita phalloides	Death cap
Мухомор красный	Amanita muscaria	Fly agaric
Мухомор поганковидный	Amanita citrina	False death cap
Подберезовик белый	Leccinum aurantiacum	Brick cap, red cap bolete
Подберезовик обыковенный	Leccinum scabrum	Birch bolete
Масленок поздний	Suillus luteus	Slippery Jack
Масленок зернистый	Suillus granulatus	Weeping Bolete, granulated slippery jack
Моховик пестрый	Xerocomus chrysenteron	Red Cracking Bolete
Моховик зеленый	Xerocomus subtomentosus	Suede Bolete
Навозник серый	Coprinus atramentarius	Tippler’s bane
Навозник белый	Coprinus comatus	Shaggy ink cap
Навозник рассеянный	Coprinus disseminatus	Fairy ink cap
Навозник мерцающий	Coprinus micaceus	Glistening ink cap
Навозник складчатый	Coprinus plicatilis	Pleated ink cap
Вешенка устричная	Pleurotus ostreatus	Oyster mushroom
Вешенка беловатая	Pleurotus pulmonaris	Pale oyster
Сыроежка пищевая	Russula vesca	Bare-toothed russula
Сыроежка зеленая	Russula aerguinea	Tacky green russula
Сыроежка сине-зеленая	Russula cyanoxantha	Charcoal burner
Сыроежка сереющая	Russula decolorans	Graying Russula
Подгруздок белый	Russula delica	Short-stemmed russula
Подгруздок черный	Russula adusta	Wine-cork brittlegill
Опенок осенний	Armillaria mellea	Honey or oak mushroom
Опенок луговой	Marasmius oreades	Fairy-ring mushroom
Опенок зимний	Flammulina velutipes	Velvet foot (Enokitake)
Опенок серно-желтый	Hypholoma fasciculare	Sulfer tuft
Опенок летний	Kuehneromyces mutabilis	Sheathed wood tuft
Опенок Кандоля	Psathyrella candolleana	Pale brittlestem
Опенок темный	Armillaria ostoyae	Honey mushroom
Рядовка	Tricholoma caligatum	Booted tricholoma
Рядовка белая	Tricholoma album	White knight
Рядовка буро-желтая	Tricholoma fulvum	Birch knight
Свинушка тонкая	Paxillus involutus	Brown roll rim, poison pax
Головач продолговатый	Calvatia excipuliformis	Pestle puffball
Дождевик	Calvatia gigantea	Giant puffball
Дождевик шиповатый	Lycoperdon perlatum	Common puffball
Сморчок высокий	Morchella elata	Black morel, fire morel
Сморчок обыкновенный, настоящий	Morchella esculenta	Yellow morel, white morel
Сморчковая шапочка	Verpa bohemica	False early morel, spring verpa
Ежовик желтый	Hydnum repandum	Hedgehog mushroom
Майтаке, грифола курчавая, гриб-баран	Grifola frondosa	Sheep’s Head (Maitake)
Строчок обыкновенный	Gyromitra esculenta	False morel, brain mushroom
Строчок гигантский	Gyromitra gigas	Snowbank false morel
Рогатик гребенчатый, клавулина гребенчатая, коралл гребешковый	Clavulina cristata	Crested coral fungus
Свиное ухо	Gomphus clavatus	Pig’s ear gomphus
Рыжик	Lactarius deliciosus	Delicious milk cap
Трутовик настоящий	Fomes fomentarius	Hardwood conk

Икра

Did you think I was talking about the pricey stuff from Astrakhan?

This is eggplant caviar, or баклажановая икра (ee-KRA). Supposedly Russians call the dish "caviar" because the eggplant seeds look like fish roe. My mother-in-law makes tons of eggplant икра in the summer. On the evening before a cookout we always have the same discussion: will she make the икра at home in the morning, or wait and do it on the campfire? She is generally inclined to do the messy work at home and produce a clean, shiny bowl of roasted veggies when the guests arrive. Us youngsters always want her to roast the vegetables over the campfire. Done that way, the eggplant икра is smoky and smooth without being oily at all. When you make it on the stove, you have to add a lot of oil. It's still very good, but not transporting.

Here's how we make it at home with less oil. A little smoky, not hard:

Put whole eggplants (skins on) in a heavy skillet and roast on high heat, turning only when each side is totally charred and soft.

Peel the eggplants once they are cool enough to handle.

Put the soft eggplant goop back in the skillet. Add chopped tomatoes, bell peppers and onion. We usually use a ratio of 2:2:1:1 (eggplant, tomatoes, peppers, onion). Add a little oil (olive, sunflower, you name it).

Cook on low heat for two or three hours, stirring every now and then, until the икра is a smooth paste.

The tomatoes will give off a lot of liquid at first. You have to let that liquid cook off.

Add salt and sliced garlic to taste. Once the икра is room temperature, add chopped cilantro and refrigerate!

On a linguistic note, the Japanese call salmon roe ikura, but apparently the Russian word икра (meaning any kind of fish roe) comes from good old Indo-European.

Кабак

I like to follow a wonderful blog on Turkish cuisine that features enticing closeups and simple recipes. A recent entry was on stuffed squash - Etli Kabak Dolmasi.

In Russian, squash is кабак or кабачок (ka-ba-CHOK), the Turkish word with a Russian ending. But кабак has another meaning in Russian that has always mystified me. A кабак is a loud tavern-style restaurant. As in the immortal "Если б я был матрос, я б уплыл по тебе, как по морю / В чужеземном порту пропивать башмаки в кабаке" ("If I were a sailor, I would sail away over you like the sea, / to a кабак in a foreign port where I'd sell my shoes for a drink").

I've lived here for years assuming that squash and taverns had somehow cross-pollinated in the Russian mind, but now I see I was wrong. Vasmer mentions theories that the term might come from a similar-sounding Turkish word for a boxing match (where the spectators would drink?), from Arabic, or even from German. A wee bit disappointing...

Земляника

My sister-in-law is a forestry major here where we live in Russia. When it's the season for земляника (zem-lya-NEE-ka, tiny wild strawberries) she spends several hours a day picking in the woods. Sometimes she takes people with her, but not often. The berries are microscopic and hide under the leaves of larger, taller plants, so you basically have to crawl around on hands and knees until you find a bunch of them in one spot. To get a sense of how small they are, the spoon in the picture is a small teaspoon. Masha mediates while she picks and chain-smokes to keep the mosquitoes away. After about an hour I've had enough. We're lucky she shares with us.

Земляника season is short. I love the anticipation. Friends come back from walks in the woods saying "Almost. The flowers are out." "Just another week. We saw green berries." Now they're here.

Apparently земляника and plain old strawberries are different species of the same genus. I know for a fact that земляника has a much more pronounced aroma and flavor.

One winter several years ago when my son was an infant, I found myself translating letters written by Soviet soldiers during WWII. The work was hard - hard to read and hard to translate. One man called his baby "my little dandelion," and I could see the baby's halo of fuzzy, blond hair.

Another writer said "The земляника is ripe, and I’ve been treated to 'Victoria' in some of the Lithuanian villages. If it weren’t for the war, life would be terrific."

I thought that maybe Victoria was a kind of wine or dessert made from земляника, but some other Russian translators told me it is a cultivar of strawberry. A couple of Russian gardening and botany sites claim that Victoria was the first cultivated strawberry to be introduced in Russia and that it was named after Queen Victoria.

Mors

We drink a lot of mors around here. We buy it in boxes at the store, but my sources say that true mors is made by adding water to an almost-empty jar of jelly and shaking vigorously.

The good old Domostroy (16th century) contradicts this, giving the following recipe:

"О морсе ягодном. Готовить простой морс ягодный можно из любых ягод. Сложить ягоды с водой в котел так, чтобы проняло их, но к котлу бы не пригорели, да варить в котле ягоды с водою долго, пока не разварятся ягоды, и на ночь их ставить, чтоб отстоялся морс ягодный от гущи начисто, затем слить тот морс ягодный с гущи и разлить его по бочкам, в которых не было дрожжей."

My translation:

"On berry mors. Simple mors may be made from any type of berry. Put the berries in a pot with enough water to keep them from sticking and simmer until the berries fall apart. Leave the pot overnight for the sediment to settle. Filter off the berry mors and pour it into barrels that have never held any yeast."

That recipe would make a mors that is much less sweet than either jelly-jar water or the mors you can buy at the store. Sounds pretty good if you drink it cold.

What about the word itself?

Vasmer says mors probably comes from the Romanian word múrsă, which he says meant "honey water, juice or liquid." My paper etymological dictionary goes further, stating that the Romanian word can be traced to the Latin mulsa, "honey drink." It also offers the German word for cranberry, moosbeere, as a possible source.

I noticed that Domostroy classifies mors along with medovukha and other drinks made from honey.

As a culinary-legal aside, GOST 51398-99 defines mors as a juice drink containing less than 25% juice. I read that in the July 2009 issue of Gastronom, and I have the strangest sense of translator's deja-vu that I have translated that GOST at some point in my life.