This morning, Olivia and I met up with Yelena, our language teacher, for an "excursion", as any trip like this is called by a Ukrainian. We have been talking about this market near our house for weeks now, and last week Rob, the boys and I all went. Well, since it's a crowded place, the boys and I just played beside a building while Rob did all the shopping. So, today, I just went alone while Rob and the boys had an outing of their own.
I feel like this is where a lot of real learning takes place. We had Yelena, our insider. She can usually understand what we are saying, and we can usually understand what she is saying. I feel like when it comes to food, I know all the important words -- fresh, expensive, cheap, chicken, tomato, onion, cheese, etc., which helps a lot. Well, first of all, our "insider" knew which route to take to get to the food faster. Nice time-saving knowledge there. But back to the language, she obviously knows how to ask things. We take it for granted when we know a language that we really can ask whatever we want. "How old is that?" "Where did that come from?" "What does your cow eat?" "How do you make that sunflower oil?" Okay, I guess that isn't what you might ask when you are buying groceries at Walmart or Trader Joe's, but that's the kind of thing that I really want to know. And, it was great to find out the answers.
Our first task was to buy meat. She told us which meat came from a factory and which came straight from the farm. Most Ukrainians are very comfortable buying meat from the open-air markets. Seems strange to us. I feel like the meat should be refrigerated. But, apparently, some of these animals were probably killed hours before coming to the market, so they haven't been out for long. And, Yelena says there is a doctor there who actually inspects the meat. And, she doesn't trust the meat from the supermarket because she doesn't know where it's from and can't talk to the people who raised it. It's a very different mindset, one that we need to get accustomed to as we learn this culture. Back to the meat -- we can't buy chicken breasts from the farmers, only whole chickens. They also sell rabbit, goat, and turkey (that'll be helpful for next Thanksgiving), eggs, beef and pork. Liv bought some chicken, and I got some beef. It was really fun to be able to tell the vendor how I wanted it cut. It's like an old-fashioned butcher. It was interesting to watch her decide on meat -- looking at it under the light to check for something, making sure the color was pink and not dark (which indicates freshness), and I think she was looking at the fat in the meat, though I'm not sure if she wanted there to be more fat or less.
The milk was particularly exciting for me (well, I really think this was all really interesting) since I'm a big fan of grassfed, raw milk. Yelena also tries to buy her milk from one particular man. Until today, she didn't even know his name, but since I wanted to know his name, Yelena now knows the name of her old friend as well. Ah, the goodness of non-homegenized milk. Cream rising to the top. It's a good thing. He also sold the Ukrainian version of cottage cheese, both a lowfat and highfat version. I tasted both, and they were excellent, truly much better than store-bought. I love to be able to ask questions, and so I did. I found out that the highfat stuff is good to eat as is, and the lowfat stuff is better to bake with -- things like that are a treasure to know. And, to top it off, if I tell Yura the milkman that I will want some next week, he will make sure he has some the next Saturday, just for me.
Next was the honey man. Yep, Yelena got to find out his name, too. So, Sasha the honey man told us all about what honey season we are in (sunflower) and how the next kind would be done in two weeks. I didn't really get a good translation of what type of honey it would be, but it apparently smells very good. I've kind of gotten a bad taste in my mouth lately about how prolific sunflower is here. Everything is sunflower, from the honey to the oil. And, it has a particular taste that has just gotten old and annoying. Much to my surprise, though, this honey did not have that taste. I really don't know why, unless the taste I've been tasting is not from the sunflower but from something else. I know Yelena was very happy that I liked the honey because she has been adamant (as has my other teacher, Nadia) that the honey you buy in the store actually has sugar added to it. Yuck! I'll definitely be buying Sasha's honey from now on.
We also looked into lots of fruits and veggies. She hunted for ages to find good mushrooms, and my lesson in that was that I am in no way picky enough about mushrooms. Ones that I thought looked great were completely subpar for her. So, we scoured the market and finally came upon acceptable ones at an acceptable price. I must agree that they look like different things than I usually buy. She was also pretty diligent about tomatoes. She thought she had found some good ones at one point. I asked if they were from this lady's farm or bought from a store, and when Yelena asked and was told they were not from the lady's garden, she just walked away. She truly prefers farm-fresh.
Then to the sunflower oil. The homemade oil is the most novel thing at he market for me. The pigs heads hanging up are a little strange, but homemade oil takes the cake for some reason. So, more questions about how this oil is different from the oil in the store and why some oil is dark and some light and how they extract the oil and how they make one dark and one light. I've read a bit about oils and how they are extracted and the techniques used, so I assumed I knew what the answers would be. I was right, but I was impressed that Yelena knew the answers. It is just common here for people, but maybe especially the older women, to know things like this. They know which fruit you shouldn't eat because of allergies and which honey will help a cold, and that you can use honey to treat eye conditions...yep, by putting it straight into your eye! Oh, yes, back to the oil. I didn't have a bottle to buy any, which brings up something else. It's just normal to have your own containers -- one for milk, one for honey, one for oil, a carton for eggs. And, of course, you need your own bags because you will typically be charged for every bag you take from the store or vendor. And, since you are carrying these home on foot, you should really have something better than a plastic Walmart-type bag so that your hands don't hurt when you get home. Your muscles are going to hurt, but you can save your hands.
We had all but left the market when I mentioned that I thought I would go back and buy some spices, and Yelena insisted she go with us because she needed to show us her spice man. I asked his name, but he is from Uzbekistan, and his name is long and hard to remember. She raved about how he makes the best "cocktail" of spices. You just tell him what you need it for and he mixes it up as he asks you whether you want it spicy and whether you are going to bake your meat or boil it. I am dying to try out what I got, especially since the rice spice mixture has saffron (I think), and I remember that being pretty wonderful stuff.
There are no pictures to post. Sorry. Liv took her camera, but Yelena didn't want us to use it and draw attention to ourselves. And, I am not really inclined to do such a thing, especially since Rob videoed in a market in Moscow and was taken to a back room by security. They watched what he had filmed and then demanded he erase it, and then wrote down information from his passport. Entertaining event, but not one I'd like for us to repeat.
So was our trip to the market. We'll let you know how all our farm-fresh goodies turn out to be!
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