Ukrainian Cuisine

A couple of people have asked about the food here, so I thought I'd post about that today. I'll include some odd phonetic translations of things too just for fun.

They don't have any prepackaged foods here really, so we go to the store about every day and buy fresh or frozen things. The one prepackaged thing we do get is vyriniky (that's as close as I can translate it), but it's a lot like perogies. We enjoy the "meat" ones, but they also have cheese and potato types too. Yes, it is just "masa" meat, non specified as far as I know. I did hear someone say the word for pork one time though, so I think that batch was more like sausage.

A lot of the foods tend to be breaded or wrapped in a dumpling or pancake. Cheese and bread are at least as big here as they are in France. We identified one of the bread stands as being a better one by the number of people we see visiting it and have been buying our "bulka" white bread there. The "hkleb" dark bread is not bad, but the bulka is much better. You know the old saying, "it's the best thing since sliced bread?" We now understand that a bit better, you buy loaves or half or quarter loaves of the bread and slice it all yourself.

I'm happy to say they have Diet Coke here, but it is called Coca-Cola Light, just like it was in the rest of Europe. I bought one on the way in, "Skajeetsee pajaloosta, ya hachoo adeen coca-cola light, adeen liter." Excuse me please, I want a coca cola light, 1 liter. They always tell me the price to which I say "skolka?" How much? Because they always say numbers too fast. 1 liter of diet coke was about 65 cents in US dollars, things are very cheap here.

Yesterday, we went to lunch with our translater and I paid for all three of us. It was just under 50 hryvna, which translates to about 10 dollars american. That was for a lot of food too. The place we lunched was much like a cafeteria, you get a tray and select the dishes you want to eat then pay at a cashier on the way to the tables. Interestingly enough you pay for everything except the plates and silverware. If you want salt or a plastic cup to drink out of you pay for it. Once again, it is very inexpensive, but it is odd. I think it is their way of keeping people from walking off with extra salt, ketchup, etc..