Berry Babushkas

Back in Australia Melody was in the Safeway and felt like buying some raspberries. The going price was about $6 for 200g. "Forget it!", I think were her precise thoughts. Melody of course grew up with cheap access to many berries in Canada. Raspberry bushes in particular need a frost to aid development properly and contrary to the opinion of most Melburnians, there just isn't that much cold weather in Australia.

So we are particularly enjoying the abundance in availability of raspberries. Fresh raspberries are exceptionally enjoyable. There really are some advantages to living in Siberia! Raspberries are just the beginning of the berry adventures in Siberia though. I like to be detailed and exhaustive in covering a topic, but I couldn't possibly, the world of berries is extensive and I can only touch on it.

Berries form a big part of the Russian psyche. Abigail came home from kindergarten one day excited about wild strawberries.

Abigail had been picking them with the class. She wanted to go pick some more in the forest when she came home. So we trundled out with her little bucket in hand to find some wild strawberries or "zemlyanika" ("earth berries"), a different word to domestically grown strawberries. It wasn't such a simple feat finding the zemlyanika. In fact we had been looking for 10 minutes or so before we felt like giving up. I asked a local walking through the forest if he could help us find some. "Sure, follow me." He walked a number of paces off the path straight to some plants and picked one up and ate it. It's not like they were absolutely everywhere either. We had to really scour around after that to find them, but at least we knew how to identify the plant better. This local just had the eyes for them, he's probably been picking them all his life.
(There are also mushrooms in the forest, but we ignorant westerners wouldn't know where to start with the mushrooms so we sadly just leave them alone. Maybe a Russian friend will come mushroom picking with us.)

The most common place that people get berries from is their dacha. The dacha also forms a big part of the Russian psyche. People were alotted plots of land outside the city during communist times for growing vegetables. Most people who own a dacha have a small cottage on it, and spend at least a few weeks there in total over the Summer. Some have sold theirs and today lament it, as the prices for dachas have gone up a lot over the last few years. There are ladies at the bus stops who sell their fruit and vegetables from their dacha.

One litre of raspberries for 70 rubles. On today's exchange rate that's $2.58 AUD or $2.41 CAD. That sure beats the $30 a litre they were charging back in Safeway. In fact that's the third time this week we have had fresh raspberries for dessert. When Yura and Alona our Evenki friends were staying with us last week they added some sugar to the rasperries, which is the Russian way. And of course you can make jam quite easily with them.
Our other Evenki friends served us some berries called "zhimolost.'  They are similar to saskatoon berries (sorry Aussies). These were also served up in a bowl with sugar. It's a kind of makeshift jam, with none of the boiling having been done. Many Russian jams are simply called "boiled" or "vareniye" and are a lot runnier than we know jam to be. "Vareniye" is served up in a bowl, and people have at it communally with a teaspoon. Double dipping is required here (all Russians do it). You can just eat it from the spoon while you have your tea after the meal, or mix it in with your tea. I asked our Evenki friends what they did before they had sugar. They mixed the berries with reindeer milk. (Think Devonshire teas... :)  ).

The Babushka at the bus stop was not only selling raspberries but also "Siberian grapes."  They are also known as "krizhovnik". Krizhovniks translate as gooseberries. Now gooseberry is a word I have heard of, much like buckwheat, but also something I never knew anything about. (And just like Russia is the world's largest producer of buckwheat, it is also the world's largest produced of gooseberries. Russia dwarfs all competitors in these fields.....) My closest experience with anything gooseberry like was as a kid when we used to call Kiwi fruit "Chinese gooseberries."

The gooseberries are the little green ones. I tried one at the bus stop and instantly remarked "it's like a kiwi fruit!"  So I suppose the name "Chinese gooseberries" makes sense after all. These gooseberries were also from the dacha. We bought a few.
Later at home outside our apartment building we asked some locals about the red looking berries. They are simply called cherries and do have a similar taste. So we picked a bunch of those too. In the west we are so afraid of nature that we don't even know how to pick berries anymore. We get afraid that most things could be poisonous. Russians however know what is safe and what is not.

After our fill of raspberries for dessert, Abigail is in the kitchen picking away at Siberian grapes and Siberian cherries. I hope she doesn't get a tummy ache from over eating! (Ah, the joys of a childhood growing up in Siberia.)