communism Archives

Poisoned Cake

On June 28, 2019

A home-baked cake in a baking pan lined with parchment paper.

As far as my parents were concerned, this could be poisoned cake …
(Image courtesy of Anna Wlodarczyk on Unsplash)

Poisoned cake was a grave danger of which my parents warned me early on. As soon as I could talk in proper sentences, they told me that a neighbor might offer me a piece. Refusing any food that anyone outside the family suggested I should eat was one of the big rules of my childhood. My parents offered no explanation as to why someone might put poison in a cake and offer it to children. Their anxiety claimed my blind trust. They fed me their own fears.

The baker of poisoned cake could only be a woman. In the world of my childhood, men didn’t bake cakes. On week days, Bulgarian men went to the jobs that the communist government had assigned to them. On week-ends, they smoked Bulgarian tobacco and gathered to work on each other’s Soviet-made cars. Clouds of smoke enveloped both humans and vehicles. I often wondered who or what exactly chained-puffed on the cigarettes: the men or their cars. Cooking in general, and specifically baking, was a female task. Therefore only a woman could come up with the idea of making poisoned cake.

Reading Anya von Bremzen’s Mastering the Art of Soviet Cooking

By Penwhisk

On March 29, 2018

In Books

Fountain Druzhba Narodov in Moscow
Image courtesy of John McNickname on Flickr

On a walk in the woods, my dear, thoughtful neighbor recommended Anya von Bremzen’s Mastering the Art of Soviet Cooking. A friend of hers, who was not really a reader, raved about the book, and my neighbor was pleased to confirm that the tip was right on. With my curiosity piqued by a piece of reading advice from a person who doesn’t easily yield to the pleasure of spending long hours with books, I rushed to the library and checked out von Bremzen’s book. Over the week-end, I couldn’t put Mastering the Art of Soviet Cooking down until I flipped its very last page. It was like meeting someone new and immediately clicking with that person, wanting to find out everything about him or her, and being in awe with every single detail. Or running into a friend whom I hadn’t seen for ages and quickly recognizing how much I enjoyed their presence, cancelling my mid-afternoon obligations in the blink of an eye, and sitting down for an engrossing conversation over a delicious cup of tea and freshly baked Italian plum cake. Does this sound like an indulgence? Well, it really is the best possible kind I could think of.

Sugar Cookies

By Penwhisk

On March 22, 2018

In Journeys

Image courtesy of Austin Ban on Unsplash

The Bulgarian communist production system had its own version of the 1970s sugar cookie. The sugar cookies of my childhood came in a clear plastic bag with blue and red letters in the Cyrillic alphabet, which said something about zoo animals. I’m certain that there was a hippopotamus and a monkey, maybe even a giraffe and a kangaroo. The rest of the animal shapes I don’t remember. Despite being a fan of these cookies, I have no recollection of their taste. I enjoyed holding them in my tiny hands and running my finger over their surface to feel the texture. The animal shape was the sole effort to appeal to the consumer that the communist centrally planned production system made. The cookies had a neutral scent and the pale color of slightly under-cooked dough didn’t tempt me. My goal was to get hold of as many cookies as possible so that I could arrange them and keep them away from my brother, who was known to devour anything, regardless of its taste.

Milk

By Penwhisk

On March 7, 2018

In Plenty

Image courtesy of Josua De on Unsplash.

At every breakfast I had as a child in Koprivshtitsa, my grandparents insisted that I had my cup full of milk. The milk came directly from the barn of one of my grandmother’s close acquaintances. It was unpasteurized and non-homogenized, and my grandparents boiled it twice to minimize the risk of getting sick. No communist factory had messed this milk up. It had not been watered down or processed to kill contamination. Neither had it been forced through tubes, poured into dull-looking plastic packaging and sealed shut, so that a grumpy seller could slam down this product of the communist economy in front of a customer, addressing him or her as “comrade.” A comrade who might as well have been number 57 in line. Five more customers served and the rest of the comrades waiting would be turned away to head home empty-handed.

Forest Wild Strawberries

By Penwhisk

On February 23, 2018

In Politics

Image courtesy of Niilo Isotalo on Unsplash

One of my earliest memories is of my grandfather taking me to pick wild strawberries in the surroundings of Koprivshtitsa, a town of some 2,000 inhabitants in the Sredna Gora mountains. We would set out in the morning before the sun had a chance to turn hot, cross the stream on the outskirts of town, from which our household fetched its daily supply of water, and head through the open fields in the direction of the forest. Leaving pastures with grazing cows behind, we soon disappeared under the shady trees, looking for a spot that other strawberry pickers had not discovered yet.

Banitza

By Penwhisk

On February 9, 2018

In Journeys

Image courtesy of Caroline Attwood on Unsplash

Banitza, thin sheets of rolled out pastry filled with a mixture of eggs and crumbled feta cheese, was one of my grandmother’s specialty dishes, which I vividly remember. I see my grandmother carefully walking down the steps from her kitchen on the very top floor, holding in her hands firmly but tenderly a baking pan, covered with a thin cotton cloth. Underneath was her banitza, a cloud of powdered sugar, set on flaky pastry, which was delicate as egg shells in shades of buttery yellow and darker browns. Where the shell had cracked, I glimpsed silky filling of feta cheese and egg yolk. My eyes savored the banitza, while I had a distinct sense that it was not baked just to be eaten.

Food with a Slice of History

Tag: communism

Poisoned Cake

Reading Anya von Bremzen’s Mastering the Art of Soviet Cooking

Sugar Cookies

Milk

Forest Wild Strawberries

Banitza