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Trolling Rehovot's Karl Berg, the Russian Market
After eight days of nonstop rain, the most obscure things begin to look fascinating. Case in point: a jar of Polish pickles. Pardon me, more precisely: pickled cucumbers from Warsaw, purchased in Karl Berg, the Russian market.
People living in Central Europe and eastward have a soft spot, it would seem, for all sorts of pickled vegetables--mushrooms, above all. One brand of pickled shrooms on the shelves at Karl Berg sports a label with two jaunty-looking mushrooms wearing their caps like berets, wide-eyed and grinning, little suspecting that they are perhaps a week or a day away from becoming Tortellini al Funghi a la MOCKBA.
After sloshing home from Karl Berg in the rain, I set the jar of Polish pickles on the counter. Inside, among the cucumbers, swirled a whole pickled underseas world of sliced garlic, allspice or peppercorns, bay leaves, herbs, and thin sprays of a flowery plant.
The jar bears a brand name with all the thunder of Valhalla, "VORTUMNUS", in black-edged green letters. Below a drawing of a veritable cornucopia of pickled goods is written, "Ogurki Konserwowe Cale", or "whole conserved cucumbers".
Surprise! If you speak limited Czech, you may also speak extremely limited Polish. "Pickles," in Czech, are "okurky".
One more day of rain and we will no doubt resemble the specimens in the jar...
Trolling the Russian market for odd (to me) foodstuffs is now a great deal more fun, since I have a friend who reads and speaks Russian. I followed K. around Karl Berg as she pointed out Ukrainian bread, Moscow bread, and tvaroch, a cheese about which Czechs and Austrians speak in breathless, mythical terms; they are quick to assert that its equivalent just does not exist in the U.S., presumably since Americans wouldn't know good cheese if it bit us on the nose.
Well, four pounds of Kroger's best sharp cheddar in my fridge beg to differ.
However, cultural relativism has its advantages, foodwise. This weekend, K. produced fantastic tiny pancakes made with tvaroch. It's no cheddar, but it's very good.
Source: Erin israel. "Muh-la-fuh-FON." "Cucumber." rehovot.Blogspot.com (16 January 2006) [FullText]
People living in Central Europe and eastward have a soft spot, it would seem, for all sorts of pickled vegetables--mushrooms, above all. One brand of pickled shrooms on the shelves at Karl Berg sports a label with two jaunty-looking mushrooms wearing their caps like berets, wide-eyed and grinning, little suspecting that they are perhaps a week or a day away from becoming Tortellini al Funghi a la MOCKBA.
After sloshing home from Karl Berg in the rain, I set the jar of Polish pickles on the counter. Inside, among the cucumbers, swirled a whole pickled underseas world of sliced garlic, allspice or peppercorns, bay leaves, herbs, and thin sprays of a flowery plant.
The jar bears a brand name with all the thunder of Valhalla, "VORTUMNUS", in black-edged green letters. Below a drawing of a veritable cornucopia of pickled goods is written, "Ogurki Konserwowe Cale", or "whole conserved cucumbers".
Surprise! If you speak limited Czech, you may also speak extremely limited Polish. "Pickles," in Czech, are "okurky".
One more day of rain and we will no doubt resemble the specimens in the jar...
Trolling the Russian market for odd (to me) foodstuffs is now a great deal more fun, since I have a friend who reads and speaks Russian. I followed K. around Karl Berg as she pointed out Ukrainian bread, Moscow bread, and tvaroch, a cheese about which Czechs and Austrians speak in breathless, mythical terms; they are quick to assert that its equivalent just does not exist in the U.S., presumably since Americans wouldn't know good cheese if it bit us on the nose.
Well, four pounds of Kroger's best sharp cheddar in my fridge beg to differ.
However, cultural relativism has its advantages, foodwise. This weekend, K. produced fantastic tiny pancakes made with tvaroch. It's no cheddar, but it's very good.
Source: Erin israel. "Muh-la-fuh-FON." "Cucumber." rehovot.Blogspot.com (16 January 2006) [FullText]
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