Russian Language Blog

You might be getting ready to celebrate католическая Пасха (Catholic Easter) this Sunday in which case you are probably too busy to read a long-winded post. So let’s keep it short and sweet. Let’s talk about конфеты (candies).

What are some of the Russian alternatives for the candies you usually buy around Easter holiday? (If you don’t like candies, then may I interest you in other Russian sweets?)

Let’s begin with the traditional драже (dragee). The word драже might sound similar to дрожать (to tremble). Sure, a little сладкоежка (someone with a sweet tooth) might indeed дрожать от нетерпения (tingle with impatience) at the sight of this candy while his parents might содрогаться (shudder) at the damage sugar does to their child’s teeth. However, the words are not related.

Драже is just a generic name for a small roundish candy, such as M&Ms, Jelly Beans, chocolate covered almonds or multi-colored glazed raisins known as морские камушки (sea pebbles). Just as Jelly Beans or Skittles, драже do not come individually wrapped into обёртки (wrappers). Which is a major time saver.

Next up is леденцы (sugar candy) which can be на палочке (on a stick) or not. Some are made as драже, but they usually end up sticking together into a shapeless blob and are best avoided. For some reason, леденцы на палочке look especially irresistible to children (and even some adults). Maybe that explains the other use of the phrase на палочке. When in Russia, try to find and enjoy traditional леденцы на палочке (sugar candy on a stick), for example a translucent red петушок на палочке (rooster on a stick).

Another word for леденец is карамель. Well, at least it’s the candy industry term for леденец. But when we talk about карамельки, we usually think of candy that’s made with melted sugar and molasses. Oh, and it usually has some kind of начинка (filling) inside, including fruit-, berries-, cream- and liqueur-based ones. And it’s never on a stick. And it’s always shaped like a батончик (short thick stick). So it’s pretty much nothing like леденец in my book. Карамельки (little caramel candies) are usually individually wrapped in colorful фантики (wrappers).

By the way, these simple paper wrappers became the gateway into the world of коллекционирование (collecting) for many children.

Another type of карамель is ирис (taffy). Do not confuse it with the flower ирис even though the candy got its name after this beautiful flower. Чем старше мы становимся, тем меньше нам хочется ириски (The older we get, the less we want to have taffy). This stuff will pull your коронки (dental crowns) right off, I tell you!

Finally, let’s talk about шоколадные конфеты (chocolate candies) or шоколадки (chocolates). There are so many to choose from! First, there are шоколадки с начинкой (filled chocolates), such as пралине (pralines), chocolates filled with fruits or liquor, or light crispy вафли (waffles) covered in chocolate. Each chocolate candy is wrapped in a beautiful wrapper, sometimes two or three (an inner wax paper one, a middle foil one and an outer one with a picture or a design).

Then there are наборы конфет (boxes of chocolates) of all shapes and sizes. Russians buy them as small gifts (yes, even if a box is a giant lavishly decorated one), tokens of appreciations, so to speak. But here’s a hint: if you prefer substance over looks, have a discerning taste, and don’t care for the “life is like a box of chocolates” spiel,  forgo the flashy oversized boxes of pralines for a modest box of Птичье молоко (lit: Bird’s Milk). Don’t aim for looks, but do make sure to check whether it’s fresh. The delicate mousse inside these chocolate-glazed candies won’t spoil, but it will crystallize which will affect the taste.

And that’s it for today.

One more note – if you plan to visit your local Russian grocery store and buy some candies, read the wrappers first. Here are the proper names of some of the most popular and most nostalgia-inducing candies – Ласточка, Мишка на Севере, Красная Шапочка, Грильяж в шоколаде, Кара-Кум, Коровка, Белочка. If the name on the wrapper sounds close, but not quite the same, it means that the manufacturer most likely did not follow the original recipe or quality standards. Also, get familiar with what the images on the classic candy wrappers should look like. If the name matches, but the image is not the same, it’s a подделка (fake).

Finally, buy extra candies and invite your Russian friend for дегустация (tasting). Your friend will surely let you know how the candies you bought measure up to the classics of his/her youth.

The New Year is не за горами (not far away). Have you put together your holiday menu? If not yet, then how about having сладкий (sweet) стол (table)? Don’t worry, you won’t need to perform miracles of confectionery mastery crafting a table out of sugar or covering your tabletop with ganache. What сладкий стол means is a holiday meal that consists only of сладкое (sweets) and десерты (desserts) and most of them can be bought at a Russian store near you!

Do you love sweets? Then let’s learn a great Russian word for someone who is падкий на сладости (a sucker for sweets):

сладкоежка

As you can see, this is a compound noun made up of сладкий (sweet) and ешь (a form of the Russian verb “to eat”).

Russian dessert table is somewhat similar to a regular застолье (a feast). It will have lots and lots of little appetizers, a main course and even its own dessert. Except it will all be served at the same time. How awesome is that?! Here are some of the sweets you might be offered.

Шоколад (chocolate) - As with any other candy, Russians have a bewildering variety of chocolates and somewhat of an unwritten rule about which kind to serve when. For example, small шоколадные конфеты (chocolate candies) individually wrapped in colorful фантики (candy wrappers) are usually reserved for children or small gatherings with close friends. But chocolates filled with liquor are exempt from this rule.

If there are chocolates on the “sweet table”, they are most likely to be a part of шоколадный набор (box of chocolates). The boxes the chocolates come in are gorgeous and the chocolates are not bad either, especially the so-called птичье молоко (souffle in dark chocolate; lit: bird’s milk).

Пряники – usually translated as gingerbread or spice cakes, these are delicious, whether made with мёд (honey) or патока (molasses). I never tasted any имбирь (ginger) or специи (spices) in any of the commercially made ones though.

Сухарики – these look like biscotti, but are much much better. They usually are vanilla flavored and might have some изюм (raisins) in them. Dunk them in your tea, if you wish. Or put some варенье (preserves) on them and start making loud crunching sounds. For these reasons, not to mention lots of crumbs, сухарики are not served at more formal occasions. Pitty.

Печенье – this can mean anything from scones to crackers to cookies. Печенье is usually unglazed, crumbly, soft and delicious. It is a a subset of выпечка (baked goods) which include anything that is sweet and baked.

Пирожное (pastry) – these can mean just about any kind of sweet pastry. Some of my favorite пирожные include Картошка (potato-shaped sweets made with crushed печенье mixed with cocoa powder, butter and condensed milk), трубочки (little horns of puff pastry with meringue filling), and Орешки (dough nuggets filled with condensed milk). Do not confuse пирожные with пирожки which might or might not be sweet.

Other sweets you might encounter include

Цукаты – candied citrus or watermelon peels, usually home-made.
Халва (halva) – usually, a flour-based sweet and crumbly confection.
Зефир – a jellied meringue, sometimes dipped in chocolate. When fresh, it tastes better than it sounds.
Козинаки – small dense candies made entirely of pressed walnuts or sunflower seeds with honey. They spell death to your dental work, but what a delicious death it is!

All these goodies are usually served on attractive plates and in вазочки. Вазочка is, of course, a diminutive of ваза (a vase). Which might sound confusing. How (and why) do you serve cookies in a vase? But in Russia, вазочка is a small deep but wide serving dish, frequently made of etched glass. Hence the oft-used phrase

Передайте, пожалуйста, вазочку с вареньем – Please, pass me the the little vase with the preserves.

Don’t forget, these are just appetizers! Time to move on to the main course. At the “sweet table” it will be торт (layered cake) or пирог (fruit pie). Or both. Пирог is more casual and comforting. So for the New Year’s торт is usually served. Russians in the US like serving чизкейк also known by its less sexy name as творожный пудинг (cheesecake).

But don’t buy into this fad. You can have cheesecake any other time. For a truly Russian сладкий стол serve something traditional – Королевский торт (Royal cake), Киевский торт (Kiev cake), медовик (honey cake) or the amazing Наполеон (Napoleon cake). It will all be delicious many-layered goodness with (usually) heavy butter and condensed milk frosting and lots of nuts.

Afterwards, you might want to nibble on the dessert part of this dessert table – фрукты (fruits). But just nibble or the hostess, thinking that you might still be hungry, will offer you yet another piece of cake.

Ещё кусочек тортика? – Would you like another slice of cake?

Desserts mean чаепитие (a tea party), so expect lots of чай (tea) phrases like

Вы будете чай или кофе? – Will you be drinking tea or coffee?
Какой чай вы предпочитаете? – What kind of tea do you prefer?
Ещё чашечку? – More tea (or coffee)?
Вам чай с мёдом или сахаром? – Will you drink your tea with honey or sugar?

Unless it’s a children’s party, you will also be offered что-то покрепче (something a bit stronger) than tea, сок (juice) or лимонад (fizzy lemonade). Vodka is viewed as a universal pairing by some eager hosts. But generally, for a “sweet table”, you’ll have a choice of шампанское (sparking wine), вино (wine) and коньяк (cognac). Oh, plus whatever liquor is in the chocolate candies.

And now you know what to expect in case you are invited to a New Year’s celebration and your Russian host tells you (somewhat apologetically) that it won’t be a big affair, just a сладкий стол. Съем, пожалуй, ещё кусочек тортика, но с завтрашнего дня – в спорзал и на диету. (I’ll have another slice of cake after all, but starting tomorrow I’ll go to a gym and start dieting).

Image source:  Frame forum

In this video post, I’m gonna play “Julia Child” and walk you through the recipe for one of my favorite Russian hors d’oeurves — баклажанная икра, or “eggplant caviar,” which is essentially a chunky version of Middle Eastern babaganoush. In fact, the word баклажан (“eggplant; aubergine”) is itself from the Middle East, and was borrowed into Russian by way of Turkish. As you can guess from their name, Russian “vegetable caviars” are very popular as a frugal alternative to the Real Thing, whether they’re made from eggplant, тыква (“squash”), грибы (“mushrooms”), or whatever. (There are many variants.)

In fact, if you remember my post from a couple months ago about the Soviet comedy «Иван Васильевич меняет профессию», there’s actually a pretty funny joke during the big banquet scene about the cost of баклажанная икра versus beluga caviar!

So, on with the recipe:

Всего я снял больше двадцати пяти минут кадров (“I recorded more than 25 minutes of footage”), but in order to keep the finished video at a reasonable length, I had to cut a lot out! So, to begin with, here are some additional comments I had about the recipe:

I used one large баклажан (“eggplant”) weighing around полтора фунта (“a pound-and-a-half”, or 600-700 g) — but you can use several smaller eggplants. Also, I decided to use большая горсточка (“a large handful”) of little-bitty grape tomatoes, but you could instead use one large помидор (“tomato”). And my version calls for a generous quantity of сырой чеснок (“raw garlic”)… something like five cloves. In my personal philosophy, it’s impossible to have слишком много чеснока (“too much garlic”) — it’s like being слишком богатый или слишком красивый; there’s no such thing. On the other hand, a lot of traditional Russian recipes use чеснок in parts-per-trillion quantities that are only detectable by gas-chromatography. So if you want your recipe to be a bit more authentic, you can add much less garlic than I did!

And speaking of traditional recipes, my version was loosely adapted from this mammoth 1960 volume for Soviet housewives, which I found years ago in a used bookstore:

The 870-page «Книга полезных советов», or Book of Useful Advice(s), is a wonderfully absorbing read as a sort of “period artifact” — though to be frank, I think they were maybe slightly over-optimistic on the полезный part! For example, it includes over 180 pages of recipes, but most of them are so hilariously lacking in detail that if you didn’t already know the basic steps for making “eggplant caviar” or cranberry preserves or sweet yeast dough, you’d be totally lost. I mean, their recipe for homemade томатный соус is basically:

1. Peel tomatoes and chop a small onion
2. Stew tomatoes and onion in saucepan until they’re done
3. Whatever you do, FOR GOD’S SAKE DO NOT ADD ANY GARLIC!!
4. Serve with macaroni or rice

(Okay, maybe I made up #3.)

Some key vocabulary:

The verb (ис)печь (perfective (испечь) basically means “to bake in an oven,” but usually in reference to things NOT made with flour. It conjugates:

(ис)печь, (ис)пеку, (ис)печёшь; (ис)пёк, (ис)пекла

On the other hand, when you’re talking about “things made with flour” (bread, cakes, pies, cookies, etc.), you would generally use the verb pair выпекать/выпечь. The perfective conjugates just like (ис)печь (except that the stress is fixed on the вы-), while the imperfective is я выпекаю, ты выпекаешь, etc.

The root verb жарить, (я жарю, ты жаришь) is used in this recipe with the meaning “to fry in a skillet with oil/butter”, but elsewhere it can signify “to roast (meat) in an oven”. The “neutral” perfective form can be prefixed either with за- or из-), but in the video I also use the perfective поджарить, which means “to saute until golden brown” or “to toast” Thus, поджаренный хлеб is “toast” — not to be confused with тост, which is when you do the l’chayim! thing. And you’ll also hear me use the construction пока не поджарится — which is translatable as “until it’s golden-brown,” but more literally means “while it shall not have been toasted.” (This kind of construction with “пока не + [perfective future] ” is often the best way to render the English “until so-and-so happens”.)

When you’re talking about chopping onions and whatnot, you’d generally use the verb pair нарезать/нарезать, which differ in conjugation as well as stress. The imperfective is я нарезаю, ты нарезаешь…, while the perfective is я нарежу, ты нарежешь…

And, finally, a few nouns that you’ll hear in this recipe are печка (“oven”), сковорода (“skillet, frying pan”), and противень (a flat “baking sheet” or “cookie sheet”).