Everyday Life: Cooking in Russia

As we're anticipating my sister, Sarah, coming to live with us for 5 weeks and experience life here in Russia, we've been thinking of all the things that might be 'unusual' for her about our everyday lives. So, I thought I might occasionally post about different aspects of our everyday lives. One of the biggest adjustments for me get used to was cooking.

I've always loved to cook, but I've never been the type of person to cook something from scratch, just because I could. Suddenly, I found myself living in a world where you have to prepare nearly everything from scratch. No casserole can be made by just adding a can of condensed soup- you have to make the soup yourself. Forget about buying Bob Evans sausage- you have to either grind pork or hope to find it already ground, then add spices. Good luck trying to find jarred baby food w/o sugar, fat or tons of added preservatives- what do you do? Make it yourself. Canned pumpkin? Nope. Cake/ brownie mixes? No. Salad dressing? Unless you like mayo on your salad- forget it! Pre-made pie crust? Ha! Spaghetti sauce (that's not 5$/jar)? Make it yourself. Macaroni and cheese? Grate your own cheese and make homemade sauce. You're really in trouble if you're on the search for reduced-fat or reduced-calorie options you're pretty much limited to skim milk... I don't think I've ever seen reduced-fat/fat-free sour cream or creamer or anything like that. So, you get the idea. Almost anything you want, especially any type of American-ish food, you have to make it yourself or come up with a good substitute. I've learned that potato starch is as good as corn starch and honey works in recipes that call for corn syrup (though it burns faster- watch out!). And pumpkin or squash tastes nearly identical to sweet potatoes when you bake a casserole. Then...there's the challenge of learning the metric system and trying to read labels- that's worthy of a whole post of it's own!

Finally, the wonderful world of baking. I commented to a friend the other day that baking in Russia isn't so much a matter of skill or know-how, but more a matter of how well you understand your oven (and if your building has gas on that given day!- again, another post!!!). I have lived in 3 different apartments with 3 different ovens and not one of them has baked the same (or well, for that matter!). First of all, very few ovens actually have temperature settings on them- you have to look at the size of the flame and 'guess'- trust me, you get to be pretty good at guessing correctly with lots of practice (or perhaps an oven thermometer someone sent from America!). You learn quickly that 180C is 350F. If your oven is like mine the lowest temperature setting is around 400F. Just imagine how many things I've burned! How do you deal with an oven like mine? Very carefully :) I typically put what ever I'm baking in right as I light the oven- so it's still cold. I never preheat or else whatever I am cooking burns. Then, there's the matter of the back and front of my oven being very, very hot and the middle and sides significantly less hot- I set my timer religiously so I don't forget to turn whatever I'm baking or it will surely burn.

There you go. Another taste of life as we know it. What's for dinner tonight? Homemade chicken fingers and homemade potato wedges. At least we have the added benefit of knowing exactly what goes into your food when you're the one making everything- no guessing if there are preservatives or anything else questionable!