Food food food (#1)

Long time no see. I was out of the country for work, using the last opportunity to travel before the economic crisis has the local airlines lowering their safety standards. I just made it back, and to my surprise, no snow is yet sticking on the ground, but as I am typing, snowflakes are starting to fall and I expect to see the first patches of snow sticking to the ground sometimes today. However... snow falling in Siberia in November is no longer an event that deserves a blog post, so let's move on.
With absence of interesting facts to report, I decided to start talking about the food that we can find in Siberia. This first article is about the food I had in Buryatie, in central Siberia. The pictures below should wake up your appetite, so grab something in your fridge before going further.

Below, you can see a typical meal that you can have in many restaurant in Buryatie.

On the left, a fish salad: yes, this is Omoul... served raw with onion, green onion, and a bit of seasoning. This is appropriately called "Omoul salad".
On the right, you can see "posies": these are giant raviolis filled with meat and onion, and greasy juice... Mmmmh. Note the absence of silverware: you are supposed to eat that thing with your fingers following a well-defined technique: first have a small bite and suck out the greasy juice (watch your shirt). Then just eat the rest and lick your fingers, and say "Vkusna!" (that means "delicious", and saying it will keep you out of trouble).



Then comes dessert: The traditional dessert all over Russia is a "blin", and when you have several of them, you use the plural form and these are "blini". It is filled with whatever you like, but last time I suggested to fill one with ice-cream, I was met with uncomprehension, so just ask for honey to avoid any embarassment. Also, don't even try to have blini without tea, or people will look at you like you have ink on your nose. On the right, this is a picture of typical "buryat" tea, which is mixed with milk, butter and salt, so don't order it if you are lactose intolerant (I don't recommend lactose intolerant people to come to Siberia overall, as they put cream absolutely everywhere). You can try this buryat tea at home and tell me what you think. I don't like tea in the first place, and the dairy products they mixed it with did not make it better.


Good appetite. More siberian food is coming your way in the next weeks.