?“?»?°?????»??????: ?“-shaped sugar cookies
As you wander through the aisles of your local grocery store, you might notice a curious phenomenon: a growing nostalgia for ???????µ?‚?????°?? ?????…???? (Soviet cooking). ???µ?»?????µ???? (meat dumplings) are once again packaged in gray cardboard boxes with faded orange lettering, pastry display cases are filled with ???»???µ???‹?µ ???·?‹?‡???? (puff pastries) and women in 1930s costumes are selling ?????€???¶?µ?????µ ?? ???‚?°???°???‡?????µ (ice cream cones) at GUM.
For foreigners who spent time in the Brezhnev-era Soviet Union, this nostalgia might seem a bit misplaced. I would personally like to forget the standard Intourist lunch fare of mystery meat in sauce on overcooked buckwheat groats. Nor do I ever want to stand in line for three hours to buy a half-kilo of greenish tinged ?????»?±?°???° (cold cuts). But the good stuff, when you could get it (???????‚?°?‚??), really was good. And perhaps it tasted even better because it was a rare treat. Absence makes the heart grow fonder, with people and ?±???¶?µ???????° (cold roast pork).
In any case, here's a guide to some of Soviet cooking's Greatest Hits.
First, look for the abbreviation ?“?????? (state standard). Starting in 1925, recipes were developed and assigned state standard numbers to ensure that, say, the ???????‚???€?????°?? ?????»?±?°???° (dietetic baloney — an oxymoron if there ever was one) you bought in Kazan was exactly the same as the stuff you bought in Kiev. Think McDonald's, only on a nationwide scale. And lest you sneer, some of these recipe developers knew what they were doing. The ?“?????? recipe for ???????‚???€?????°?? ?????»?±?°???° includes a bit of cardamom and nutmeg. Who knew?
But beware: ?“?????? is now a marketing tool, and if you read carefully you might find that the ?“?????? on ???????‰?µ?????° (sweetened condensed milk) is actually for safety standards at the factory and not for the recipe itself.
???? ???µ ?±?????µ?? ?? ???»???…???? (let's not talk about bad things). Instead we'll push our mental shopping cart toward ?????»?????°?€???? (delicatessen, deli section), which is a store or section of a grocery store selling ready-to-cook and ready-to-eat food. Here you might want to sample ?????€?° (caviar) — not the fish roe, but the thick vegetable puree: ???°?±?°?‡???????°?? (squash), ?±?°???»?°?¶?°?????°?? (eggplant) or ???€???±???°?? (mushroom). Now stores try to make it as close as possible to what one person calls ???????? ???°?±?°?‡?????????? ?????€?‹ ???€?µ???‘?? ?????†???°?»???·???° (the taste of squash caviar from the age of socialism).
But probably the tastiest food made from the Soviet recipe file can be found in the ???‹???µ?‡???° (baked goods) section of your grocery store. Start with some ???»?°?????»?????? — sugar cookies in the shape of the letter ?“, which used to be called ???»?°?????» (verb) in the Russian alphabet. Try some ?????????»?°?????‹?µ ???°?€?‚???????? (chocolate pastry "potatoes"), which are made by mixing cake crumbs with milk, butter, sugar and ???????‰?µ?????° and then rolling the mass in cocoa and sugar. And end with a ?????‡?????? (from the word ?????‡???‹?? — moist), a shortcrust pastry filled with ?‚?????€???? (pot cheese) and ?????µ?‚?°???° (sour cream).
For a special occasion, order a ?‚???€?‚ ?????µ?????????? (Kiev cake), a nut-packed, modified angel food cake with a butter-cream filling, or the famous ???‚???‡???µ ?????»?????? (Bird's Milk cake), which has thick soufflé in between two thin layers of cake.
You might find yourself agreeing with this old ditty: ???°?¶???‹?? ???????»???????? ?·???°?µ?‚ ?? ???°?€?‚?‹ / ???°?? ???°?¶???‹ ???‚?€?°???µ ???‚?°?????°?€?‚?‹, loosely translated as: Every schoolchild knows the answer! What's a country without its standards?
Michele A. Berdy, a Moscow-based translator and interpreter, is author of "The Russian Word's Worth" (Glas), a collection of her columns.
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