EATING IN RUSSIA

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 810, 2 November 1929, Page 30

EATING IN RUSSIA

COLOURFUL OLD HABITS VANISHED DIRTY RESTAURANTS Eating and drinking are done differently in Russia from elsewhere. It was always so, but the differences have been accentuated by new conditions born of the revolution, writes the Moscow correspondent of a United States exchange. Anyone who goes to Russia expecting to taste pink “Russian dressing” on his salad will be disappointed. There isn’t such a concoction east of New York, as far as this hungry correspondent has been able to discover in his rambles from restaurant to restaurant in 20 countries or more. Nor will the visiting diner hear a

[ balalaika orchestra making music j I while he eats, or see tall blond j doormen or waiters resplendent in | boots and Cossack uniforms with white cartridge slots sticking out from the Slavic . chest. Perhaps there used to be such things in old Russia, but one must go to the Russian restaurants and night clubs of Paris, Berlin and New York to find them nowadays. The Bolshevik waiter of today wears no uniform, not even the soup-stained swallow tails common elsewhere, except in few city hotels patronised by ! foreigners and rather carefully j avoided by natives. Sometimes the waiter ties an apron about his waist, but mostly he goes about his business in his ordinary street clothes. Food varies with the place. In villages one must go to a peasant’s home and take pot. luck. Oftentimes it is precisely that, with everybody eating out of the same pot. In small towns restaurant meals always are table d’hote. A heavy soup to start with, pink or reddish borsch perhaps, made of beets. Sometimes sour cream is stirred in the borsch, sometimes not. Or maybe the soup will be of cab-

J bagc, witli bits of both meat and tish adding to its consistency—or, if you prefer, inconsistency. Frequently there are many varieties of cold bits —seafood, onions, tomatoes and salted cucumbers, greatly beloved by the Russian palate. One drinks vodka with the meal. It is bad form to drink vodka unless one is eating. Perhaps that is why Russians always seem to have an appetite. Vodka is not sipped—one kills the glass at a. single swallow, and sometimes the whole system shivers when it hits bottom.

lii most small towns, restaurants serve only tea or beer to drink. One sees patrons pouring vodka into cups under the table, a sight that evokes memories of post-war America. Small towns seldom eat desserts, and the principal dish of their meals is hashed meat. In most restaurants one can eat with one's cap or hat on and not seem out of place. Few people are neatly, or even cleanly, dressed. The tablecloths are rarely of linen and seldom immaculate. Plates are thick and heavy, and knives and forks are oftener of tin than of silver.