Well, Sunday was the end of Maslenitsa, the Russian holiday that lasts a week before Post or Lent. I don’t completely understand all of it, but you celebrate with friends, eat a lot of Russian foods (blini specifically) and you’re saying goodbye to the winter and welcoming in the spring.

Anyway, our Russian friend Natasha invited us over to celebrate with her… It was great! She made us a ton of homecooked Russian food… Here’s some pictures and I’ll explain a little as you get to each picture!

The first dish was borsch… it’s probably the most known Russian dish… it’s a soup made from beets and then basically you put whatever else you feel like putting… Ours had beets, onions, potatoes, carrots, I think tomatoes, and i can’t remember what else… It was actually pretty good… I mean, I don’t know that I would ever be like “wow, I really want some borsch right now”, but compared to the borsch I had once before, this stuff was amazing! I didn’t even cringe while eating it! Natasha is a great cook!

This is a picture of the borsch after we added mayonaise to it… a lot of times people use sour cream as well.

So this was really interesting… I can’t remember the Russian name for it, but basically this is pork, but without the actual meat… it’s only salted fat. It was um… different. I wouldn’t have asked for more, but it honestly wasn’t as bad as I would have thought. As long as you don’t think about the fact that you’re just eating pig fat, it’s not bad… the only thing – there was something really tough around the edges, I feel like it could have been pigskin… yikes.

Now this was another dish that I can’t remember the name of, but it’s made from unripe corn – when it’s still green, and then mashed up and cooked with other vegetables – it had carrots and i cant remember what else.

And here is my favorite… BLINI with chocolate!!!! Yum! Soooo delicious!

This is part of the celebration on the last day of Maslenitsa where they burn this scarecrow like thing and basically it’s how they say good bye to the winter. They’re burning the winter away. (Unfortunately, as the people have found, it doesn’t actually work, and seems to stay cold for at least a month more here).

(posted from laureninrussia.blogspot.com)

1 comments:

Tiffany said…

Ha! I want to try some blini!!! You’ll have to get the recipe so you can make it for me when you get back to the States. Also, I’m so glad you put that disclaimer in there about the past 20 years of your life … I wouldn’t have believed you otherwise 😉 I love you! Thanks for calling today, it made my day!!!!!!

March 4, 2009 4:07 PM