Breakfast habits and questions about the taste
Breakfast habits in Communist Romania
WHAT IS NORMAL?
What is normal? Who says this or that is normal? Normal is a matter of perspective until one starts to research a particular topic and re establishes the “normal” in accordance with new data and learnings.
When we grow up, habits are formed based on what our parents/carers teach us. As we don’t know anything else, this becomes “it” and we respect it like miniature soldiers. I know, I know, if one looks at the kids nowadays this is not quite true but when I grew up parents had “special” methods of persuasion and of enforcing their rules.
BREAKFAST IN ROMANIA
Believe it or not, having breakfast in communist Romania was easy, diverse and highly enjoyable. I mean I had no inner battles thinking about what is best to eat, about calories, asking myself the oh so obsessive modern questions about vitamins, healthy fats, chemicals, preservatives, gluten, antioxidants, minerals, fibre and the lot.
https://images.app.goo.gl/9f67KTgxzTx5r9vq8
Breakfast in our household was pretty diverse and consisted of: white bread (there were very few choices but it did not bother us as bread was bread) lots of pork based salamis, lots of cheeses (so tasty), omelettes, plain yogurt, polenta, delicious vegetable based preserves, pickles, zakuska, various pates, maybe some homemade jams, butter. Think about the Middle Eastern meze to get a picture in your mind. Taste was always important in our cuisine as we don’t do … bland foods. In terms of tea, black tea with lemon and lime tea were the norm and of course coffee.
COFFEE WAS A LUXURY
If you think that coffee was easy to buy think again. Coffee was not easily obtainable and because of that, appreciated and savoured even more whenever we were able to buy some. Because of its scarcity coffee bags were used as bribes when one went to the doctor, when one needed favour from various governmental officials also used as much desired gifts for teachers, family members, friends.
No coffee? No worries! Chicory or chicory and coffee mixtures were available! It never fails to amaze me how advanced was the Communist system in bringing “healthy” food solutions to the people! At the time we thought we were deprived of the best … how wrong I was! 20 years later, here I am in the famous WEST buying chicory coffee jars, expensive and promoted as something very, very special and healthy.
It is all a matter of perspective isn’t it? It is all about the story and how much we trust them,
Chicory was a replacement, something we all got used to and of course the other popular type of coffee was the granulated one called AMIGO. AMIGO was as difficult to buy as the other ones and it was another bribing …. Tool. As there was no other brand competing with it, Amigo was almost synonym with granulated coffee, just as XEROX was for a long time synonym with having a copy of a document.
Traditionally salamis, sausages were very tasty, full of flavour and well … because of the numbers of hours we used to queue to get them the taste seemed even better! The difference between Romanian meat based processed products and the English one is like the moon and the earth. Yes, you got it …. I miss those tastes but I miss the ones from the past and not the new ones.
WHERE IS THE TASTE
Nowadays, we can purchase some Romanian food related products in the town I live in. The prices are high but the taste in 80% of the cases is a disappointment.
Same names of the products on the label but the taste has nothing to do with the one I know.
I wish I understood why? Is it because of the raw ingredients? I think so.
If I compare the flavours of a cooked chicken leg, a slice of pork meat, lamb with the ones of my childhood I cringe. The amount of spices one needs to add nowadays in order to make the meats enjoyable is insane! No wonder so many people become vegetarians 😂
But I digress!
The tea is cold in my mug, it is a new day, and I am going to prepare my breakfast. Hmmm what shall I have …
Until next time, be well!
INSPIRATION CORNER
DRAWING FOR HEALING
