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A mameligele, a pastramele, a karnatsele, un a gleyzele vayn
I want my country to figure out a way of being angry that its political system has been externally manipulated without becoming any more nationalistic than it already has, since that's being a disaster.
My mother showed me a one-panel comic with one of those hot dog carts on a sidewalk and two passers-by looking on. The cart's umbrella advertises it as "Vlad's Treats"; the menu is "Borscht—Caviar—Unchecked Power." One of the passers-by is saying to the other, "It's an acquired taste." It is very obviously a Putin reference, but it still rang off-key for me. I don't want to move back into an era where we have ideological purity food wars. It was embarrassing enough when French fries were briefly and xenophobically renamed in 2003. No one in my family has been Russian for more than a century (and Russia might have disputed whether they counted in the first place, being Jews), but my grandmother made borscht. I don't make it with anything like the frequency I make chicken soup with kneydlekh, but that's partly because kneydlekh will not make your kitchen look like you axe-murdered somebody in it. I order it every chance I get. For my mother's seventieth birthday, my father took her to a Russian restaurant especially for the caviar. It can't be much of an acquired taste if as a toddler I had to be stopped from happily eating the entire can my grandparents had been sent as a present.
And let's face it, if I get this twitchy (and vaguely sad that at four-thirty in the morning there's nowhere I can get borscht in Boston), I assume the dogwhistles are much louder for people for whom Russia is closer than their great-grandparents. Can we not do McCarthyism 2.0? Especially since we sort of have been for some years now and it's, see above, not so much working out?
My mother showed me a one-panel comic with one of those hot dog carts on a sidewalk and two passers-by looking on. The cart's umbrella advertises it as "Vlad's Treats"; the menu is "Borscht—Caviar—Unchecked Power." One of the passers-by is saying to the other, "It's an acquired taste." It is very obviously a Putin reference, but it still rang off-key for me. I don't want to move back into an era where we have ideological purity food wars. It was embarrassing enough when French fries were briefly and xenophobically renamed in 2003. No one in my family has been Russian for more than a century (and Russia might have disputed whether they counted in the first place, being Jews), but my grandmother made borscht. I don't make it with anything like the frequency I make chicken soup with kneydlekh, but that's partly because kneydlekh will not make your kitchen look like you axe-murdered somebody in it. I order it every chance I get. For my mother's seventieth birthday, my father took her to a Russian restaurant especially for the caviar. It can't be much of an acquired taste if as a toddler I had to be stopped from happily eating the entire can my grandparents had been sent as a present.
And let's face it, if I get this twitchy (and vaguely sad that at four-thirty in the morning there's nowhere I can get borscht in Boston), I assume the dogwhistles are much louder for people for whom Russia is closer than their great-grandparents. Can we not do McCarthyism 2.0? Especially since we sort of have been for some years now and it's, see above, not so much working out?
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I just want to point out that while I agree with the sentiment, I also appreciate the way you leave a comment
Hard to get people to understand that the food's not the bad guy here.
Seriously. Also I am now jonesing for borscht.
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Exactly! And everything about that was just sad.
borscht
Is there a 24 hour supermarket with a kosher section near you? It is available in jars, although I've never tried it, so can't vouch for its taste (says someone who eats beets with V8).
I was startled at a 1989 family gathering in a (now-defunct) Catskills resort to be served a bowl of borscht with a whole large boiled potato plunked into the middle of the bowl. My sister-in-law's then-husband said that that was the way it was served in his childhood, as well.
I'm doing the Mango (a computerized language program) version of Russian. It seems to think that what a tourist needs to eat in Russia is borscht, shchi, blini with caviar, sour cream, and pelmeni. Seems a little inadequate, but maybe later units will have more choices. Like bread, for crying out loud. Admittedly a 1976 Soviet cafeteria is not the restaurant they are expecting, but my experience was that if one got to the end of the line without bread, one would be reminded to get some.
Re: borscht
Re: borscht
Any particular brand?
Re: borscht
Re: borscht
There's the Star Market in Porter Square, but I don't know if they carry borscht. I have been able to establish this afternoon that Inna's Kitchen at the Boston Public Market sells it frozen, but frankly the weather is crummy and I just want someone to serve me a bowl. It isn't on the menu at either Mamaleh's or Bronwyn right now. Café St. Petersburg is in Newton and not cheap. Veselka in is New York. We may end up at Zaftig's. Maybe the S&S? This should not be this difficult!
I was startled at a 1989 family gathering in a (now-defunct) Catskills resort to be served a bowl of borscht with a whole large boiled potato plunked into the middle of the bowl. My sister-in-law's then-husband said that that was the way it was served in his childhood, as well.
I have had borscht with potatoes in it, but never an entire one. My grandmother just served it with sour cream.
It seems to think that what a tourist needs to eat in Russia is borscht, shchi, blini with caviar, sour cream, and pelmeni.
Great. Now I want pelmeni, too.
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The world's being wracked with nationalism/tribalism right now, pretty much everywhere, in one form or another. It's the toxic side of identity: the zero sum game that can't permit enjoyment of its own traditions and beliefs without denigration of everyone else's, that sees celebration of anyone else's as threatening. I've been thinking it's like Pokémon that walk around saying their own names over and over--except in the Pokémon world, this is actual communication (saying "pika pika? pika pika pika chuuuu" is actually saying "Shall I do thundershock? Here goes!") whereas all people in our own world are doing is literally saying their own tribal IDs over and over. Hashtag, not all people, of course. And: celebration of one's traditions is great--just not like this.
I don't understand your subject line, but the first three items sound like delicious foods, or possibly dances.
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Hah. Yes. That's a good way of putting it. And not saying your ID—or not saying it loud enough or in the societally approved manner—is taken as an attack by the people around you, because obviously if you're not with us, well.
I don't understand your subject line, but the first three items sound like delicious foods, or possibly dances.
They are delicious foods! The immigrant narrator of Aaron Lebedeff's "Roumania, Roumania" opens the song with a nostalgic list of favorite dishes from the old country, everything you need to be happy: "A little mamaliga, a little pastrami, a little sausage, and a glass of wine."
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It was both a cheap joke and a symptom of a trend I really do not like.
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To be fair, it's difficult to get anything at four-thirty in the morning in Boston except insomnia and maybe a taxicab. But that doesn't mean I don't still resent the lack of all-night borscht!
I love borscht. I don't even like beets...unless they're in borscht. (And they do make the kitchen look axe-murdery.)
Beets outside of borscht were an acquired taste for me. (The fact that they come in salads with goat cheese helped a lot.) I may have to axe-murder my kitchen in the near future after all.
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I want my country to figure out a way of being angry that its political system has been externally manipulated without becoming any more nationalistic than it already has, since that's being a disaster.
Yes! It's as if millions of people have forgotten how, or never learned how, to control their emotions, self-soothe, and moderate their responses so that they can deal with a crisis appropriately. A gigantic tantrum. I at times wonder whether putting a time lag on Twitter (say twenty minutes to an hour on tweets posting) would help.
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I have not had golden beets often, so please let me know how it turns out!
It's as if millions of people have forgotten how, or never learned how, to control their emotions, self-soothe, and moderate their responses so that they can deal with a crisis appropriately. A gigantic tantrum.
I don't like the sensation that they're taking their cues from the man in the Oval Office. The Presidency of the United States should not be sympathetic magic.
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And if I stopped eating dishes from every country whose government did something that made me mad, I might not eat anything American.
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This, so much.
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Yes! I think that's one of the reasons it feels wrong as well as petty.
To be proud of not eating another culture's food (or enjoying their art or music or stories) seems narrow-minded and very unproductive.
Seriously, it's not as though it makes a difference to the international borscht trade.
And if I stopped eating dishes from every country whose government did something that made me mad, I might not eat anything American.
Heh.
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I don't think I know the blog, so thank you for mentioning it.
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I don't know if I knew that. Do you mind if I ask where your father's side was from?
I've never been a borscht fan (though my mom likes it), but I love caviar.
As is only reasonable!
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Exactly! (And I doubt there's any love lost between the random fifteen-year-old lesbian in Novosibirsk and Vladimir Putin, either.)
People very much conflate the country and the government, and if people are doing that with America right now I am very sad.
I suspect they are and it is one of the reasons I want him gone.
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So who's talking about this who has more of an internet reach than me? Everyone has more of an internet reach than me, but you know what I mean: there must be ways of expressing solidarity and nuance and pushing back against the idea that Russia in some great hive-mind bloc is personally out to get us. People with audiences must be talking about it. I hope?
(Of course, he's also been spending a lot of time talking about communists, so I suspect his understanding of contemporary Russia is basically nonexistent.)
Excuse me, what? No.