Recipes in Translation

Preparations for our little Kūčios are under way. I searched today for plotkelės ("Opłateki" in Polish) at our local Russian store. The shopkeeper had never heard of them; I suppose it's not a Russian Orthodox tradition. She looked at me as if I were speaking Greek when I described the wafers.

I also am tweaking the "Christmas Fish" recipe. This is a preparation of a white fish and sliced onions layered in a thick tomato sauce. It's served cold, like the other foods we eat on Christmas Eve. I've made it for many years, but I have not been satisfied with my recipe, especially after tasting two delicious variations served recently at our local, Madison Kūčios. I've received a couple of recipes to try, and a search today revealed our "Christmas Fish" is a close cousin to Poland's "Fish in the Greek Style." Who knew!

Every Kūčios, Mom and I prepare two "Vinegretai," or mixed vegetable salads. One is a "pink" salad made with beets and navy beans. The other is a "white" salad made with potatoes, peas, and carrots. Our family always called the latter "Babos Vinegretas," or "Grandma's Salad," in honor of my Russian-born, paternal Grandmother, Tatjana. When I moved to Venice in the early 1980s, I noticed that most delicatessens carried a dish that looked identical to "Babos Vinegretas." The Italians call it "Insalata Russa," and it's a modification of a classic Russian dish, "Salat Olivyeh." Iranians make "Salad Oliveh," too. Sources attribute the recipe to a nineteenth-century French chef who lived in the Russian empire. Ah! I had thought Tatjana was the genius behind the dish.

This year, we also will be making a spicy carrot salad, "Aštrios Morkų Salotos." I stumbled on the dish when I bought this product (scroll down to the fourteenth jar on the page) at our Russian store. The salad is identical to a spicy carrot salad that the Russians call Korean Carrots. Russians incorporated the dish into their cuisine after those Koreans deported by Stalin began living in the western Soviet Union. Today, every Russian grocer carries Korean Carrots. At our shop, you can buy the bottled salad (made in Lithuania), a fresh salad in the deli case, or a spice packet to make the salad at home.

That got me back to thinking about the Napoleonas, the torte French pastry chefs adapted from Lithuanian bakers.

Lithuanians, Poles, Russians, Greeks, Italians, Iranians, Koreans, French: it's all one big table.

Verona, Wisconsin, March 2011. The "pink" salad of beets and beans is on the menu. (Photo by Laurence Meade.)

UPDATE: I've corrected a grammatical error in the first paragraph. *Blushes.*