Adam Balic

As part of this conference the hosts had organised a cultural evening in the Museum. This consisted of lot and lots of Folk dancing by a local troupe (and their academic victims) and a meal which was said to be modeled on a typical country celebration. Light levels were low, so my camera struggled with these images I'm afraid. Lithuanian cuisine seems to have a whole range of foods which are classed as 'beer snacks'; boiled beans/peas, cheese, preserved fish, nuts and fried bread. In the foreground of this you can see a very poncy version of the fried bread (rye bread that is). To the left of this you can see Curd Cheese with caraway seeds (varskes suris). We were told that a couple in love should dance close enough to squash one of these flat. Nice. Stuffed Pike (Idaryta lydeka) with dill sauce. A range of meats. The middle one is pork fillet pressed in cartlidge. Excellent. Rare beef, goose liver pate and smoked salmon. To the right are pepper stuffed fried pastry and spurgos (doughnuts) stuffed with wild mushrooms.

FG - I looked for it, as I am interested in the subject ,but I am not the best person for this as my knowledge on the subject is limited. I certainly saw dishes that could be classed as Jewish, but I am not sure how seperate these dishes are from the non-Jewish Lithuanian cuisine or from Central European cuisine in general. I will discuss this food as I go along. I think that this is also complicated by the fact that Vilnius hasn't traditionally had a large ethnic Lithuanian population (until WWII up to 60% of the population was Jewish), and during the period of Soviet annexation much of this was culture was suppressed. So much of the 'traditional Lithuanian' cuisine in Vilnius is likely to be imported from outwith the area. I hope this makes sense. Until recently, there seemed to be little acknowledgement of the Jewish history of the area at all, this is changing somewhat and I think that it will continue to change. To me it seemed that this was a population that was still very much feeling their way after a long time in the dark.

I visitied two different traditional markets, both just out of the old town proper. While they were similar they both had a distinct differences. The northern market had an indoor section, but was largely dominated by out door fresh produce stalls. Products differened greatly from stall to stall, some looked very professional, others were clearly a few hand fulls of this and that collected/grown by peasants. This is pretty typical of the selction of root veg. I have no idea what the black roots on the right are (black turnip or sugar beet maybe?) As I said there were people making a living (?) from what they collected from the surounding land (~70% forest in this region). At this time of the year this included berries and mushrooms, but snails are another big cash item. The berries in the jar are cowberries/lingon berries/wild cranberries. The umbels of bright red berries are unknown to me, but they taste a little like a cross between a tomato and mulberry and are extremely bitter. The bunches of oak leaves are used in saunas to splash about cold water and to whip yourself a bit.... Different stall, similar produce with Chanterelle and Ceps, horse raddish, garlic, home made preserves and more berries It is definated autumn in Vilnius, although they are having an Indian summer. As a consequence of this it has been a very good year for apples and avery bad year for mushrooms. The surrunding area is largely wooded, with sandy soil and a predominately pine forest makeup. This is perfect for many mushrooms, ~400 types are actually harvested. Much of this is ma and pa outfits, but there are some people getting mighty rich from very organised harvesting. If I was going to be critical of the supermarket, it would be that some of these more traditional foods are not represented. There were dozens of different types of apples in the market, most of which I had never seen before (including a pure white variety), yet the supermarket had NZ Braeburn, Granny Smith's, Royal Gala etc. The same for the mushrooms. I guess this is true of all supermarkets and it is difficult to be to critical. As much as I personally regret the erosion of seasonal food and local traditions, much of this comes from necessity under dire circumstances. Better year round Braeburn's in a democratic country then 20 seasonal varieties under constraint?

Now I was told that the population doesn't have much of a sweet tooth, but the evidence said otherwise. The bakery section had a huge selection of cakes and buns. Cakes are pretty good for less then a quid... At the back you can see some Rye bread loaves, these seemed to make up 80% of all bread. There were several different varieties, all utterly delicious. More on bread later.

While the stuff pike is a traditional dish there were some international dishes also, including these Nori rolls. Amazing in a country that didn't have middle class a decade ago (so I was told). Still the prepared food was mostly traditionally themed (dumplings, veg. cakes, salads and pickled veg).

I have spent the last week in Vilnius the capitol city of Lithuania. I really had no knowledge of the food (or in fact anything else of the country), so it was a very interesting and educational experience. From looking at guides and walking the streets it seems that there is a developing food scene there, with Beer halls, bistros and restaurants all in evidence. Of the latter, I saw French, Greek, Italian, Georgian, Indian and Asian places. However, I stuck to the places serving Lithuanian food on this trip. There were also two large traditional markets in town (and one very large market 6 km out of the city centre) and a growing number of supermarkets. Some of these were no better or worse then I have seen else where, but one, "Maxima", was outstanding. Possibly the best supermarket I have come across and as I dislike supermarkets in general, this is faint praise. There amount and diversity of food in Maxima was really something. It really brings home how degraded the food culture is in the UK, if a country that is finding its feet after Soviet domination can achieve this. I know that it is odd to start a discussion on a countries food in a supermarket, but I was very impressed with this store. (Currency: One Lita is five Pounds Sterling FYI) Meat. While the traditional markets were dominated by King Pork (>90% of all meat), with a little beef and veal, the supermarket had a wider selection, including lamb. Fish. There was a hugh range of fish, both fresh and preserved. Of the fresh fish there were both fresh water fish (pike, bream, pike-perch, grass-carp, common carp, perch) and salt water. There was a huge selection of smoked and brined fish. Most of these were very cheap, but eel was ~£20 kilo. Not a surprise when you consider that >90% of the european eel population has crashed in the last two decades. Tanks of live fish were also in evidence. These included grass carp, common carp, pike, sterlet and crayfish. I would guess that these werre all from aquaculture, but I am not sure on this point. And if you couldn't be bothered with the live fish, then you could buy it ready prepared. These are pike and a grass carp that have been completely deboned, then filled with a forcemeat of the fish and veg.

From the Supermarket "Maxima" in Vilnius (Lithuania), the Sterlet (Acipenser ruthenus). This is a freshwater sturgeon. I imagine that these are derived from Aquaculturel, not idea what they taste like, but an interesting looking fish. The Males of this species are also crossed with femal Belga (Huso huso) females to produce a commercially important hybrid. I know that there are also sturgeon species in the Great Lakes are they eaten much?

This link from a recent trip to Southern Spain shows one solution. It is very good. As I don't have the metabolism that allows me to eat this ever day I use the fat as base for cooking mostly. Another thing you can do is mince the fat with celery, carrots, onion and herbs etc, use this paste to cover a leanish animal like rabbit and roast. Put some potatoes in the botto of the baking dish and you have the basisi of a pretty good meal.

Thank you very much for the information. I will stop now before I work through the entire list and get to "What should I get my wife for Christmas?".

Carolyn - I guess this is where the importance of names comes in. "Port" is not a very exact name and covers a wine range of products (I think that technically/historically "Port" refers to shipped fortified wine leaving Oporto, so the wine in Portugual wasn't actually "Port", maybe a wine-head could correct me on this?). When I see "Port" my default is "expensive, well aged, needs decanting, needs nothing to go with it" (although a slice of pear sounds great). I'm sure that there is a style of Port to go with Chocolate and I should confess that I don' really like chocolate, so I should shut up with the advise really. But I still think that other fortified styles are worth considering.

Ah, thank you very much. Now where can I get a whole Bradenham cure ham?

Mail Order, Free Range, for Christmas, Norfolk Black turkey? And how much?

An interesting article on the topic. From my extremely limited knowledge on the topic, I believe that there is pretty good linguistic evidence that some of these Chinese foods stuffs have Muslim and pre-Muslim Persian roots. "Laghman" I think is fairly well documented: This is from Charles Perry in the "Oxford Companion to Food" * I am flying to Lithuania tomorrow, hopefully I will try this dish.

Not sure that this help very much, but I don't think that Port goes very well with chocolate at all, unless it is a quite sweet. It tends to make the kill the taste of the port and make the bitter flavours of the chocolate come out. I wouldn't pair chocolate with an aged port either. Young fruity alcoholic styles of Port would be you best bet. Or you could try a Banyuls, fortified Pedro Ximénez or maybe some of the Australian fortified wines from Rutherglen. Regarding "Port". Wines that were formally called "Port" (for ~ 150 years) now tend to be labeled as "Fortified Shiraz" or "Portofsorts" etc, no big deal really.

Nice to see this thread again! I have both a Tuscan bean pot and a Daubiere, so I really should make this now that the weather has turned bitter. I wonder if it would be successful with other types of meat, we have a huge amount of game around at the moment. These communal oven cooked dishes are very interesting, I know of several other such dishes ("Baeckeoffe" comes to mind), but I imagine that these are the dishes that are in most danger of disappearing in te next few decades. Might be worth somebodies effort to mae a survey of these? Would make an interesting aritcle too.

This year I plan on cooking a Norfolk Black, these are rare-ish in the UK an will set be back somewhere close to $99 I should think. But a really crappy Supermarket turkey will cost ~$45-60, so I think this is realively well priced.

All though it makes modern Tuscans very sad (or indeed angry) it seems that few of them are descended from the ancient Etruscan population (they are likely to be descended from other Italian groups or, horror, germanic invaders). It seems that the closest living people to the Etruscans too date, belong to some populations in Turkey and a few isolated hill top towns within Tuscany. From a recent study: "Etruscans appeared as genetically variable as modern populations. No significant heterogeneity emerged among archaeological sites or time periods, suggesting that different Etruscan communities shared not only a culture but also a mitochondrial gene pool. Genetic distances and sequence comparisons show closer evolutionary relationships with the eastern Mediterranean shores for the Etruscans than for modern Italian populations." Still there is no reason that the modern Italians ancestors could not have taken on some aspects of the Etruscan culture, before they killed them or out bred them.

Great looking bread Kevin. The saltless thing does take some getting use to and I tire of this bread after a week or so. But it is great with salty ingredients (it is excellent as a crostini base, the best really) and bread salads. One good simple thing to do is fetunta, this is simply the toasted bread drizzled with load of olive oil and some salt. I allows the olive oil to shine. This is mostly done when the "New Oil" has just been pressed, but try it with any excellent olive oil you have. Regarding salt and tax, that is one story (there are a few variations on this theme), this bread also seems to be restricted to places where there were Etruscan populations, so if could predate the taxation thing. No that most modern Tuscans are Etruscan.

I think that it immigration has made a hugh impact. The diversity of what is on offer now is very different to twenty years ago. This is fairly typical of a restuarant in Melbourne(Momo's), twenty years ago you would have been had pressed to find a Middle-Eastern ingredint in a 'decent' restuarant. Also, there cuisnes that have arrived with immigration, have influenced the way that Chefs outwith these cultures cook as well. David Thompson's Thai cooking would be an example I guess.

Not a sambal...but this recipe should more or less be what's in a balitong sauce. 3 tablesp oil 5 cm knob of young ginger 4 cloves garlic Combine: 1 teasp dark soya sauce 1 tablesp light soya sauce 1 tablesp sugar 1/2 teasp salt 1 tablesp lime or lemon 10 - 12 bird's eye chillies, sliced 5 shallots, sliced 2 - 3 stalks spring onion, cut into 1 cm lengths. Mince together the young ginger and garlic and fry till fragrant in the oil. Add the combined sauce. Cook till it boils and thickens. Switch off heat and add chillies, shallots and spring onion. This thread is so amazing...a lot of seafood I've never seen before. Thanks, (I think), for the worm in the fish pic...I was wondering about that, never having seen or was in the look-out for those crawlies before. Eew. ← Excellent, recipe will be sure to try it soon (maybe with the BE chillies reduced somewhat...), I had expected to see Belacan in the recipe, so it is actually good to see the it and be educated.

Des Moines? I just had to look up where Iowa is located. Actually, I had forgotten all about 9/11 and travel. It would be interesting to see pre-9/11 travel figures. In regards to FGs orignal question, I wonder how the reduced travel has effected the local dining scene if at all?

Another view of this huge fish

Jaymes, I am quite sure that if this hypothetical couple could spend as little or much as there were hypothetical things in Paris to spend it on. But you know (aside from the kids) I have done these things. I want to travel and that means making effort. Can't afford $5,000 for a week in Paris, fine then if you have a burning desire to see France, then do what we have done rent a Farmhouse in Burgundy and hire a car. Ten years before that when we were student scum $3,500 kept me going in Europe for two months. Anyway, I think that it is fair to say that although many Americans want to travel outwith the USA, not many of these people actually do. Given that most people seem to think that rtravel is a great way of learning about other cultures (and in this instance foods/cusines), do you think that Americans are going to more of less likely to travel in the future and how might this effect the development of dining in the USA? Increased Mexican/Latin American high end dining, compared to more 'traditional' European cusines?

I'm not sure that anything you have said is inconsistent with any of the statement I made? Given the statisitcs, most Americans with the resources to travel obviously don't have sufficient interest in leaving leaving the USA to do so, that is a fact. It is also true of Australians, but as a percentage we are more likely to travel overseas. I think that this have very little to do with how crappy the natural views are in Australia compared to the USA, but more to do with attitudes towards vacation and travel. In Australia we get more vacation time per year and we often get leave loading (we get more money in our pay cheque when we travel). We also have something called "Long service leave", this, for those entitled to it, is several months of fully paid leave after ten years of work in a particular company. Historically, it was awarded to employees who had provided long service in the colonies to enable them sufficient time to visit the United Kingdom. The expectation of travel is very much part of the Australian culture, this doesn't seem to be the case in the USA, from what people have said here. There is a big difference between talking about the desire to travel and actually going and doing it as well. If people really want to travel they will, it doesn't requirer $5,000 for a week in Paris for instance.

I'm not sure that the relative lack of Americans that travel has much to do with money or geographic realities. If anything it would be more difficult for the average middle-class Australian to travel overseas verse the equivalent American. These are the stats (Australia's population is ~ 20 million). Autralian departures overseas for April 2005 seasonally adjusted is 460,400 (AusStats 3401.0 http://www.abs.gov.au) American departures overseas for April 2005 (excluding Mexico and Canada) 2,128,387 (U.S. Office of Travel and Tourism). So just on a per capita basis the amount of Americans travelling is much less. I have trouble believing the the American standard of living is that much lower then in Australia, so I can only conclude that most Americans that have the resources to travel, just have no interest in travelling outwith the States, in comparison to the average Australian.