Four Dishes, Eastern European Edition

Randomly wandering into decent cuisine, part I

Food is usually one of the last details I think about while traveling. Of the many hours of research I do before going somewhere new, I spend perhaps five minutes learning about traditional dishes. Even after leaving a country, when invariably I am asked, ‘Did you eat this or that,’ I usually have to offer up some flimsy excuse as to why I didn’t.

I do like to try new dishes, and necessity while traveling has given me the willpower to eat just about anything. Sometimes, these two facts happily collide, and I get my hands on a scrumptious, novel plate of food that makes my day.

Before I discuss four dishes that I will never forget for one reason or another, I must mention what happens most of the time when I get hungry.

There are countries that I’ve spent time in where I could not say if I ever ate anything ‘traditional.’ Mealtime can become a hurried and desperate affair for me, an afterthought when I suddenly realize that I have been walking through the old city for six hours with nothing but a package of cracker crumbs. The chance that I will search out a recommended restaurant with some specific local dish is a remote as the moon. More likely, I will eat some quickly grabbed street food or take the easy way out by walking into the first restaurant I see, which may be serving food from some other country (like Turkish food in Europe or Chinese food just about anywhere). Even pizza will do if I’m about to collapse. I draw the line at certain ubiquitous international fast-food chains, which I will leave unnamed to deny them the gift of advertising.

Now, on to the four.

1. Šaltibarščiai (Cold Beetroot Soup) — Lithuania

I first ate this in Klaipėda, Lithuania, my favorite city in that country. The boat/restaurant serving it floated on the Danes River about a kilometer from the Baltic Sea. The soup encapsulates an array of locally available ingredients found in many Lithuanian and Latvian dishes. I might feel differently about eating cold soup in the winter, but in the Baltic summer, it fits perfectly. A common variant includes a boiled egg cut in half and dropped into it.

2. Fergesë — Albania

I first found this on the menu in Berat, Albania. We had just arrived in town and, due to a torrential rainstorm, ducked into the first place we saw open for dinner. The steep, cobblestone road outside soon turned into a muddy river, watching it entertained us while our meal was being prepared. I liked fergesë so much that I went out of my way to find it in other parts of the country. The distinctive taste of it will forever remind me of that day in Berat and the rainstorm.

3. Garlic soup served inside bread — Slovenia

I taunted my daughter endlessly through Eastern Europe about having to try this dish at least once. She finally ordered it in Maribor, Slovenia, and liked it (big relief). A version of this meal can be found in Poland, Slovakia, Ukraine, and other countries, with various soup flavors and usually served in rye bread. I don’t remember what local name was attached to it in Maribor. It was a simple garlic soup, but the ‘bread bowl’ makes it entertaining for kids.

4. Pierogi — Poland

When I took my family to Poland, I knew enough about the food that I sought out a restaurant in Warsaw serving dumplings. Getting a mixture of dumpling types was the best option: they were all tasty, and we could share. Everything in them are ingredients typical of much of Polish cuisine. The types shown in the photo, made by folding the dough over the filling and crimping the edges, are labor-intensive. A much simpler version (kluski kładzione) is made by wadding up the dough with or without a filling and dropping it into boiling, salted water.

Like the many languages of Eastern Europe, intertwining and mixing in all sorts of confusing ways, the dishes shown above are no exception. What they lack in spicy zing and ingredients typical of more equatorial regions, they make up for in simple goodness, and the capacity to freely cross borders.

For a related article from Adrienne Beaumont about a dining experience in Wrocław, Poland, a city of hundreds of tiny dwarf sculptures:

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