The Local Food Movement, Moldovan Style

After a few days in Comrat, I’m starting to think that town life is the way to go. I have only ever lived in big cities in Eastern Europe, and I used to think that rural life was totally backwards and boring. This is a lie that city dwellers tell themselves to feel better. Living in a small town here is great!

First of all, we actually have decent living space. No хрусчевки for us! (For you non-Cyrillic readers, I was referring to the

tiny little apartments that Khrushchev built in a hurry in order to accommodate the rapid urbanization in the USSR.) I am living in an actual house with five rooms, instead of the standard three in a city apartment. You can actually stretch out without bumping into someone. Additionally, we have a nice big backyard with a kitchen garden (огород) and a chicken coop! Chickens! So exciting!

This brings me to the second reason the countryside is best: food. Every time I turn around, someone is offering me something homemade (домашный) to eat. First of all, we have the freshest, reddest tomatoes imaginable. I have literally never seen

tomatoes this red in my life. They are fire-truck red all the way through and they taste great. I’ve never been a big tomato person and now I eat at least one per day.

Yesterday, we also had homemade eggs. Right from the chicken’s butt! That’s about as local as you can get. Michael Pollan has this whole discourse on egg yolks in Omnivore’s Dilemma where he talks about the wan color of egg yolks produced through the industrial food system, and it is definitely true that the egg yolk yesterday was quite a robust orange color. Apparently this has something to do with protein? At any rate it was quite tasty.

Everything here seems to be homemade, including the hooch. I heard that Moldova has one of the lowest rates of wine purchasing in the world. This doesn’t seem to make sense until you realize that they all drink homemade wine. In this regard, I think Moldova is pretty similar to Armenia. I’ve drank a few glasses made from the grapes in the backyard and the flavor is interesting. It’s obviously not aged as long, so it’s more fresh tasting and less “wine-y.” I also had a homemade cherry vodka liqueur beverage with lunch, and it was pretty tasty.

So, basically, I think that the only option for people who are interested in local food is to move to the Eastern European countryside and insinuate themselves with a local family. Last year I read Barbara Kingsolver’s book Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, and it seems that she’s right. You can’t really have good, fresh, local food unless you’re willing to move to a more rural place or install a big garden in your backyard. I’ve tried doing the whole farmers’ market thing and the problem is that they’re usually so far away and at such an inconvenient time that it doesn’t really work. Alas!

One of the things I like the most about the f

ormer USSR is its old-school qualities. I feel like I’m in a Jane Austen novel every time I’m at a party and someone starts playing on the piano. Last night I went with Sofia and her husband Nikolai to visit their friends. We had a big tasty dinner with lots of vodka and then we sat around looking at photo albums. Someone sat down at the piano and started playing some old Russian songs. I’m always very thankful at these times that I took Dr. Croft’s Basic Conversational Russian classes. “Калинка”, “Подмосковние вечера,” “Катюша”...I’ve gotten a lot of milage out of those songs.

So far I feel like I’m adjusting pretty well. (I’m currently lounging in an easy chair and eating grapes from the backyard.) It’s not always easy to adjust to living with people you don’t know, but I’m already used to the food and a lot of the traditions, so I don’t feel too out of place. I’m still totally perplexed as to what I’m supposed to do with my lessons, however. I suppose that will have to wait for the next post!