sovay | 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?

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I don't remember where I first read it, decades ago, but our long-standing recipe for instant vegetarian borscht is a can of sliced beets plus enough V8 added to make it soupy.
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.

I've bought supermarket borscht-in-a-jar. It's not what you can get in a real Jewish deli or a Russian restaurant, but I like it (especially if you add sour cream).

It's not what you can get in a real Jewish deli or a Russian restaurant, but I like it (especially if you add sour cream).

Any particular brand?

It's whatever the Porter Square Shaw's has in the little Jewish/kosher section. I don't remember the brand, but it's some standard Jewish one. Might be Manischewitz? They only have the one kind, and I don't know how it compares to other brands.

Is there a 24 hour supermarket with a kosher section near you?

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.

A mameligele, a pastramele, a karnatsele, un a gleyzele vayn

borscht

Re: borscht

Re: borscht

Re: borscht

Re: borscht