A Forest Forage: What Can be Found?

Jud Dolphin, another Peace Corps Volunteer in Ukraine, has generously allowed us to share this post from his own blog about a day in the forest.   He's living and working in Konotop, in Sumy Oblast in northern Ukraine.  If you want to read the full adventure (and if you're a rail fan you will) just click here.

My day begins with a phone call from Annya. I have known her for over a year and every time she calls me something interesting is bound to happen. "My Babushka wants to know if you want to go to the forest."

Among Ukrainians, going to the forest is one of the preferred leisure activities. Ukrainians love their land and especially the forests. I've heard many a discourse bestowing the benefits of pine scented air and the healing qualities of nature's beauty. They say going to the forest can heal mind, body and soul. Who am I to disagree?

Annya continues, "My Babushka has a special place to pick ground apples. Will you join her and a couple of friends?"

I have learned to never say no to an invitation and immediately agree. I will learn about foraging for ground apples.... whatever that may be.

It's a beautiful day. The oppressive heat of a few weeks ago is gone. Blue skies mixed with delicious marshmallow clouds hover over golden fields. The sunflower crop has been harvested and the corn awaits its turn. Distant clusters of people work fields by hand. I think they are harvesting potatoes for their family's winter meals.

Much of the land is unploughed. I am told that ownership disputes have not been settled since the demise of Communism. In addition, markets and infrastructure for crops are undeveloped. Ukraine is rich in natural resources, but has yet to benefit fully.

I look out over the Ukrainian landscape. I try to imprint the images into my mind. I am aware that my time in Ukraine is running down. Already I have been here more time than remains. I want to capture the sights for my old age memories.

Summer is turning towards Fall. Fields in greens, yellows and browns flow across the horizon. Mounds of hay dot the landscape. Stork nests adorn the tops of electric poles like large baskets A horse drawn cart trots down a two rut path. Flocks of geese waddle across a pond. Babushkas sit on benches outside of village homes watching our train swoosh by.

Now into the forest, we go. Sun shadows speckles our path. A backdrop of white pines scent the air. Here and there, a cluster of birch trees stand out. I am feeling the healing qualities.

We walk and then walk some more. After about 3 kilometers, we spy our first ground apples. They are about the size of golf balls or even smaller. They grow under the white pines on ground hugging shrubs. "Pick the yellow ones and leave the green for later," my Babushka instructs.

We get busy filling bags and then pouring the contents of our bags into a big sack. Babushka and her sister have a family dispute about the best way to hitch the sack to the bike. I have been taking photos and now capture the squabble. We all begin to laugh. Sisters will be sisters.

The ground apples are terribly sour like lemons. Each one will be cored and either boiled for compote juice or ground into marmalade. It's a lot of work.

And what are those ground apples?  They're quince.   I couldn't locate a Ukrainian quince marmalade recipe, but here's an American one--from the Boston Cooking School Cookbook by Fannie Farmer, published in 1918, via Bartleby.com.  Enjoy!

Quince Marmalade

Wipe quinces, remove blossom ends, cut in quarters, remove seeds; then cut in small pieces. Put into a preserving kettle, and add enough water to nearly cover. Cook slowly until soft. Rub through a hair sieve, and add three-fourths its measure of heated sugar. Cook slowly twenty minutes, stirring occasionally to prevent burning. Put in tumblers.

A Family Feast in Crimea

Barb Wieser is a Peace Corps volunteer at the Gasprinsky Library in Simferopol and lives outside the city in a Crimean Tatar settlement.  Crimean Tatars have a long history on the Crimea Peninsula but, in a stunning display of ethnic cleansing, Stalin deported the entire Crimean Tatar population on a single day in 1944, sending hundreds of thousands to Uzbekistan and other distant Soviet republics, with as many as half the population dying en route and in the following months.  But the end of the Soviet Union meant the opportunity for Crimean Tatars to return to their homeland, now a part of Ukraine, and the Crimean Tatar population in Crimea now numbers more than 250,000.  Despite deportation and cultural repression, the Crimean Tatars preserved many of their own traditions.  Barb was generous enough to share her experience preparing for a pre-wedding Crimean Tatar feast. 

Abdul, the oldest son of my landlords, Server and Maia, is getting married September 18th. There has been much talk and preparations for the wedding for quite some time. I am invited, of course, and I have been looking forward to attending my first time to a Crimean Tatar wedding! By all accounts, they are quite the event, and include all night eating, dancing, and toasting. Despite the fact that Crimean Tatars are Muslims, they still do a lot of drinking, kind of like the Turks. The joke is that there is nothing in the Koran about not drinking vodka.  Two weekends ago there was a large gathering at Maia and Server's house, a traditional part of the pre-wedding ritual where the two families exchange presents, and the imam comes and blesses the couple. 45 guests were expected: relatives, neighbors, friends and many of the relatives showed up the night before and spent the weekend.

Earlier in the week I had offered to help with the cooking, so I spent much of Friday next door in the kitchen with Maia and her sisters, daughter, and mother, chopping vegetables and meat, getting ready for the early morning feast preparation the next day.  One of the traditions in Muslim culture for a large ritual gathering such as this is to slaughter a goat, or in the case of the Crimean Tatars, a sheep, to provide meat for all the dishes. Maia had told me that her brother-in-law was bringing a sheep to slaughter on Friday, but somehow the reality of that hadn't sunk in until I came home from work Friday afternoon and glanced into the back yard, and there was a sheep, laying under the tree, staring at me with his woeful (or so I felt) eyes. I really didn't want to be present for the actual slaughter, so I disappeared into my house for awhile. When I came out later, the brother-in-law and nephew were hacking away at the sheep carcass. Two cooking fires had been started and large wok-looking pans were placed on them to cook the food needed for the feast. Later that evening, a delicious mutton soup was made for the neighbors and relatives who had gathered to help with food preparations.

After watching them for awhile, I went inside and started helping the sisters chop and peel vegetables--mounds of carrots, onions, potatoes, garlic--taking out time to have coffee and green tea and of course, talk.   One of my other jobs that evening was grinding of sheep meat to be used to make dolmades (stuffed peppers) the following day. As I was chopping up chunks of meat to be fed into the grinder, I thought of that living creature whose eyes I had looked into not so long ago, and whose body I now held in my hands and was making preparations to eat. Not since I was a child on my grandparents farm and watched the caged up chickens before their slaughter (one of which I let loose and got into big trouble) have I been so close to the connection between animal life and the meat I eat. Maybe it is the connection with mammal's that is so profound, as I have also frequently caught fish and killed and ate them. I just couldn't and still can't get the vision of that sheep's face from my mind. I tried to thank the sheep for giving its life so I can eat, but somehow, I don't think it is enough. But I continue to eat meat at my neighbors' homes and when I go to Crimean Tatar restaurants. Perhaps this experience will help me to remember what it is I am eating and to be consciously thankful that an animal has given its life for my food.

By the time I went next door, all the food had been prepared and the festivities were in full swing. I tried to help with serving, etc. but I was clearly to be treated as a guest and was escorted upstairs to dine with all the women. I hadn't realized that was going to happen, so I felt way underdressed for the event, but no one but me seemed to mind. Quite a feast was laid on the table. Plates of fruits, olives, cheeses, and sweets. A thick mutton soup was served and then the dolmades along with leposhka, the traditional Crimean Tatar bread. Afterwords, there were platters of cookies, cakes, and candies, and tea and coffee were served. It is the Crimean Tatar tradition to serve first Turkish coffee and then green tea. When I asked about this, someone told me it was because in Crimea before the deportation, people only drank coffee. But in Uzbekistan coffee wasn't available, so they drank green tea. So when people came back to Crimea, they began to serve both!

Finally I went back to my house, enriched by yet another Crimean Tatar experience and full of love for this wonderful culture I have found myself in.

Thanks, Barb, for sharing this.  More posts from Peace Corps Volunteers to come, and of course, all of our Pickle Project readers are invited to share their stories and memories about food traditions in Ukraine.

The Marvel of Melon!

It is in these dwindling days of summer (or the very first days of autumn) that we really appreciate the luxury and succulence of the season’s produce. And, for me, the melon, bright and invigorating, is the pinnacle. When melons enter the bazaar, a sweet and distinctive aroma fills your nose, long before your eyes lay upon them. Fresh from the vine, watermelons (кавун) and muskmelons (dynya) are the delight of Ukraine’s late summer markets.

Native to tropical Africa, watermelons have crisp, red (or yellow) flesh while muskmelons, with soft orange or pale green flesh, originate in central Asia. Watermelons and muskmelons are both members of the Cucurbitaceae family, which also includes squashes, pumpkins and cucumbers. Melons, both watermelons and muskmelons, are rather fickle fruits, sensitive to frosts and cold, windy or cloudy conditions. They thrive in warm, sunny weather and humus-rich, well-drained, if slightly acidic, soils. The greater southern Dnieper valley regions of Zaporizhzhya, Mykolayiv and Kherson, as well as portions of the Crimean peninsula afford ideal conditions for these delicate beauties. And, thus, Ukrainians have developed a particular fondness for the fruits and adeptness in their cultivation. Indeed, melons have been cultivated in Ukraine for some 15 centuries. According to a USDA report, fossilized melon seeds found during excavations of sites near Sevastopol dated to the 2nd century BC! In addition, genetic research suggests that Ukraine is also significant hub of genetic melon diversity. It seems Ukrainians (and Russians) carried some of the seeds of these diverse strains with them as they immigrated to North America, notably to Central Canada, home to famous varieties such as the buttery yellow “Cream of Saskatchewan.”

As with most fruits, melons are sweetest and most delicious when ripened on the vine. As for choosing a watermelon at the perfect stage of ripeness, it can be tricky because the outer skin, often green and zebra-striped, remains so regardless of fruit readiness. At my regular market haunts, growers, sellers and fellow patrons are usually glad to provide advice for spotting, slapping, squeezing or sniffing out the ideal specimen.

If selection assistance is not a service provided by your melon merchant, as may occasionally be the case, you may choose to defer to the advice of American writer, Mark Twain, who, I gather, was something of a watermelon aficionado and, according to my treasured 17^th edition of Rodale’s Encyclopedia of Organic Gardening (1971), is said to opined: an unripe melon says “pink” or “pank” when rapped with the knuckles, while a ripe one replies “punk.”

Muskmelons, of course, provide an unmistakable perfume, smelling delicious when they are delicious. They also tend to soften after being picked and may give a bit under the thumb. I have been informed that they may also rattle when lightly shaken, as the seeds move about in the hollow center.

In addition to the fleeting joys of fresh melons, there is also the magic of pickled watermelon! Sometimes sweet, sometimes salty and savory, sometimes spicy and sweet, both the flesh and the rinds of the watermelon are pickled and make a wonderful appetizer or relish for warm, mid-winter meals.

The drying of muskmelons, both flesh and rinds, is a preservation technique that apparently originates in the Caucus region and is popular in some Ukrainian communities, particularly in Crimea. While I heard much about this practice third-hand, I do not know anyone that does this! If you have experience drying muskmelons, drop us a line!

For a fabulous pickled watermelon recipe and related articles, visit Saveur.

To learn more about Ukraine and genetic diversity of melons, see the USDA Agricultural Research Service 2009 study.

For information about growing watermelons, muskmelons and cantaloupe, I recommend Rodale’s Encyclopedia of Organic Gardening, any edition.

As always, Culinaria Russia: Ukraine, Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan, edited by Marion Trutter, published by H. Fullmann, 2006 is a great resource on the food traditions of the Post-Soviet Space.

Harvest Comes Early to Ukraine

I'm very pleased to share this guest post and photos by Fran Cary, a Peace Corps volunteer in Ukraine. Fran lives and works in Starobilsk.  Luba, her friend and neighbor is like many Ukrainians, intensely  knowledgeable about her garden and dedicated to preserving the fruits of her work.  Fran's thoughtful commentary places Luba in the context of both time and place.  Thank you both Fran and Luba!

Harvest is coming early to Ukraine.  It's the intense, prolonged hot weather and lack of rain.  Luba's garden storage area in her barn, a common feature of village homesteads, is loaded with tomatoes, onions, potatoes, and herbs, drying out so they can be cured, sliced, diced, spiced, bottled and preserved.   

The grapes look beautiful, but Luba says they will not be very tasty. Too dry. The apples are fairly plentiful but not very large.  The plums are turning deep purple but many are dropping early.  There are five blushing peaches on her newly planted tree that she is guarding with her life.  Last year the apricots were bountiful, and Luba spent hours cutting and drying them and making jam, preserves and compot (fruit juice);  this year there are hardly any apricots.   

Luba , who is a professional accountant, says, "During the day I work with my head, at night I work with my body and soul," and  she loves it.  It's a balance between the mental and physical that many of us, in today's post-industrial and technological world, do not have.  In Starobilsk, and most rural villages throughout Ukraine, it is a typical pattern.     

 

Luba's garden is medium-sized, but if you have ever worked a plot of land you know what hard work it is.  Natalia's garden is huge, three times the size of Luba's.  When Natalia is not teaching English at the University, she works the land with her husband and two college-aged sons. When I was in training in Chernigov, Valya and Nikolai, who lived in a large Soviet-style apartment building, went early every morning to their garden plot in the country where they grew vegetables and fruits, and Nikolai hunted for mushrooms.  Some gardens are large enough so their owners can grow their own food and sell the surplus in the marketplace, at shops, roadside stands, and bazaars.  Right now, on the road to Lugansk, for example, it's hard to resist the melons and autumn vegetables.   

Luba's garden and lifestyle make me think of the work of British historian E.P.Thompson and his many followers who explored the changing relationship to time in industrial and pre-industrial societies,  the centuries-long transition from economies based on farmers, merchants and craftspeople to those based on industries, beginning with the textile factories, which required a disciplined labor force tied to clock time. 

Before Thompson there was Karl Marx, who famously argues that the industrial revolution polarized society into the bourgeoise, those who owned the means of production, and the proletariat, those who performed the labor necessary to extract something valuable from the means of productions.  These studies of the transition from agrarian to industrial life, and likewise the transition from slavery to freedom, constitute a fascinating body of scholarship, worldwide, a global village of international studies.     

Luba's 9 to 5 day job is measured by the time-clock, but her work in the garden is pre-industrial.  It is measured by the tasks required at different times in the growing cycle. She wakes up at sunrise to work in her garden for a few hours, then comes home from her day job and works til sundown in the garden, each task determined by the crop and the season, a natural cycle of life.   

In the rural villages of Ukraine, some elements of a pre-industrial society still exist.  Farmers, merchants and craftspeople dominate the economy, although large international companies and technology are fast rising to overtake them.  It feels like what it must have been life in America at the turn of the century with the rise of the trusts and big business, and the triumph of capitalism.  The growing and dirge-like complaints about “oligarchy” embody the resistance and regret at this development, which now seems inevitable, irresistible, unstoppable.   

Because for village people in the post-Soviet world, freedom still means owning your own land, growing your own food, being self-sufficient, being your own boss.  It's the Ukrainian equivalent of "40 acres and a mule," the dream of former slaves after the Civil War and during Reconstruction into the 20th century.   There is a fierce resistance to “clocking-in” to work for the profit of someone else.    

Luba's work exemplifies this lifestyle.  I think it is doomed to extinction. I wonder how long it can last?
 

Blue, Blue Blueberries!

I spent a little time last week here in the Catskills picking blueberries--and the same thing is happening in Ukraine.  Last week, the small community of Guklyvy in the Transcarpathian Region held a blueberry festival which included the unveiling of a blueberry statue, and of course, blueberries in many forms.   Blueberries are an important food source for people in the Carpathians and also a significant seasonal, supplemental income source. Families pick berries together, eating some fresh and preserving the rest in jams, juices and thick sauces.   Children often sell them in villages or along the side of the road, holding out glass jars full, with their little arms, as you drive the winding mountain roads. Wild blueberries from this region are tiny and rather dark in color. A friend of Sarah's makes something akin to a parfait, layering sugared berries with smetana (sour cream)  creamy white and dark blue, beautiful, delicate and delicious.

In the Carpathians and other regions of Ukraine the blueberries are on wild, low bushes, rather than the high bush variety more commonly seen in the United States. In Polissa, a region of Central Ukraine,  an agro-tourism website extols berry picking both as centuries old tradition and now as fun activity for tourists.  And as anyone who's ever been berry picking can attest, it's immensely satisfying both to eat along the way and to come home with a bucketful.

And what to do with all those blueberries?  At the festival in Guklyvy there was blueberry vodka at right in the above photo and blueberry fillings for varenyky and blini, center.    On the left, some sort of blueberry tart.

Interestingly, a quick google found references to Ukrainians and blueberry picking here in the United States, near Lake Erie and northern New York.   And if you haven't eaten all your fresh berries, hanks to  Foodgeeks.com  here's a recipe for blueberry varenyky, both dough and filling.  Enjoy--and please share your pictures and memories of berry picking in Ukraine.

BLUEBERRY SAUCE
2 cups blueberries (wild blueberries preferred)
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1 tbsp. all purpose flour
2 tbsp. lemon juice
2 tbsp. butter, melted
Sour cream, at room temperature

FILLING
2/3 cup granulated sugar
1 tbsp. all purpose flour
2 cups blueberries

DOUGH
3 cups all purpose flour
1/2 tsp. baking powder
1 egg
3/4 cup milk
2 tbsp. butter, melted
Cold water

INSTRUCTIONS

FOR THE SAUCE: In saucepan, stir together blueberries, sugar and flour; add lemon juice and 1/4 cup water. Simmer over low heat until blueberries are soft and sauce is thickened, about 5 minutes. Set aside.

FOR THE DOUGH: In large bowl, whisk together flour and baking powder. In separate bowl, whisk together egg, milk and butter; stir into flour mixture. Add cold water, 1 tbsp. at a time (6 to 7 tbsp. total), until soft dough is formed. Knead until dough is smooth. Cover with plastic and let rest for 10 minutes.

Roll dough to scant 1/4 inch thickness. Cut out 3 inch rounds.

FILLING: Whisk together sugar and flour; set aside. Stretch out cut out dough rounds slightly and fill each round with scant 1 tsp. flour/ sugar mixture and 1 Tbsp. blueberries. Pull dough over filling; pinch edges together to seal.

Continue until dough and filling are used up, letting reworked scraps rest slightly before rolling (keep unrolled dough and filled dumplings covered with a clean tea towel).

In large pot of lightly salted boiled water, boil dumpling, in batches if necessary, until dough is tender at thickest edges, about 10 minutes. Remove with slotted spoon to serving plate; drizzle with butter to prevent sticking. Serve with blueberry sauce and sour cream on the side. Makes 32 to 36 dumplings.

FOOD TIP: any leftover dough can be rolled into noodles, boiled and served with butter or sour cream.

Photos from ForUM and Zacarpatia.net.

post by Linda and Sarah

What Do We Long For? Food Nostalgia and Puzata Hata

In her chapter on food tourism in the book Fast Food/Slow Food: The Cultural Economy of the Global Food System, food anthropologist Melissa Caldwell explores how the stress of life in modern Moscow has resulted in a collective homesickness for a simpler time, an imagined life that is stable and familiar. This, she suggests, has catalyzed the emergence of “nostalgia cuisine” and themed restaurants in Moscow. Through food experiences, Russians might find reprieve from alienating forces and events that have come to shape their lives. While Ukraine certainly differs from Russia, a similar trend is evident in Ukraine’s urban centers.

One example that has always struck me is Puzata Hata (пузата хата) a chain restaurant with locations across Ukraine. The restaurant features classic Ukrainian food, served cafeteria style, in Carpathian village-themed environs. There are wooden beams, faux cottage rooftops, murals of haystacks, plastic onions hung to dry and servers in embroidered sorotchke. (OK, there are also large TVs and techno music.) This restaurant is very popular among university students and, it seems, everyone else. In fact, when I first came to Ukraine, this was a place that friends and colleagues were eager to take me. I have often wondered what it is about Puzata Hata people like so well. The food is classic and predictable but certainly not as delicious as homemade, particularly for standard Ukrainian fare, such as varenyky and blini.  When asked why she likes the place, a friend’s reply was “Because the food is good there, the design is like in old Ukrainian houses and it is not expensive.” This response was typical among people I asked in L’viv, all stressing that it is cheap, fresh and “comfortable”. What is interesting is that, while these individuals may have extended family or dachas in the villages, they are, for the most part, city folks, having grown up in L’viv’s highrise apartment complexes. Apparently “cultural nostalgia” is fairly common and draws shared responses that support a cultural identity. Thus, it is entirely possible to be wistful for romanticized experiences that you have never had. Further, while “comfort food” is not a new concept, all of this makes me wonder whether it is the preservation of the food or the ideas that give us comfort? Indeed, why is the village aesthetic, and particularly traditional foodways, such an important cultural icon?  But this village culture is mediated by specialists--by researchers who ensure authentiticy.  Puzata Hata’s website says,

Puzata Hata cuisine is well known and loved by our guests and represents the result of serious research and work. Our specialists have surveyed all regions of Ukraine to collect the most popular recipes of traditional national dishes.    This was preceded by long hours of work with archived documents – we used over a hundred of original culinary creations. That is how our food catalogue was created containing over a thousand dishes (for example, there are fifty recipes of Ukrainian borscht alone).

We'd love to hear from blog readers about why your own fondness for Puzata Hata.  Does it represent comfort?  affordability?  cooking just like home in a big city setting?

For intriguing discussion of nostalgia and foodways in the Post-Soviet context, see Svetlana Boym’s Common Places: Mythologies of Everyday Life in Russia (Harvard University Press, 1994) (also recently recommended by a Pickle Project reader) and Melissa Caldwell’s “Tasting the Worlds of Yesterday and Today: Culinary Tourism and Nostalgia Foods in Post-Soviet Russia”  in Fast Food/Slow Food: The Cultural Economy of the Global Food System edited by Richard Wilk (AltaMira Press, 2006) or many of Dr. Caldwell’s other writings on food in Post-Socialist countries.

written by Sarah, posted by Linda

Market Report: July 2, Opishne, Poltava Region

I was in Opishne for the National Day of Potters, an event created by the National Museum of Ceramics, located there, but after we finished a restaurant lunch, I persuaded my intrepid translator to accompany me across the road to see what a line-up of fruit and vegetable sellers had to offer.   So I saw cherries braided into a strand the way chili peppers are in the Southwest United States;  St.  John's wort and other herbs for tea (and then had some later that day);  cherries,  the tiny strawberries gathered into little bouquets and almost dried, gooseberries, cucumbers and last season's walnuts and dried pears.

But most memorable were the great faces of the men and women who smilingly pressed walnuts into my hand, had me try a dried plum (good for my digestion they said),  and encouraged me to try and purchase all!