Oh, Dairy-Oh: An Ode to the Dairy Products of Russia

The price of milk jumped about 20% this week, from around 25p a carton to 30p. As I enjoy the ease of cereal in the morning, and have accepted that veganism is a foregone impossibility in this country (is there even a word for "soy" in Russian?), I sucked up this jump in price an bought my carton of 0.5% Parmalat milk anyway. I am not sure what precipitated this jump in price. My Swedish roommate said she heard it was related to a cutback in subsidies to EU dairy farmers, though apparently this happened in the beginning of the year so doesn't explain the jump in price this week. The cost of produce has been steadily rising, as winter approaches and vegetables are no longer in season, though as far as I knew, the milking patterns of cows were not affected by the cold. My best guess, in lieu of an official reason, is that perhaps the cows' milking patterns have been confused by the time change, and it is not the cold but the increasingly incessant darkness that makes milking more difficult. Or, perhaps dairy farmers assume that if people will pay more for peppers and tomatoes, or maybe because they can no longer afford these things, they will be willing to pay more for their morning cereal as well. While wandering the dairy aisle, pondering the multiple forms of milk packaging and the cheapest way to continue drinking milk, I was forced to pause and appreciate the diversity of choice in front of me--a plethora of not merely milk packaging, but the exotic nature of dairy products in general. Though most of these products have tragically lept beyond what my food budget allows, I offer you the following literary tour of the contents of the dairy aisle of my local supermarket.

Milk: Let's begin with the obvious. Or not so obvious. Even if I regularly drank milk in Canada, I would have not arrived to this country with an adequate knowledge of milk to navigate this section of the grocery story. The milk section is so volumunious that it spills from the dairy aisle into the central aisle across from the deli and frozen foods section. Why? Well, if you thought "skim" 1% and 2% was choice, guess again. Milk in Russia is available in fat-quantities at intervals of 0.5% ranging from 0.5% to 7.0% (and we aren't talking about cream yet, people). Most Russians don't know what to do with anything less than 3%, so the section is dominated by 3.5%, 4% and 4.5%, multiplied by about 7 brands then multiplied by another 3 ways of packaging. The standard cartons of milk are found in the aisle facing the deli, while the slightly cheaper though more combersome bags of milk are found interpersed with the rest of the dairy products. At first I thought these bags a rather strange phenomenon--they look like flattened cartons minus most of the stability of cardboard--until my American roommate informed me that Canadians were weird for buying milk in bags. While the Russian cardboard-like vacuum sealed bag of milk does not resemble the transparent Canadian bag in the least, I have thus since reformed my view of these bags of milk from strange to possible practical, though, lacking a milk jug, I have stuck to buying the carton.

Cream: Neighbouring the milk in the milk aisle is cream. The cream section is comprised of everything to thick to be considered milk (i.e. liquid dairy products ranging from 7.5% to 40% fat). You cannot, however, purchase whipped cream. For pumpkin pie lovers, this delicacy comes at the price of good ol' fashioned elbow grease (or some sugar, a fork, two hours of foresight, a steady mixing hand and a whole lot of patience).

Yoghurt: Yoghurt marks the beginning of the actual dairy aisle, taking up approximately 8 shelves (I'm not kidding). This section is populated mostly by single yoghurt cups (to my dismay, as much as Russians love dairy, you cannot buy 1L tubs of yoghurt), including plain yoghurt, fruit-flavoured yoghurt, yoghurt with fruits and nuts, vanilla yoghurt, chocolate yoghurt, caramel yoghurt, yoghurt with active bacteria culture, and, for the particularly extravant taste, yoghurt with crunchy chocolate balls.

Yoghurt Drinks: Hopefully this category is fairly self-explanatory, even if odd to Canadian eyes. If you like yoghurt, why shouldn't it be available in drinkable form? Who needs spoons anyway? For 25-30p a bottle, yoghurt drinks are a healthy and popular purchase for Russians on the run, or who's tastes have wandered from the traditional Russian yoghurt-like drink: kefir.

Kefir: Somewhere between milk, yoghurt and sour cream in taste and texture is kefir. If you can't imagine what it could possibly be from that description, you may be out of luck, unless, perhaps, you are familiar with the Middle Eastern drink ayran. Kefir is the Russian equivalent (though, in my opinion, less tasty) of this drink, a thick drink similar to drinkable yoghurt, minus the flavour or sugar. Heated with a bit of honey or sugar, and in the right mood, this can be a pleasant snack. Under no circumstances, however, will it quench your thirst, or leave you feeling light and healthy and sound in stomach.

Tvorog: Like kefir, tvorog is something difficult to conceive of until tasted. Somewhere between cottage cheese and cream cheese in taste, and feta and cottage cheese in texture, tvorog is most often used as an ingredient in baked goods, as the topping on cookies, or, as it is sold at our favourite croissant stand, baked into a croissant with spinach. Tvorog is sold muh like butter, squarely wrapped in waxed paper. As I recently discovered, tvorog is also available in a sladkaya (sweet) form, and sometimes mixed with raisins. In this form, I've been told, tvorog is best enjoyed with tea, added in the same manner as sugar or cream.

Smetana: I am not sure why I chose to refer to this product in its Russian form, for smetana is something I knew before venturing to the motherland, i.e. sour cream. Perhaps this linguistic choice is due to the fact that one of it is one of the first words I learned in Russian (more specifically, in the phrase "sup bez smetani, pozhaulsta" or "soup without sour cream, please"). More likely, however, is the fact that sour cream consumption in Russia is in such a league of its own that the very product cannot be adequately rendered by its English equivalent. Plus it just doesn't taste quite like it does at home, probably due to a higher fat content. In any case, smetana is a favoured condiment (or primary ingredient) for such varied dishes as: borscht, blini, pelmeni, vereneki, various salads, bread, cookies, smetanichka (a very taste cookie-cake like dessert whose name is derived from its main ingredient), or, if there is nothing else in the kitchen cupboard, smetana can be enjoyed eaten straight out of the container with a spoon.

Mayonnaise: Mayonnaise is not technically part of the dairy aisle--in fact, it has its own aisle--but it warrants mention here as a dairy-based product near and dear to the citizens of Yekaterinburg. I am told, after all, that we are living in the mayonnaise capital of the world. I place it after smetana as it is often consumed in the same way, though to an even greater extent. 98% of Russian "salads" have mayonnaise at their base, and, now that I think of it, I do not think I have ever been to a Russian-prepared meal where mayonnaise was not featured prominently. It can be purchased in large tubs, small tubs, tubes, or squeezable bag-like containers.

Sirok: I was introduced to this sweet snack by Guilherme when we stopped at a grocery store on the way to Shartash the other week. Although sirok typically costs between 4 and 7 rubles, I ended up spending 20 minutes and 100 rubles at the store when the cashier gave me change as if I'd given her a smaller bill and when I corrected her began a process of counting all of the money in the till, while Mark and Guilherme stood outside eating their sirok and laughing at me. When her manager came and started the process over and refused to answer when I asked how long it would be, I decided my time wasn't worth the 65 rubles difference. Despite this unpleasant first encounter, sirok is perhaps the best dairy find of this trip--it is a small, chocolate coated slightly frozen product with a filling somewhere close to that of cheese cake, mixed, if your heart desires, with an assortment of different fruity options. Mark has been plotting to mail some of these tasty treats home to a cheese-cake loving sister, though we've yet to figure out how to keep them from melting on the trans-Atlantic journey.

Butter: Margarine hasn't caught on in Russia quite has it has in North America (though it is available sometimes), to the result that the butter section occupies a sizeable portion of the aisle.
Butter of all qualities and grades (ranging from 25 rubles/200g up to 60 or 70 rubles), and in all sizes is available, for any taste, appetite and purpose. I don't think I have ever purchased butter in Canada, though in an effort to make brownies I was forced to stare down this section of the aisle. In various other baking adventures since, I now know exactly where to go to avoid the overwhelming feeling that everything around me is going to melt into unindentifiable mounds of yellowy creaminess...

Cheese: Despite being slightly lactose intolerant and having vegan aspirations, cheese is the one and only dairy product that I have always loved. And Russia offers much for the cheese lover. In this section you can find speciatly foreign cheese products such as small cream cheese packets similar to La vache qui rit and feta, mozerella and cheddar, as well as a wide assortment of cheeses that I have given up trying to translate. Tragically, this week these cheeses jumped in price to cost as much as mozerella. The only cheese still affordable to me has become "kolbasnaya sir," or "sausage" cheese--a smoked cheese packaged in much the same way as sausage (i.e. in some strange waxy-like coating in the shape of a large sausage).

Ice Cream: Rounding out the dairy aisle is the dairy freezer. Actually, there are multiple freezers, and they are interpersed along the front of the store...Come to think of it, with these freezers in the front, the mayonnaise aisle up the left, the milk spilling over into the deli section, and the dairy aisle itself, dairy products indeed form a ring around the entire store. But back to ice cream. Ice cream comes in many shapes and forms, from vanilla packaged in tubes, to plastic tubs, frozen ice cream bars, and to a product that Len introduced us to the first time we walked a Russian street with him: the 4 rouble ice cream cone (well, it was 4 roubles 2 years ago, the cheapest you can find them today is 7 or 8). This ice cream cone comes in a transparent plastic wrapper, and, while it tastes like ice cream, I have my doubts as to the purity of the ingredients. Len was a fan of buying 3 or 4 of these little cones at once, and putting the extras in his pocket or briefcase for later consumption. Strangely, they seemed to keep just fine, even on a September street.

Well, a few weeks have gone by since I began this entry, the temperature has dropped 15-20 degrees, there are 4 inches of snow on the ground, an hour less daylight, and milk has somehow returned to 25 roubles a carton. Alas, my projections of cow milking patterns seem to have been proved incorrect, the price of dairy products instead dictated by the whims of the market. And now thrown into the cold and the dark that is to be this winter, and the fatigue that comes with this weather, the dairy consumption of Russians is seeming a little less odd. I have been instructed daily by one particular teacher to eat more calories--butter and smetana were her specific instructions--in order to keep myself warm. This logic still seems a bit bizarre to me, though in a country of seemingly anorexic women and a population who've survived these winters for centuries, I'm coming to believe that perhaps they've discovered some secret in dairy consumption that we have missed, something glanced over in the drive towards low-fat, low-calorie products. Something that would no doubt be the envy of Ontario dairy farmers. Whatever it is, I am going to take advantage of the opportunity of sirok, havarti, ice cream, tvorog, smetana, etc. being considered essential to my healthy survival of winter in the Urals. Bring on the dairy-oh!

Coming soon: A Survival Guide to Winter Cooking in the Urals (or, 101 ways to cook cabbage and potatoes)