April 15, 2011 Epic Meal Time Ukraine
Potatoes, mashed potatoes, fried potatoes, potato soup, with more potato, rice with potatoes, vodka made from potatoes, and even more potatoes. If Asians can do anything with rice, then the Ukrainians can do anything with potatoes. I’ve never had potatoes in every course of my meal. Then I came to Ukraine and that statement is no longer true. I have potato soup for the first course, for the second course mashed potatoes with chicken and some vareeneky (dumplings) filled with potatoes, and then sweetened fried potato patties topped off with some condensed milk to add to the sweetness of something that is already sweet. To think I was going to lose weight in the Ukraine I was wrong. And I was wrong by a mile and in this case by a kilometer because we use the metric system like the rest of the world. Get with it America. So in other words I eat. And when I say I eat I mean I eat. And when I say I mean I eat, I really mean I eat. For the first time in my adult life I eat every single meal. That’s right breakfast, lunch and dinner. And we’re not talking cereal for breakfast. I’m talking three eggs (fresh from the chickens in the yard), kasha or what the Americans call oatmeal (with real milk from the cow in the barn), bread with cheese and a piece of meat, some fresh fruit, and then some green tea to start the morning. That’s what we call a meal. And that’s every day. Ready before I go and learn me some Ukrainian. If you think that sounds good how about some potato soup, mashed potatoes with some chicken or fish, and some sweet tea all for 4 hyrveen (1 usd = 7.80 hyrveen). Yup that’s right mathematicians lunch is less than a buck. And when I come home after conjugating verbs and finding the cases of the nouns I come home to dinner. My mama Kataya in the kitchen telling me that dinner is ready. And at this time I’m already ready for dinner time. We sit at the small dining table in the kitchen and we have our bowl of borsch. If you don’t know what that is google it. It’s Ukraine’s National dish. It’s vegetables diced, cut, shredded, peeled, and chopped, all thrown in a soup. Add some chicken and make it better. Don’t forget the potatoes because nothing is a Ukrainian dinner without some potatoes. You think I’m done with dinner with just the borsch. You guessed wrong my friend. Of course we got a second course and it’s a plate of mashed potatoes. Mmmm. No gravy needed here. Take a bite and you might find some chicken in it. And you can’t forget about our salad. And again fresh vegetables, carrots, cabbage, beets, tomatoes, and cucumber. (Typical dressing for a salad is mayonnaise but my family doesn’t use it that much) And of course we have our meat product that we have to eat with our meal. And today it’s chicken. Tomorrow might be fish. And on a good day it’ll be pork. But wait dinner isn’t done yet. Yup we got dessert. You want some cookies, or some cake, well we got some. And if that isn’t enough we drink a cup of tea and just talk. You need something to eat while drinking your tea, well we got some fruit. And then we do it all over again the next day. And that’s what we call an Epic Meal in Ukraine. So if you think I’m starving in Ukraine you’re wrong they are just fattening me up to get me ready to hibernate during winter time.
This is my breakfast. And yes all of this is my breakfast.
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