POSTING #71

  

PLEASE NOTE

The next posting (#72) will not be available until June 6, 2010.

This lull in the postings is not because I am running out of stories---there are lots of tales clamoring to be told.

Unfortunately, there are also many tasks that have been neglected while I have been having fun writing stories.

Duty calls---it is time to tackle those tasks.

I will bring them up to date and see you again on June 6th!

In the meantime, new readers might like to browse through some of the early postings.

Just a thought.

See you soon.

John

000

Of Russian Restaurants and Ramps

This week, I had a static-filled landline-phone conversation with Yuri (not his real name) in Moscow---he had been the office manager for our Russian project.

Frustrated by the poor quality of the call,  he asked whether I belonged to Skype. I said that we had just signed up for the free internet voice and video service. He said he had recently joined as well. 

The next day we had our first 'face-to-face' Skype conversation through our computers--with excellent sound and full colour.

It was wonderful. It brought back such memories, just to see him push his glasses up on his nose, and pause and wrinkle his brow as he searched for the exact English word for the punch line of a story he was telling.

I know, I know, you are saying what's the big deal about Skype.

You have been using Skype for ages and ages.

You used it to keep in touch with your children on that African safari.

And you talk every week with your granddaughter in Tasmania.

Good for you.

But some of  us march to a slower drummer----technologically speaking, at least.

000

During our conversation, Yuri and I laughed about some restaurant experiences we had shared during the Russian project (1995-1997).

In 1996, we were 8000 kms east of Moscow in Blagoveshchensk, a city on the Amur River that separates Russia and China.

Blagoveshchensk and Heihe,  its Chinese twin on the other side of the Amur River, had decided that it would be helpful economically to develop a kind of free trade zone encompassing the two cities. Tourists travelling on the Trans Siberian Railway could break their journey and visit the two cities, while people touring China could nip into Russia for a day trip.

Beijing agreed with the proposal and Heihe built hotels, restaurants and nightclubs to accommodate the anticipated visitors. The Kremlin agreed in principle with the idea but dragged its feet, which angered the folks of  Blagoveshchensk.

The only cross-border initiative that I could see in Blagoveshchensk was a Chinese restaurant in our hotel.

In the restaurant, the waiters were all Russian---no Chinese faces at all. That was strange.

Looking at the menu, which was in both Russian-English (a concession to future tourists), I decided to play it safe and order chop suey.

Yuri passed on my order to the waiter, who spoke only Russian.

There was a brief discussion between Yuri and the waiter and then Yuri asked, "Would you like French fries with your chop suey?"

"No, just rice", I replied.

Yuri passed that on to the waiter and  a long, rapid-fire Russian discussion ensued.

Finally, Yuri turned to me, "Well, this is something unique. We are in what must be the only Chinese restaurant in the world that doesn't serve rice."

"No rice!", I said in disbelief.

"No rice, just fries."

As it turned out the fries were the best part of the meal. The chop suey was a brownish mix of over-cooked vegetables and strange bits of gristle and meat.

The episode reminded me of our time in the North of England (19960-1963) when Chinese and Indian restaurants appealed to the locals by offering fries (chips) with their meals---this was sometimes referred to as 'Chips with Everything'.

But, the English restaurants always served rice as well!

000

On another trip we were having dinner in a restaurant in Ulyanovsk---the birth place of Lenin, on the Volga River.

Ulyanovsk was slow to acknowledge that communism was dead---that the future would involve some kind of market economy. And some of the residents weren't quite sure about the fine points of how a free enterprise business should treat its customers.

They also didn't try very hard to hide their dislike for Westerners---we were still seen as the enemy.

I ordered a traditional Russian dinner and asked if I could have a beer.

Yuri translated my request and the waiter shook his head.

Yuri said, "There is no beer. A Chinese delegation came through a few weeks ago and drank all the beer."

I pointed out that every corner store in Russia sold beer, Why couldn't the restaurant staff go to one of the stores and get some beer?

Yuri passed on my question.

The answer was that the restaurant had to order its beer from an authorized supplier, and the beer could take weeks to come.

The waiter added something and Yuri translated, "The waiter wants to know whether you would like some Fanta. He says that you sell it to them and you should drink it."

He assumed that I was an American and that I would enjoy the sweet carbonated fruit drink that Coca-Cola was selling around the world---spreading civilization, so to speak.

I had tried Fanta---once.

I ordered some bottled water.

At the end of the meal---which was OK---the waiter brought the bill.

As always, Yuri examined it closely to make sure that we Westerners weren't being taken advantage of.

After nodding in agreement with most of the items on the bill, he burst out laughing as he got to the bottom of the bill.

"I've never seen anything like this!"

The waiter came over and there was a discussion in Russian.

"What's going on", I finally asked.

"Can you see here, " Yuri said pointing to the bottom of the bill, "they have charged us three rubles for the bill."

"I don't understand. For the bill?"

"Yes, they are charging us for this piece of paper", Yuri said as he waved the bill.

It was only the equivalent of a few cents, so we paid it.

As we left, we joked that the restaurant should start charging for the use of the chairs.

The experience was a small indication of the problems that Russia would have in making  the shift from a communist system to a market economy.

000

POSTSCRIPT

It is important to stress that I am describing experiences that happened 15 years ago when Russia was in the midst of its economic transformation.

A friend who has just returned from a tour of Russia tells me that everything has changed, including the restaurants. He said that he and his wife ate very well during the tour.

An interesting point. He said that sushi bars were enormously popular in Moscow, so popular that even Italian restaurants were offering the Japanese delicacies!

000

Staying with the theme of restaurants, a visitor from the US was telling us recently about the movement to use more local products in American restaurants. She described a meal in Massachusetts that included fiddle heads and ramps.

Ramps?

She explained that ramps looked like green onions and are collected in the woods in early spring.

I said that ramps sounded like what we in Arthur called 'leeks' (later on, when we lived in Ottawa we heard people using the term 'wild leeks'---farmers sold bottles of pickled wild leeks on the side of the road).

Good old Google confirmed that ramps and wild leeks are indeed one and the same. Click here for more information on ramps.)

The Google article has a warning:

" The flavor and odor of ramps is usually compared to a combination of onions and garlic, and the garlic odor is particularly strong. Strong enough, in fact, that even ramp-lovers will advise caution. If you sit down to a big meal of ramps, don't be surprised if people continue to keep their distance after a few days have passed!"

I don't know the nationality of the writer but the description of the smell of ramps is a classic case of British understatement!

Every spring the poor teachers in our public school had to cope with kids who had been to the woods for a feed of wild leeks.

The odour of garlic is unpleasant for a circle of, say, 6 to 8 feet around the breather. The stench of wild leeks from one student would fill a whole classroom and leave the teacher and students gagging.

The solution was to send the offender home with a note telling the parents to keep him there until the wild leeks were out of his system---by the way, it was always boys, never girls!

Then the teacher would throw open all the windows and air the classroom for the rest of the day.

I suppose that cooking the wild leeks diminishes somewhat the potency of the odour but I have trouble imagining that people would eat ramps/wild leeks more than once.

Surely, their relatives, friends and neighbours would rebel.

000

Another facet of the wild leeks story.

Cows loved to eat them, but the taste and odour was passed through to the milk. The people in our local dairy and creamery had to sniff each can of milk or cream delivered by a farmer to make sure it didn't have the wild leek odour.

Even a cup of contaminated milk could ruin a whole batch of milk or butter.

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See you on June 6th for Posting #72 with more stories from our family’s universe! If you have comments or suggestions, please leave a comment at the bottom of this posting, or email me at johnpathunter@gmail.com