Every weekend Mark and I grab our shopping totes (why waste plastic bags!) and go grocery shopping at a Russian supermarket in Bensonhurst. Their shelves are stocked with the most wondrous, GLEE-inducing things: food most have never seen and if they did, would never put in their mouths. Last time we went, I grabbed the camera and captured some of my favorites.
Fruit jams: cherry, strawberry, blackberry, raspberry
Babushkas love tea, and they drink it with fruit jam. Jam can be eaten with a spoon from a saucer – or straight out of the jar if you’re me! – or spread on top of a piece of bread. Think peanut butter & jelly sandwich but with real butter and fruit jam.
Bins of hard candy
Russian hard candy comes in an individual wrapper and sometimes contains a fruity center. Unlike American hard candy, all flavors must be natural – blueberry, orange, strawberry… prune.
Kielbasa
Unless you couldn’t tell, Russians are obsessed with kielbasa and consume it in large quantities. They’ll put it in anything: salad, sandwiches, even some soups. This is a traditional Russian sandwich during the Soviet times: whole wheat bread, butter, cheese and a few circles of kielbasa:
I remember eating a sandwich just like this every morning for breakfast (with sweet tea!), before heading off to school. Now the mere sight of kielbasa sort of terrifies me, haha.
Veal brain
Speaking of terrifying things – veal brain, anyone? I have no idea how it’s cooked or who eats it – but it sure is affordable. $3.42 and it’s all yours. Any takers?
Whortleberry juice
Whortleberry is an Eastern-European cranberry but juicier, sourer, and more flavorful. I like to mix it with Seltzer water and serve to guests in a tall glass with a mint leaf. Fabulous!
Boxed chocolates ‘Alyonka’ in retro packaging. Nostalgic, but the candy is probably not very good.
Truffles, truffles, and more truffles
I love chocolate and have to say European chocolate is heaps better than American. It’s richer, thicker, and you can actually find good stuff for fairly cheap. For instance, a box of excellent truffles cost me under $4!
‘Zhigulyovskoe’ Beer
I’m a big beer connoisseur and had been drinking it since I was 7 years old. My grandparents would open up a bottle after banya (a Russian sauna) and let me have as much as I liked. Perhaps that’s why I never had any interest in alcohol or getting smashed; the only appreciation I have is for the taste. My favorite kind of beer is dark, malty, with higher alcohol content (7-8%) – I think it’s technically called lager. Nazdrovje!
Fruit cake
Russian cakes are elaborate, similar to Italian. Sadly they didn’t have the super-crazy ones the day I had the camera, but you can still see how much fruit they piled on top! Again, the flavors are natural and pastries tend to be heavy on cream (icing is rarely used).
CCCP Energy Drink
This is a new product clearly trying to appeal to the Soviet nostalgia craze that broke out after the fall of the Iron Curtain. ‘CCCP’ stands for USSR, in Cyrillic characters. I hear it’s pretty much like Red Bull, except if you don’t recycle, they send you off to Siberia. I kid, I kid! …or do I?!
As I was taking pictures, security guard approached me and said no pictures were allowed. I had to go up to the manager’s office and explain I’m only taking them for my blog. “Blog? Vee don’t know of such publication” he replied suspiciously. Russians can be distrustful when it comes to letting strangers in – even if it’s just taking pictures of their store. :)
More Russian food: KrisAtomic.
Deerlings: what are the weirdest, wackiest foods you’ve ever had?
Doe
They all look great and it is interesting to learn about. I love learning about new cultures and places through food. I’m sure much of our American food is odd when viewed from the outside.
I don’t think I eat a lot of strange foods although some combinations of things I was fed as a kid I wouldn’t touch now (canned pears, mayo and grated cheese – yuck!). I guess my more unusual combo is a Peanut butter and butter sandwich. But that’s not too crazy, is it?
Luv
Poochie
I saw a lot of bizarre things in China while I was there over the summer. One weird one, but still good, was lotus root with sweet sticky rice.
This is probably one of the stranger things I’ve had to drink, soooo I wrote about it. http://okazu.latenightboredom.com/archives/133
My roomate is Russian and is always bringing home this kind of food.
For a long time we had a running joke about her love of jam and she didn’t get why it was funny. We had no idea jam to a Russian was like a candybar to an american, we thought it was just her… hahah.
I ate buffalo once, blech. Far to chewy. Though now days I like to munch on sammiches consisting of bread, scrambled eggs and raspberry jam. Mmmmm!
ooh, i love seeing and eating food from other countries! even though i don’t eat meat, that sandwich looks delightful :D
That sandwich with Kielbasa looks yummy! Now I wish I had bought some this weekend. Do you cook the kielbasa or just eat it as it is?
The only things that made me go “ew” were the veal brains and beer. I’d so pass on any brain, and alcohol makes me feel horrible. hah
I wouldn’t mind trying that fruit cake, though! :]
I’ve had fried alligator before.. or crocodile.. whichever. Probably not terribly weird, but people around were creeped out when I tried it.
btw~ your shopping tote is cute!
First time commenting on one of your entries…I’m usually more of a watcher here :)
I’m simply amazed by the similarities beetween Russian food stores and Polish ones. And I can write my name under the whole “Kielbasa” part! Us Polish folks put it in 90% of food too :)
Fruit jams remind me of my childhood- my granddad used to make me sandwiches with fresh cottage cheese and strawberry jam from our garden..ah, heaven in your mouth!
The wickedest thing I evre eaten?
Deffinetely the traditinal English thing – haggis….icky.
European hard candy, chocolate and jam are the best! and I love German beer. Oh and I love(love love!) Whortleberrys! My Dad always eats them with some sugar and milk.
I have no Idea if I ever eat something that I would say is “weird” O_o But I’ll think about it and post it later^^
oo i love this stuff. i live on kings highway in brooklyn and my dad buys these russian goodies all the time. i love caviar, especially with chopped onion with some butter on those dark rye breads. i also LOVE that spicy russian mustard. it burns my nose like crazy but its sooo good.
Whortleberry juice sounds delicious! I’m going to have to hunt it down.
I only call foods ‘weird’ if I don’t like them, haha. The first thing that comes to mind is sea cucumber. I tried it at my third cousin’s one-month celebration, and my brothers and I couldn’t even figure out whether we liked it or not – because it just doesn’t taste like anything! at all! In the end I decided it was gross because of the texture (it’s like rubber) :P
Croatia definitely has its share of strange Eastern European food too.
It still creeps me out being served a fish with the head still on that’s staring at me!
But the good stuff like lamb roasted on a spit and Šljivovica make up for it!
Kangaroo jerky! It wasn’t bad.
I think one of the great ways of diving into a different culture is with food. I’d love to try everything…with the exception of veal brains!
i’ve lived on kings hwy for the past 5 years and have only bought russian food since then, i also had to pick up the language..it’s rare for someone to speak english at any of the markets!
The weirdest thing I have eaten was something my mother-in-law made for me. It was a stew and had big chunks of vegetables in it. Looked very delicious. But it had some kind of meat in it that was described to me as pig intestines or the lining of the stomach of the pig. It was chewy and didn’t even seem edible. It is a very traditional Spanish dish but none of their children eat it. I can see why. lol
Wow!! I was looking at everything and thinking, “Oooh, I’d like this.” or, “I wanna try this.” THEN, I got to the veal brains -_- I don’t think I’d try that, as afforadable as it may be hahaha. You’ve made me want to try some European chocolates though, I love chocolate and if Euro chocolate is better, I’m in!!
Weirdest thing I’ve ever eaten… Well, I don’t actually remember eating this but my parent said I did when I was little and that I really liked it becase it was salty:
http://i83.photobucket.com/albums/j310/ViolentxPoison/balut.jpg
It’s called Balut, a duck or chicken egg with an almost developed embryo, you boil it and eat it in the shell. When I asked my dad if I actually ate it he said yes and that my Lolo and Lola probably just gave it to me with a spoon so that I didn’t actually see what I was eating!
Mmmm… that sandwich looks really good, actually. D:
I dunno, I’m a picky eater, so I really don’t eat anything “weird.” Except artichokes, and after the first time I swore them off. They’re just… weird.
I’m curious what you mean by natural flavors. What sort of unnatural flavors have you found in candy? I can’t think of anything that’s not fruit, chocolate, or coffee flavored, which are all ‘natural’ things. Do you mean that the candy is organic..?
Chelsaur must be filipino… I’ve never had balut, but I’m sure that at some point in my later life, I’ll try it. The thing that squicks most of my American friends out is fried pigs cheeks (I forget what the Filipino term is) or bopis (more pig innards. chopped and spiced up). Well, anything to do with any animal innards.
Something I enjoy, but doesn’t have any taste, is fish brains. I think it’s more the adventure of getting it. Rather than the taste.
My friend Nadya gave me a bar of Alyonka chocolate from Russia last week, haha! It was good too :) Weirdest thing I’ve eaten? Maybe tripe.
I’ve been teaching myself Russian for about 3 years now, and I’m proud that I can read Cyrillic script finally!!! After I met Nadya last year, I set a goal to fluently speak by the age of 18 so we can talk in Russian (she speaks English fluently as well). However…
я рлоко гаварю па русский ;_;
I used to live on a farm so just the normal stuff, sheeps brains, sheep tongue. All very yummy.
there are so many American things I don’t like, such as creamy soups, pasta salads (wtf, ew) and baloney! My friends are freaked out by my favorite foods: holodets’, bul’yon (I always claim the chicken stomach and heart first!), blood sausage, salo (salted pig fat, YUMMMM, or even “shkvarky,” holy god, so GOOD), …and omg, canned slimy mushrooms.
I’m so hungry right now, by the way…
My friend is Russian, so all this stuff looks very familiar. Doe, do you also drink a lot of black tea and/or eat a lot of rye bread or even caviar? I’m not sure of it’s more of a regional thing though.
The weirdest thing I’ve tasted was bat soup. There really was an entire fruit in there. But I was too scared to eat bat meat, so I only drank the soup…..and it tasted like chicken soup. To be quite honest, I was secretly hoping it would taste vile!
“Perhaps that’s why I never had any interest in alcohol or getting smashed…”
Couldn’t agree with you more. I think a lot of kids our age start drinking a lot/illegally because it’s something “taboo”, something to rebel against the rules with. If they were used to alcohol, it wouldn’t be as glamorous and exciting to them. Really, they ought to gradually reduce the drinking age… >_<
There is this little Russian food store behind my boyfriends house, and we have browsed through it, but have yet to purchase anything from there. Clearly we must.
It had the candy and the jam and the plethora of sausages!
The weirdest thing I have had (that everyone else spits out and my family loves) is dutch droopes, salty licourish. Its so tastey!
And I also agree with what you said about drinking, my parents never said “NO! You cant have that”, it was “here try a sip”. And I’ve never really heavily indulged in the stuff because of that.
Veal brain? Interesting…
I guess I can’t really be that grossed out by it. I have had tripe before however I rather not think of what it is.
Ooh, I want to go there! I love eastern european beers and all the different deli meats and cheeses…
also, ‘Whortleberry’ sounds like something out of Dr Seuss!
Haha, Corinne is right, I’m filpino, well half filipino anyways. My mom (who is not filipino) doesn’t make any filipino food except for lumpia (rarely though) so I’m stuck with… not the most exciting dinners because like Ivannananana I don’t like soups, pasta or salads and whatnot either. I really should learn how to cook…
Yummy! Local tastes…
I ate buffalo once too, tinkerbell! I agree with you, far too chewy.
One thing I don’t understand is icing. It’s so greasy, I tried it a few times & it just makes me want to puke. Too American for my taste I guess…
OMG I LOVE your pictures, thanks for sharing Xenia, honestly I have never tried Russian food but I’d love to one day, btw I know this is random but what do you think of Kira Plastinina?
Wow, I wonder if there’s a Russian store in Portland! All of those foods (minus the brains) look surprisingly amazing!
But then again, I just saw an episode of Bizarre Foods with Andy Zimmerman, and he was in Russia raving about all their foods. He liked the brain, by the way. (Ack!)
I’ve had Kangaroo.
I don’t know if that is weird to most people? but it was unusual for me.
It was lovely.
So fruit jam is unusual to you? This blows my mind! I’m from Australia and everyone has jam here…
The most unusual thing that I ever ate was this”
http://i31.photobucket.com/albums/c377/kittybatkati/green.jpg
It was at a little trattoria in Firenze, and was quite chewy, but tasty. I think it is pigs foot, but am not really sure as I forgot to jot down the name off of the menu. The green sauce was cilantro and mint, with a hint of divine.
[...] can come from most unexpected places – like a beer bottle! When I saw this Belgian ale at the Russian store (they sell a lot of European stuff), I had to have it immediately. Not only did it have an unusual [...]
I LOVE that you posted a rant about russian food. Being russian myself, it’s difficult to convince typically american friends that russians make amazing food… it always looks questionable to them.
<3 Thanks. I love your blog!
my family happens to be russian, also.
it turns out veal brain is fried.
but when it cooks it shrinks so all you taste is grease.
it goes on my list of russian things not to try, right beside jellied meat.
[...] really enjoyed your blog about Russian food and I would really love to hear about your experiences of Russia – why you moved, your favourite [...]
You think veal brains are strange? You should see what they make hot dogs out of…
Wat they do is they get all the good meat out of an animal, take the bones and squish all the marrow and meatleft on the bones… nice.
Awesome post! I’ve always been curious about Russia, but was too shy in college to make friends with all the Russian exchange students. I really want to try Russian tea! My best friend has promised to take me to a Russian restaurant for tea the next time I visit her in Tokyo. It will definitely be a highlight!
As for odd thing I’ve eaten, I guess it was either stewed silkworms (bondaeggi) or dried up plum in hard candy.
My husband is Russian and has taken me to Russian grocery stores in the area. His mother makes compote (water with dried fruit boiled & cooled in it), our kids love it, healthy but not too sweet. I love black currant juice and many other packaged juices from Russian stores. Twice we had products that had gone bad; cranberry jam that tasted like paint (!!) and chocolate with air holes (a more common kind of Russian chocolate) that tiny worms came crawling out of…luckily I broke off a piece and put it on the counter before eating it! Eeeeerrrrghh!!!
Oh! And kvass…like beer, but maltier, without any alcohol content. Strangely flat-tasting. And kefir, like drinking sour, lumpy milk. Hubs loves it but I am like, ick…although you see it more & more in regular grocery stores for it’s probiotic qualities!