This is your ThRussian grandmother (born in Tulabaika, currently residing in Thrace) chiming in with a fairytale. Might as well tell you now, before you are all grown up and discovered.
Once upon a time, long before you were born, the sirens had lured me away from Tulubaika. They cast a wicked spell on me so I would only want to swim among them and speak their own tongue. I stayed with them for a long time, deeply indifferent to the Tulabaikan baiki and pobaiki. Years have passed, and the magic spell began to fray around the edges. The sound of tsimbala-drimbala tsimtulabalalaikas started to seep into my consciousness again. First, it was barely audible, then more insistent. Before long, I found myself following it like some Frankenstein’s creature. I waded through random puddles of tulubaikaology and tulubaikaography. When in the grips of a particularly strong fit of tulabaikostalgia, I would even stop at a Tulabaika outpOST (as western outpost of Tulabaika are known) and buy a boxed honey-spice ginger bread with fruit filling and a likeness of Tula Kremlin stamped on its glazed surface.
So you see, I have been making my own way (and asymptotically approaching)
Tulubaika for a while now. How did I found myself in the waters of your cranberry compote river, carried past the milken banks, I have no idea. Only the Algorithm all mighty knows, but clearly it was meant to be. Perhaps you needed a fellow traveler who does not require a footnote to conjure a mental image of a mustache, be it Checkhovian, Gogolesque or Dzerzhynsky-like. Perhaps it was imperative that the spirit of a young lady, thought to have drowned long ago, would be dredged up and can nowaccompany you disembodied (believe me, it’s better that way - Ophelia is even more of a crone than I) float in this thick, pungent, gooey, heady soup of words (no, its no borscht or stchi, or any cabbage “subjected to thermal prep” - I would not like it) towards Tulubaika.
Such jolly chyortovstchina
And now for something completely different,
I, being of certain age (but not older than Monty Python) was blissfully innocent of Leptov’s opus, so thank you for the unexpected gift. Both his lyrics and your translation are luminous (I do have a few other adjectives up my tulubaikatulup sleeves, but why)
Once in my village with a friend we made borscht in the morning, then ate certain pieces of paper & went on an epic tramp, up & over the cliffs where in Autumn the mushrooms can be stolen from the Farmer (an enemy of mine, he doesn't even like mushrooms but will come up on his quad bike to tell you off if he sees you over his fence), down onto the beach where we jumped in the sea, laughing very hard (at this point I tried to take photos of my friend holding her towel in the wind like a flag, but it didn't work, I think I was pressing the wrong button on my camera; nevertheless I took a parallel photo in my mind that I can still see), back around the beaches to the subdivision, where we stopped at my good friend's house for a cocktail, when we got back to my house in the late afternoon we ate the borscht, it was very good
OK, I admit that I read this because of the Borscht recipe announced in the heading :-)
It's one of my favorite dishes, but I never knew the traditional was made by cooking meat first for the broth. My mother used to make it (my grandmother's second husband was from Russian (or Polish) Jewish immigrants from the 1800s at some point, so she grew up with it.)
NOW I intend to recreate the dish I love using this recipe. I do not eat meat, so it won't be the same, but I wouldn't know anyway, and the result will be delicious. I can tell from the instructions!
This has been a very insightful post that added much appreciated context to the first chapter of the great novel Tulubaikaporia
Thank you! our hope is to make 23 of these hehe if we don’t go insane in the process
This is your ThRussian grandmother (born in Tulabaika, currently residing in Thrace) chiming in with a fairytale. Might as well tell you now, before you are all grown up and discovered.
Once upon a time, long before you were born, the sirens had lured me away from Tulubaika. They cast a wicked spell on me so I would only want to swim among them and speak their own tongue. I stayed with them for a long time, deeply indifferent to the Tulabaikan baiki and pobaiki. Years have passed, and the magic spell began to fray around the edges. The sound of tsimbala-drimbala tsimtulabalalaikas started to seep into my consciousness again. First, it was barely audible, then more insistent. Before long, I found myself following it like some Frankenstein’s creature. I waded through random puddles of tulubaikaology and tulubaikaography. When in the grips of a particularly strong fit of tulabaikostalgia, I would even stop at a Tulabaika outpOST (as western outpost of Tulabaika are known) and buy a boxed honey-spice ginger bread with fruit filling and a likeness of Tula Kremlin stamped on its glazed surface.
So you see, I have been making my own way (and asymptotically approaching)
Tulubaika for a while now. How did I found myself in the waters of your cranberry compote river, carried past the milken banks, I have no idea. Only the Algorithm all mighty knows, but clearly it was meant to be. Perhaps you needed a fellow traveler who does not require a footnote to conjure a mental image of a mustache, be it Checkhovian, Gogolesque or Dzerzhynsky-like. Perhaps it was imperative that the spirit of a young lady, thought to have drowned long ago, would be dredged up and can nowaccompany you disembodied (believe me, it’s better that way - Ophelia is even more of a crone than I) float in this thick, pungent, gooey, heady soup of words (no, its no borscht or stchi, or any cabbage “subjected to thermal prep” - I would not like it) towards Tulubaika.
Such jolly chyortovstchina
And now for something completely different,
I, being of certain age (but not older than Monty Python) was blissfully innocent of Leptov’s opus, so thank you for the unexpected gift. Both his lyrics and your translation are luminous (I do have a few other adjectives up my tulubaikatulup sleeves, but why)
Also, I won’t bug you again
AH LOVE THIS, most tulubaikadly thank you for the fairy tale! jolly chyortovschina (!!!) also please don’t hesitate bugging me again hehe
Ты ничему не научился у своей матери?
Burakovyi kvas
Ingredients:
3 pounds beets
3 tablespoon coarse salt (not table salt)
1 slice sourdough bread
2-3 quarts water
1 cheesecloth
1 gallon glass jar
Quart glass jars
Preparation:
Scrub and quarter beets
Salt and place in gallon jar
Add boiling water
Let cool and add bread
Cover with cheesecloth and tie with string
Set in cool place and let ferment for 1 or 2 weeks until desired flavor, sour but mild.
Remove mold as it appears
Remove bread, cheesecloth and compost beets.
Pour into quart jars and refrigerate.
Note: don’t make kvas in hot, humid weather it will decompose not sour. You can skip the lemon unless you like really sour borscht.
Once in my village with a friend we made borscht in the morning, then ate certain pieces of paper & went on an epic tramp, up & over the cliffs where in Autumn the mushrooms can be stolen from the Farmer (an enemy of mine, he doesn't even like mushrooms but will come up on his quad bike to tell you off if he sees you over his fence), down onto the beach where we jumped in the sea, laughing very hard (at this point I tried to take photos of my friend holding her towel in the wind like a flag, but it didn't work, I think I was pressing the wrong button on my camera; nevertheless I took a parallel photo in my mind that I can still see), back around the beaches to the subdivision, where we stopped at my good friend's house for a cocktail, when we got back to my house in the late afternoon we ate the borscht, it was very good
it’s always a good idea to top the adventure with borscht
Top & tail! Make at start, eat at end
OK, I admit that I read this because of the Borscht recipe announced in the heading :-)
It's one of my favorite dishes, but I never knew the traditional was made by cooking meat first for the broth. My mother used to make it (my grandmother's second husband was from Russian (or Polish) Jewish immigrants from the 1800s at some point, so she grew up with it.)
NOW I intend to recreate the dish I love using this recipe. I do not eat meat, so it won't be the same, but I wouldn't know anyway, and the result will be delicious. I can tell from the instructions!
Please enjoy!