Re: Thanksgiving

My father was the first of his family born in the U.S. (he was the youngest of six siblings) and he explained to me once that the sugar cube used in drinking tea was what we would call rock candy. Much more solid. Some Asian markets will have the old-style sugar cones, which are also similar to what they used in Russia.

dmh

Rick Chappell wrote:

Rick Chappelldmfdt4$ncd$ snipped-for-privacy@news.doit.wisc.edu11/29/05

David M. snipped-for-privacy@corp.supernews.com11/29/05

Sugar cubes (like my knees and hips) are not what they used to be. As a child I remember sugar cubes that were too hard to chew and took forever to dissolve in any hot liquid. If you didn't perch that cube correctly in your teeth you could easily choke on it.

"Sucked through a sugar cube"? Have you ever tried it? I did, once. I obtained my Russian tea. I heated up my samovar. I got my zavarka and boiling water in proper combination poured into a finjan, not a yahrtzeit glass since we very fortunately have not been in need of the latter. I delicately rested the sugar cube between upper and lower incisors (facilitated by my slight, though not unsightly, prognathism

- surely produced, as my mother warned me, by indiligence in wearing my retainer as a teen) and then:

Disaster. The cube crumbled faster than a Republican congressional caucus after an indictment. I was left with a mouthful of granulated sugar in tea, unable to spit it out because a child was attentively staring at me across the table; the very child whom I had previously sternly lectured about keeping his food in his mouth and that, even though the poodle would appreciatively lick premasticated pizza off his fingers, this is still considered bad manners.

I have heard that hard candies are permissible. Also, I'm sure that if I stroll the back alleys of certain Slavic neighborhoods in Chicago I can find a fellow with a Rasputin beard and shiny dark eyes who'd sell me a bag of crystal suc. In the interim, I'm doing quite nicely with a spoonful of cherry jam admixed (and a "bissel schnapps" when the wind blows fiercely off the lake).

Best,

Rick.

Bob wrote:

... Numerous savory but ultra-high cholesterol details deleted ...

Yes. Ask your local Hispanic market for "pilloncillo" which is fairly close although probably not quite as hard.

However, MY question is about pouring tea into your saucer to cool it, then drinking out of the saucer. Gogol and Tolstoy both describe the process, but modern Russians laugh at me when I ask them about it.

On the other hand, these same modern Russians put marmalade and jam in their tea.

--scott

The Firebird, an excellent Russian restaurant on Restaurant Row in mid-Manhattan, serves tea in a glass with a holder, and jam on the side. Marvelous. And requires no special skills.

My father didn't do either of these, but he described seeing it at home. And my grandmother (other side, but still from Russia) sometimes put strawberry jam or preserves in her tea.

dmh

Of course, people would not sip their tea through the saucer in Moscow or on an SV train, but then, those "newer Russians" from those places look away in disgust and shame when the limita "older Russians" on platskartny trains do just that.

this brought back memories of Hebrew school. Mr. Dvorsky taught it in his house and after school we boys would get there either by family, cab or bus. When we got there, upstairs to the classroom, There he would sit and we would begin the lessons. About an hour into the lesson, he would get up ( we often felt he was after one of us, so you had to daven with one eye out for him or who he was going after), go to the stairs and yell "Rachel, Bring me the tea." Mrs. Dvorsky would bring him up the stairs a glass of hot tea with a glob of some sort of jelly in the bottom and a chunk of cube sugar.

Now the fun began, he would bite off a chunk of the sugar ( a loud crunch.. some laughter) and the slurp of tea from the top of the glass as he drew it between his teeth and sugar, then another and so forth. That happened to be some 40 years ago and seems like just yesterday.

of course the other part was that if we happened to read poorly we would get " You daven like a goy," and at 13 years of age, you didn't know whether that was a compliment or an insult. then a slap on the shoulder and he threw you out of class. That wasn't bad.. Mrs. Dvorsky would console us with a piece of fresh homemade honey cake and a glass of milk, talk with us, help us with what we were thrown out with. Their son Bernard would come in from work and tell us that "pops doesn't mean anything by it." and eventually both would get us back into class. Until the next time...

: >>Remember how your grandmother used to cook? Where is that cooking now? : >

Since my Gran passed over many years ago, I feel that the question really shouldn't be asked, as she often cooked for us. But, if you really want to know, .....

{;-) Phil T

Rick -

The method you described is called "vprikusku" or "v prikusku" - from "kusat'" - to bite (do not confuse with kusHat'" - to eat. The sugar is of hard type, usually the cube is 4 to 6 times the volume of usual cube bought here. AND its not a cane type, but a sugarbeet type. The more 'civilized" way to do a tea vprikusku when these larger cubed are broken into smaller pieces in a solver sugarbowl with a pair of special sugar "pliers" inside. This would be very respectable way to serve tea in good houses in Baku, Azerbaijan. Russians do not drink tea vprikusku in large cities. "Seeping tea through" is not really how its done. Try just having a small piece of sugar between your side teeth (not back ones) and sip in some tea, allow it to wet the sugar a little and chew still crunchy sugar with tea. Its quite enjoyable, actually. Not my cuppa, (I do not like sweet tea), but still.

Drinking tea from a small saucer is a very "old trader" way of doing it. Was traditional lower class way of doing it until probably WW2. Gone with the wind of time and rightfully so. Unlike vprikusku way, which can be very enjoyable for many people (not for me - I do not like ANY sweet tea).

BTW - (offtopic) is biostat.wisc.edu is your domain? If yes, can I contact you privately?

Sasha.

P.S. Just my personal opinion, but I would refrain from using very derogatory and, quite honestly, disgusting words like "limita" the same way I would advise Russians from using n-words here. I understand that their usage shows intimate knowledge of the "Russki" subject, but still. Just an advice.

Rick -

The method you described is called "vprikusku" or "v prikusku" - from "kusat'" - to bite (do not confuse with kusHat'" - to eat. The sugar is of hard type, usually the cube is 4 to 6 times the volume of usual cube bought here. AND its not a cane type, but a sugarbeet type. The more 'civilized" way to do a tea vprikusku when these larger cubed are broken into smaller pieces in a solver sugarbowl with a pair of special sugar "pliers" inside. This would be very respectable way to serve tea in good houses in Baku, Azerbaijan. Russians do not drink tea vprikusku in large cities. "Seeping tea through" is not really how its done. Try just having a small piece of sugar between your side teeth (not back ones) and sip in some tea, allow it to wet the sugar a little and chew still crunchy sugar with tea. Its quite enjoyable, actually. Not my cuppa, (I do not like sweet tea), but still.

Drinking tea from a small saucer is a very "old trader" way of doing it. Was traditional lower class way of doing it until probably WW2. Gone with the wind of time and rightfully so. Unlike vprikusku way, which can be very enjoyable for many people (not for me - I do not like ANY sweet tea).

BTW - (offtopic) is biostat.wisc.edu is your domain? If yes, can I contact you privately?

Sasha.

P.S. Just my personal opinion, but I would refrain from using very derogatory and, quite honestly, disgusting words like "limita" the same way I would advise Russians from using n-words here. I understand that their usage shows intimate knowledge of the "Russki" subject, but still. Just an advice.

Thanks very much, Alex. Your description makes a lot of sense. But, like you, unless I have a cup for dessert or other odd event I don't put sugar in my tea. The next time I'm in a Russian neighborhood in Chicago I will make my kids happy and buy some beet sugar.

That's not me, Alex. My Russian has been limited to words like zavarka and chainik, of which old great-grandpa Chepelyevsky would have approved.

Best,

Rick.

My grandmother in Haifa (of blessed memory) drank her tea like that, but then she was a Galizianer...

DAS

For direct contact replace nospam with schmetterling

I have convinced a local Catholic theologian that "Galizianer" is the Hebrew word for "Galician" and he used it on a local TV panel show. Now I am working on "schlemiel" for "Samuel".

Leon

Leon9Orwf.239382$ snipped-for-privacy@bgtnsc05-news.ops.worldnet.att.net1/9/06

I'm not absolutely sure I can honestly say I'm proud of you, Leon.

I thought "Galizianer" _did_ mean "someone from Galicia"? Next, you're going to tell me that "Litvak" is not "someone from Lithuania". (Or is it just that it's not Hebrew?)

Yeah, Ken, something like that. You know how we are, always joking here on this ng.

Leon