RUSSIAN CUISINE
Original and varied, Russian cuisine is famous for exotic soups, cabbage shchi and solyanlca, which is made of assorted meats. Russians are great lovers of pelmeni, small Siberian meat pies boiled in broth. Every housewife of any experience has her own recipes or pies, pickles, and sauerkraut. Even more varied is the choice of recipes for mushrooms, one of the most abundant and nourishing gifts of our woods. They are fried, pickled, salted and boiled. As good whiskey shall come from Scotland, and port from Portugal, so Russian wheat vodka is the best in the world. We have an amazing variety to offer, from the clear, colorless Moskovskaya and Stolichnaya to all kinds of bitters with herbs and spices. Of our folk soft drinks, kvass is the best known. It is made of brown bread or rye flour. If you add it to chopped-up meat and vegetables, you get okroshka, an exquisite cold soup. The Russian people have always been gourmets. Many names of Russian dishes and liquors have become international. For example: vodka, blini, piroshki, pelmeni. Moscow was traditionally famous for its traktirs (diners) and restaurants. Many new restaurants keep the old traditions of the Russian cuisine and hospitality. Many famous restaurants were reborn in our time. One can again visit the «Yar» restaurant. The «Metropol» restaurant has new interiors in «modern» style. The menu in «Metropol» has the finest dishes of the past. There you can also taste the traditional Russian fish soup «ukha» with a huge crawfish. There is a big choice of appetizers, soups, hot and dessert dishes. They recommend the guests pressed and red caviar, salmon, stuffed pike-perch, sturgeon in aspic, herring, marinated herring, smoked sprats and so on. The guests can also choose blini with caviar and salmon. For snacks the guests can taste cold meat dishes: ham, cold boiled pork buzhenina, jellied tongue, meat jelly with horse-radish sauce and various salads. There are plenty of soups on the menu: Russian meat soup with fresh cabbage - shchi, meat and fish soup — solyanka, kidney soup with dills - rassolnik, fish soup — ukha, soup okroshka, green sorrel soup and cold beetroot soup svekolnik. For the main course the guests can order fried pike-perch, sturgeon of any kind - boiled, steamed or on aspit. There are a lot of meat dishes on the menu: roast veal, pelmeni, beef-Stroganoff, minced meat wrapped in cabbage leaves - golubtsi, roast chicken, roast duck goose stuffed with apples and sauerkraut, and so on. There is a large variety of desserts. For dessert you can have apples baked with sugar, fruit and berry compotes. There are a lot of fruit for dessert: apricots, melons, watermelons, peaches, grapes, pears, tangerines, oranges. Russian cuisine is famous for a large variety of milk products: cottage cheese — tvorog, thick sour cream — smetana, and Russian yogurts - kefir and ryazhenka. «No dinner without bread,» goes the Russian saying. Wheat loaves have dozens of varieties. As to rye bread, Russians eat more of it than any nation in the world — a peculiarity of the Russian diet. The guests can taste various Russian pies. They are: a pie with fish filling - rasstegai, a Russian pie with meat or cabbage filling - kulebiaka, open tarts with curd - vatrushki. Russian honey-cakes are called prianiki, thick O-shaped rolls are called boubliki, dry O-shaped rolls are rolled baranki or sooshki.
New words: 1. crawfish – рак 2. pike-perch – судак 3. smoked sprats – копченые шпроты 4. sorrel – щавель 5. steamed sturgeon – осетр, приготовленный на пару 6. sturgeon on a spit – осетр на вертеле 7. stuffed – фаршированный 8. curd – творог 9. herbs – травы 10. rye bread – ржаной хлеб
2. Speak about eating habits in Russia:
Consolidation & Check: Use your own experience and information from Texts I, II and Supplementary Reading (Text I) in speaking about: 1. Fast food vs. "slow food": advantages and disadvantages. 2. American cuisine: does it exist? 3.Eating habits in the U.S. and in your country. 4. Your eating preferences. 5. Meals in Great Britain.
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