This is only slightly off-topic but certainly food related. Actually, it gets to the topic in the end!
I lived and worked for a couple of years in what was still then the Soviet Union, based mainly in Moscow, but with frequent trips to Leningrad as it was then known (St. Petersburg, now) and other cities. While I was there, I had a Russian interpretor - a lovely young woman called Natasha. I would meet her at 7:30am every day and she would stand behind my right shoulder until maybe 10pm or later, giving me a simultaneous translation of what was being said to me. She had studied English at Moscow University but had never been out of Russia - few Russians had. In fact, she had never been to Leningrad until I took her. Not only that, but she never dreamed it was even possible.
About six months after I left, I was still working with Russian relationships and was helping organise a joint Russia-UK medical conference in London. This involved high level contacts within the Soviet Union embassy in London. At one point it was suggested that I should be supplied with an interpretor. I immediately requested Natasha. After two years of her hovering behind my ear 95% of my time awake, I desperately missed her. Every day I felt something was missing - like you forget to put on your trousers or something!
The request was considered and, to my astonishment, duly passed, but no one remembered to tell her. I had to go back to Moscow, track her down and tell her the news. She was furious!
"Why are you teasing me like this! It's impossible."
"No", I explained, "We have clearance at the highest level!"
"Stop it!" She was in tears and very, very angry, sure I was deliberately torturing her for some unknown reason.
I managed to get hold of her mother and explain (my Russian had improved a bit by that time) and we entered into a conspiracy. Somehow a passport was acquired without Natasha's knowledge (embassy help, again!). She was to travel on a group diplomatic visa so that was no problem.
She was told there was an out-of-town meeting where her assistance was needed and she would be picked up early in the morning. She packed an overnight bag, unaware that mama had also packed her a week-long bag.
Sure enough, a car picked her up in the morning and drove her to Moscow airport, where I was waiting. When she saw me, she broke down again and cursed me out (you always learn cursing first when learning a new language - it saves a lot of bother!) She still thought I was winding her up in some cruel joke.
But somehow we got her onto the plane and she cried all the way to London. At first in anger as she was sure we would land in some gulag in Siberia and she would never see her family again, but as she looked out the window and listened to the announcements, she realised that she was no longer in or over Russia and her tears changed into something else. Happily, the cloud cover broke as we passed over Scandinavia and she clearly recognised the shape from her high school geography text books. I remember her saying "it's just like the map!"
When we landed in London, she had to go through the non-native passport control, whereas I went straight through unchecked - those were the days. I stood waiting for her at the arrivals gate (although I had just arrived myself). The moment she came through was probably the most emotional of my life. Her face was awash with tears, a veritable flood - but she was grinning from ear to ear. She ran to me and threw herself into my arms - the first and nearly last physical contact. She just kept repeating "This is London!" over and over again.
She finally calmed down enough to do the work she was there for - standing behind me talking into my ear again! But we had time for sight-seeing and stuff, too. A few times more though, she reminded me that "This is London!"
We had receptions at the London Embassy where the bankrupt Soviet government served up Beluga caviare by the kilo. Russian "champagne". Georgian brandy. No expense spared. But I also took her to a London fish and chip shop and we had some time in a pub. It was strange but wonderful to be able to actually see her when she spoke to me for a change!
During her trip, she was paid a pretty good allowance, but her hotel room and all meals were covered by the embassy, so she hadn't spent anything. On the last day, it was decided that perhaps she might like to buy a few gifts to take back. Like most Muscovites, she lived in a tiny apartment with her parents, brother and grandmother. One bedroom. Normal. Food was scarce and the people lived on rough bread (if you queued for hours), cabbage and if you were very lucky, some bits of pork gristle.
Of course the elite (including me) could buy pretty much everything in special shops where you had to show your high-ranking communist party ID or foreign passport to the armed guards on the door.
So her gift choice was mainly food related (the regulations on importing foodstuffs were looser then), so I took her to a supermarket. Safeways in Camden Town, should you happen to know it.
A few minutes into the shop, I heard this ghostly wail from behind me and turned to find Natasha sitting on the floor in hysterics, sobbing uncontrollably. Other shoppers were gathered around, some trying to help; most just staring. Ghouls.
I asked her what was wrong and I will never forget her answer.
"They have food here!"
She had never been in a supermarket which had anything more than pickled cabbage before and was overwhelmed by the cornucopia on offer.
That night we had a farewell dinner party for the visiting delegation including Natasha. We bought shed loads of fruit which of course didn't get eaten. In the morning, we departed to the airport, but what Natasha didn't know was that all the uneaten fruit was going with her. The Soviet diplomats pulled strings. As she left, she hugged me and whispered "thank you" - in Russian, "cпасибо". In her emotion, her English had abandoned her.
I only heard much later that when she landed in Moscow, she went home and found a delivery truck at the door with enough fruit to feed the entire neighbourhood for days. More tears.
Which brings me to the on-topic point of my long tale. She wrote and thanked me for everything, including the fruit, but said that when she got home all she really wanted was her grandmother's cabbage and gristle stew. She wasn't being rude or ungrateful at all. Just needed that 'back home, feel good' factor after a welcome but overwhelming experience.
About two months later the Soviet Union collapsed, but Natasha was OK. She continued to work for the new Russian government in Moscow. The next time I saw her was on the BBC news - standing behind Boris Yeltsin talking into his ear. A step up from me. She is now married with two teenage sons and we keep in touch to exchange Christmas cards etc.
But I have never met her again.