(no subject)

[fiachasorcha.livejournal.com]

I just wanted to thank everyone, I'm pretty sure that it's Zapekanka. Which is good because it's my absolute favorite food I've had since I've come to russia and would be rather sad if I couldn't make it when I got back home.

Now another food related question. Smetana (I apologize for my lack of cyrillic, but I haven't quite figured out the computers here). It's translated as sour cream in english. But it would appear that quite a few different foods are translated into the same phrase (sour cream) that have little or nothing in common apart from being dairy products. Are there more ways to translate them? Or am I over simplifying by calling it all smetana?

Comments

[oryx_and_crake]

bur smetana and tvorog seemingly did not
---
I see them in supermarket every day, both under English names (sour cream and cottage cheese respectively) and Russian or Slavic (e.g. "Polski Twarog").

[the-kot.livejournal.com]

Cottage cheese is not exactly tvorog, wich is much more dry.

[oryx_and_crake]

There are different kinds of cottage cheese, and some of them are very close to tvorog we are used to.

[the-kot.livejournal.com]

Oh well... As you wish. Those I've found here (Israel) are quite far from being the "tvorog we are used to." Apparently, in States the situation is different.

[wolk-off.livejournal.com]

You have forgotten their taste, then. Smetana and sour cream are two different dairy products, and so are tvorog and cottage cheese. Smetana has no direct counterpart in Western cuisine, it is an Easter-European speciality. It is heavier and sweeter than sour cream. They have smetana in Estonia (hapukoor) and even in Germany (Schmend), as well as in most Slavic countries (it is pavlaka in Montenegro and Serbia, kwaśna śmietana in Poland, while in Croatia it is vrhnje.) Croatian vrhnje is consumed in a mix with sir, which is kind of cottage cheese.
Now to tvorog. Polski twaróg is not the thnig we call tvorog in Russia: it basically is qark, or kvarg, that is called also Topfen in Austria, or "Bulgarian cheese" in Israel, and is really closer to young soft cheese than to Russian tvorog, which is drier and far more grainy. The only kind of kvarg which is close to the real Russian tvorog is Lithuanian. I have tasted most of them (except the Israely variety,) so I can witness that Polish twaróg is different from Russian tvorog :)

[oryx_and_crake]

Well, if you are ever in Canada, I'll give you the local brands of sour cream and cottage cheese to try. Before that this discussion is more or less groundless.

[wolk-off.livejournal.com]

All right. I can add that I have tried most versions of what is called tvorog in Russian food stores in Seattle, New York, and San Francisco. They all were different, but equally far from real Russian tvorog - much closer to polski twaróg, in the best case.

[upthera44.livejournal.com]

+1

In my experience Russian smetana is quite different from American commercial sour cream. It has a different taste and consistency. Like wolk_off said, I think it was sweeter for sure. I wouldn't want to put American sour cream on blinii really, it wouldn't be the same. Also, my host family prepared tvorog with fruit for me every morning in Novgorod. This was my absolute favorite food that I encountered in Russia and I really hoped to find it here. But when I bought some tvorog at a Russian grocery, it was quite different. The "real" tvorog I encountered was much drier and more crumbling and sweeter, and really had almost nothing in common whatsoever with cottage cheese.

[spiritrc.livejournal.com]

I must say, regardless of what wolk_off thinks, that two absolutely genuine samples of Russian творог may taste absolutely different. One may taste more sour and dry, another may taste sweeter and more wet. That all depends on too many circumstances. There is a ГОСТ for творог, but it doesn't make real Russian творог home-made in different villages taste identical.

You may have liked some specific brand of factory-made творог that you host family prefers. However, without knowing the brand, you'll probably be disappointed even if buying another Russian творог in a Russian store in Russia.

to wolk_off: do you remember the old-time Soviet творог in "кишка" ? Was it dry and grainy? ;-) Still it was a творог.

[upthera44.livejournal.com]

fair enough

[wolk-off.livejournal.com]

The old-time Soviet tvorog in a bowel is not with us anymore, I daresay, as is the old-time Soviet substance known under the name of "coffee with milk" (do you remember that strong, unforgettable smell of burnt cloth?). Neither are with us that hellish mixture of unfiltered technical alcohol, saccharine, grape essence and some deadly chemical called flavor stabilizer, known in the dear old Soviet times as "Porto wine" (more specifically, "Портвейн 777",) and that dear old sweet frozen substance made from water, powdered milk, fruit leftovers turned into a "syrup" and, again, saccharine, known in the dear old unforgettable Soviet times as "мороженое фруктовое за семь копеек" (seven-copeck-a-portion fruit ice cream.) And you know what? I do not mourn any of them, including that semi-liquid thing in a plastic bowel that some weirdos pronounced tvorog :)

[spiritrc.livejournal.com]

Well, you're wrong about most things that you consider to be gone.
At least the "semi-liquid thing in a plastic bowel" is still with us. I can't remember the brand, but it's available from my local store in Belyaevo, Moscow, Russia. :) And you know what? It's still called "творог".

Портвейн 777 (also known as "3 топора") must really be gone, but "мороженное фруктовое за сем копеек" is still with us, although it's not "за семь копеек" anymore and isn't in a paper cup. There are very similar samples of ice cream existing now.

[wolk-off.livejournal.com]

Well, it's then all gone from my level of consumption, I guess, as well as Zhigulyovskoe beer and Buratino lemonade :) If some paste from processed milk, powdered eggshells and fructose is still called tvorog by some shameless producer of cheap unhealthy food, it still cannot mean that this disgusting stuff IS tvorog, exactly the way that calling some poisonous artificial booze "Porto wine" still does not make this disgusting stuff Porto wine.

[spiritrc.livejournal.com]

What I'm trying to tell you is that "the tvorog" is not necessarily dry, grainy and sour. It depends on many factors. Personally, I hate dry grainy sour tvorog and like sweeter variants. They, for example, may be produced from the dry version by adding some milk. I prefer, though, to buy tvorog that isn't dry originally.

[wolk-off.livejournal.com]

I know. It simply isn't tvorog per se, it's творожная масса. Like Croatian "vrhnje s sirom" (barely distinguishable from smetana mixed with tvorog.)

[spiritrc.livejournal.com]

Ok, I see I can't persuade you in that other variants of tvorog are indeed tvorog and nothing else.
Let me keep my opinion and you keep yours if you want. I think we're not going to start a holy war around tvorog flavours, are we?

[wolk-off.livejournal.com]

No problem. Go ahead eating the Soviet stuff in plastic bowels :)