Trying Russian Food!

Last Friday, we were able to get a small taste of cuisine from the Soviet Union (specifically Russia) before visiting Brighton Beach! Dr. Lasevich was kind enough to offer us Russian salad (otherwise known in Russia as Olivier salad), chicken pelmeni, zefir, chocolates, a variety of sparkling sodas and drinks, and even ice cream! The Russian salad, composed of potatoes, peas, mayonnaise, onions, carrots, egg, meat, and salt was very tasty and I found the story of why it contains none of the Olivier salad’s original ingredients (including olives) to be very funny! Moving on, the chicken pelmeni reminded me of small chicken ravioli which I eat at home regularly and were comforting to eat, and the chocolate-covered zefir I picked (although there were also vanilla and strawberry zefir) was like a sweeter and less bouncy marshmallow. I also tried some sodas which were mildly sweet and some had a bit of tartness to them as well, and I found it cool that one of the brands even had the image of Pinocchio at the front with the word ‘BURATINO’ which is very similar to the Italian word for puppet, ‘BURATTINO’. Finally, we ended the hot day with a refreshing ice cream which was described as ‘the best ice cream in the world’ by Dr Lasevich’s father before they left the Soviet Union, and it was indeed very yummy! Its texture and flavor was a little different from American or Italian ice cream, but I still enjoyed it a lot. Overall, it was a great experience for our whole class to try and enjoy something new from a different culture!