St. Petersburg, Russia – Ever try to describe a caper to a Russian?
I did. It’s not easy pantomiming a pickled flower bud. About halfway through my imitation of a pickle, I gave up just before the female sales clerk pantomimed a gulag.
I was trying to cook one of my favorite Italian dishes on a recent vacation to Russia, being that I scored a spacious, fully equipped apartment on prime real estate along Nevsky Prospekt, St. Petersburg’s version of New York’s Fifth Avenue.
You’d think cooking in Russia is a bit like clubbing in Iran, but this is no longer your mother’s Russia. That’s why I was able to cook an Italian meal for three beautiful Russian women, a near-impossible feat 25 years ago and not just because I could never attract three beautiful Russian women.
Today you can buy anything you want in Russia. The long lines waiting for bread under communism have been replaced by short lines waiting to buy Ecuadorean fruit, French wine and Italian pasta.
I walked into Okeh, one of Russia’s growing supermarket chains, and thought I had entered a Wal-
Mart. I saw 33 check-out counters fronting what looked like an airplane hangar filled with food. This place made King Soopers look like a vending machine.
Puttanesca is a famous Roman dish that’s simple to make but with tricky ingredients, including buccatini pasta and, yes, capers. While gathering the goods, I passed enough food to feed the Russian army. The glass-encased meat stand had every imaginable part from every imaginable animal. It was cleaner than some meat cases I’ve seen in Switzerland.
At the seafood section I took a number and watched a woman take heaping, jiggling scoops of red caviar and place them on a scale. As I waited for my Baltic salmon steaks, I walked over to a beautiful blond in uniform handing out samples of pelmeni, the traditional Russian dumpling filled with meat.
This wasn’t exactly a portly babushka slinging gray hash in a Siberian cafeteria.
The vegetable section had bell peppers in five colors – including black – and next to it stood a pickle bar. Go buy your bulbous dills then walk down the aisle to their perfect accompaniment: vodka.
Do you do the tequila and lime trick? Try it with Russian vodka and a dill pickle. You’ve never tasted a smoother bite, but one too many and you’ll have this weird urge to pet a sable.
If you want to try it, Okeh has an aisle 25 yards long, stacked four rows high with vodka, not a single one more than $5.
But if you think Russia’s health scene is going the way of its farm collectives, please note Okeh’s tiny potato chip section could fit in your closet pantry. That helped explain why the modern Russian looks a lot healthier than the average American.
At least Russians can choose. Joining me on my food quest was Olga Zavyalova, an old friend who grew up in the small Siberian town of Yeniseysk in the 1980s. She said Moscow always had GUM, a major department store with limited goods, but most groceries were the size of 7-Elevens. She told me she often stood waiting for simple oranges and bananas.
“In my town when we heard ‘peaches,”‘ she said, “everyone raced to get in line.”
After the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, supermarkets such as Okeh began popping up in the late ’90s. Today, they are all over Russia. Keep in mind, not all Russians can afford them. I got out of there for about $40.
Still, it’s a lot less than I’d spend at Wild Oats and about half what I’d spend for two meals in St. Petersburg’s higher-end restaurants.
Whether I could make it edible was another matter. I asked Olga if she was familiar with the English word “patience.” The pressure was definitely on. Olga, an English teacher, invited two of her beautiful students, Katya and Julia. Picture Anna Kournikova and Maria Sharapova with worse backhands.
For the occasion, I substituted fresh mushrooms for the capers and diced them into a sauce of garlic, fresh tomatoes, red onions and canned tuna while the girls munched on French cheese and drank a nice Bordeaux.
With a salad of fresh romaine lettuce, bell peppers, green onions and Italian dressing, my meal could have passed for anything I made in Denver.
“It was brilliant,” Katya said as she fled out my front door.
“It was different,” said Julia, obviously a future diplomat. “Most Russians don’t mix fish with mushrooms.”
Well, in the new Russia you can. Now, where are those pickles?
Staff writer John Henderson covers sports and writes about the food he eats on the road. He can be reached at 303-954-1299 or jhenderson@denverpost.com.
RECIPE
Pasta Puttanesca
This recipe comes from Rachael Ray, who suggests that you get your olives from the bulk bins in the market, rather than buying a jar. The unit price is always much less per pound, and you can get just what you need for each recipe. This sauce is named for ladies of the night who would place pots of it in their windows to tempt men. Serves 4.
Ingredients
2 tablespoons (2 turns around the pan) extra-virgin olive oil
4 to 6 cloves garlic, chopped
1 tin flat anchovy fillets, drained
1/2 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
20 oil-cured black olives, cracked away from pit and coarsely chopped
3 tablespoons capers
1 (32-ounce) can chunky-style crushed tomatoes
1 (14.5-ounce) can diced tomatoes, drained
A few grinds black pepper
1/4 cup (a couple of handfuls) flat-leaf parsley, chopped
1 pound spaghetti, cooked to al dente
Crusty bread, for mopping
Grated Parmigiano-Reggiano or Romano cheese, for passing, optional
Directions
Heat a large skillet over medium heat, and add oil, garlic, anchovies and crushed pepper. Saute mixture until anchovies melt into oil and completely dissolve and garlic is tender, about 3 minutes: Your kitchen never smelled so good! Add olives, capers, tomatoes, black pepper and parsley. Bring sauce to a bubble, reduce heat and simmer 8-10 minutes.
Toss sauce with cooked pasta. Pass bread and cheese at the table and serve with a simple salad of mixed bitter greens dressed with oil and vinegar, salt and pepper.
