Foraging in Ukraine

Note:  Christie Bond of Burlington, Vermont is a returned Peace Corps Volunteer from Ukraine and has joined us in working on the Pickle Project.  We look forward to more posts from her!)

As winter approaches, I have been eagerly awaiting the first snowfall in order to tromp the grounds looking for tracks and other animal signs. As a prelude, I’ve been digging into Paul Rezendes Tracking & the Art of Seeing: How to Read Animal Tracks and Sign. The language used by Rezendes, “seeing” brought me back to tracking of another kind – foraging in Ukraine.

Although one might assume “tracking plants” to be far easier than following the signs of moving animals, it took me a while to find what my counterpart Maria described as my “mushroom eyes.” Not unlike tracking animals, it’s important to wait for the right conditions – rain after several warm days, and then the hope that your mushroom eyes are working! As Rezendes says, “If you know an animal well, you will know where to look for it and when,” - the same is true for mushrooms.

(Mushroom Pizza – Sumy)

When traveling the highways in Ukraine, it is common to see babushkas with foraged mushrooms for sale – fresh and dried. In addition, when the weather is right, any location will do. While on a weekend retreat near the Desna river, one of the program planners mentioned he had seen oyster mushrooms near the sanatorium entrance, so we happily ended our meeting in search of them. He brought them back the following day in the form of a soup that his wife had prepared.

(Mushroom Soup - Odessa)

Without Maria, Dr. Valarie, or Tatiana (all passionate foragers), I am reluctant to go on my own. Luckily this fall was particularly rich with giant puff ball mushrooms (which have no poisonous look-alikes). Rezendes believes that through tracking, a person can develop an intimate bond with the animal, and furthermore develop a more keen understanding of their relationship to the natural world. I believe the same can be said for foraging. Through the collection of mushrooms, one can develop a keen sense of their environment.

For helpful foraging tips, visit: http://www.foragingguide.com/

(Top photo:  Mushrooms at an Odessa Market)

Chatting and Chewing in Kyiv

As Caleb mentioned in the previous post, the first in this autumn’s series of Pickle Project Community Conversations took place at the Bulgakov Museum. The museum is perched on the renowned Andriyivsky Uzviv, a steep, curvy little street that winds down a Kyivan hill. The museum observes the life and works of the beloved Ukrainian writer Mikhail Bulgakov, most famous for his novel The Master and Margarita, the subversive commentary on the oppression of the Soviet Regime.

The building itself was Bulgakov’s home for a time and the Museum uses the house’s rooms to imaginatively braid together the themes from Bulgakov’s own life with that of the Turbin family, featured in his novel The White Guard, set against the chaos of the Russian Civil War. The Bulgakov Museum is known for inventive programming that often includes food traditions, drawing on Bulgakov’s life and works. For me, the Bulgakov Museum has a warm, familiar and almost magical quality. Thus, it made a wonderful and fitting setting for the event.

The evening began with cheerful mingling and refreshments. Between refreshing sips of icy vodka, a personal favorite, and nibbles of black bread and salo, participants chatted and jotted down responses to questions posted on the walls with thick markers. These included “What is your favorite meal? and “What makes food natural?” The crowd was a lively mix that included diplomats and dairy farmers, rural development specialists, municipal managers, grandmas, college students and teenagers.

A sequence of deeper discussions ensued, sparked by mini-presentations around the food-centric themes of personal memory, entrepreneurship, science and sustainability. We told stories about our grandparents and grandchildren. We laughed about why we hate some foods and love others. We talked about what it means to make food for your children and if a person can actually “taste the love.” We explored the element of trust in our food system and what our national dishes really are. There was technical tête-à-tête, about calves’ intestines and compliance requirements among the dairy professionals in the room, and the salt-to-water ratio for good pickles between experimental American picklers (ahem..) and seasoned Ukrainian ones.

To accompany these exchanges, there were second and third courses to our feast. We enjoyed kasha with sautéed onions, golden cabbage and squashes with caramelized pork. There were home-made pickles and marinated mushrooms! Oh my! Then, we had coffee, tea and sweets.

The evening concluded with the exchanging of home canned goods, raw dairy products, hugs and kisses. Set in the Bulgakov Museum’s comfortable space, the event and dialogue offered many levels of engagement and was enriched by the openness and energy of the participants. And, we headed out into the dark Kyivan night, a bit brighter by the connections we'd made.

The Bulgakov Museum maintains an interesting blog and Linda has written more about the Bulgakov Museum at the Uncataloged Museum.

Tea on a Summer Afternoon

We recently had the good fortune of spending the afternoon with my friend Nataliya’s family in Yanif. Located northwest of L’viv, Yanif (also called Ivano Frankove) sits at the edge of the Roztochya Forest Preserve and on the shores of a sizable lake historically known for the salty, smoked fish produced there.

From the marshrutka stop, we made our way through the village, along the dusty roads and winding alleys, past raggedy dogs and fenced yards filled with chicken coops, roses and potatoes to Nataliya’s grandparents house. Cheerful and generous, Pavlina and Volodymyr Litynski are are in their 70s and maintain an energetic and lively household.

They live in a simple house with a small but bountiful kitchen garden, a little greenhouse made of windows for growing tomatoes and a few fruit trees. It is there that I have learned much about Ukrainian food traditions. In addition to being industrious vegetable gardeners and orchard keepers, three generations of this family, including my friend Nataliya, her mother, Halya, and her grandfather, Volodymyr, are all foresters and are knowledgeable experts on native Ukrainian berries, mushrooms and wild herbs.

It was one of those clear, blue summer afternoons and we found Volodymyr sitting in the grass, sorting just-picked red currants. After surveying the various stages of vegetables and fruits in the garden, as we always do when I visit, Volodymyr carried the kitchen table out into the dappled shade of the yard, much the way my own grandparents would on a summer day.

Under the trees, we nibbled seernik, a light Ukrainian cheesecake, with fresh raspberries and sipped a refreshing herbal tea that Pavlina made. The tea was a local mélange of wild raspberry leaves, wild strawberry leaves, nettles, mint and the delicate fruits of basswood. (For the forestry geeks out there, they are technically nutlets with a thin leafy bract. We often see these marketed for tea in big Ukrainian city markets as well.) All of these were collected around Pavlina and Volodymyr’s garden and, then, hung and dried in the "shadow" of the trees. They store this mixture in a canister in their cool, dry pantry.

Despite the heat, we drank our tea hot and it provided that strange, cooling effect that warm and spicy foods produce. (Actually, I have always wondered about the physiological effects that spicy and hot foods precipitate. According to this 1999 Scientific American article, it has to do with the skin’s pain receptors, which can be stimulated by actual heat or by chemicals such as capsaicin, that simulate heat, to trigger a response from the nervous system.)

As we chatted and sipped, various neighbors passed through the yard, calling out greetings as they strolled by. Some carried borrowed garden tools, others bags of food or children. A few friends and cousins stopped to join us for a cup of tea, conversation and an idle moment during a busy season.

Special thanks to Pavlina and Volodymyr Litynski and Halya, Serhy and Nataliya Stryamets, as always, for their warm hospitality.

Market Report: Kyiv, March 23, 2011

Today's photos are not from a single market, but grabbed on the fly as I've been around the city this past week--and to me, you can really see the transition from winter (with potatoes, nuts and dried mushrooms) to spring (with seeds, pussywillows and snow drops).  Spring is coming!