There are few places to find oysters in Kyiv, but they're around. And as for the berries at local markets, red or yellow in color, they're all good.
o make sense, since in autumn you’re supposed to want dense rustic dishes (cassoulet, say, or game). But oysters are also a perfect cold-weather food. Eating them involves a series of icily clean tastes and sensory stimuli. You’ve got your shaved ice, and your chilled portion of white wine; and you’ve got the cool slipperiness as the mollusk slides down your throat, its flavors rarefied by the frigid depths from which it was fished.
Where do you find oysters in Kyiv? As with so many seafood items in Ukraine, they’re maddeningly underrepresented. But you can get them. If you’re like me, used to the tiny, metallic-tasting oysters constantly available in New York City, you’ll even be pleasantly surprised by the specimens that you find here, which tend to be fatter and creamier, with a buttery taste.
You can find them at, for example, Simpatic, that gigantic newish food emporium jammed into that overheated mall with all the kids bawling on the escalators.
“Oysters?” the smiling woman behind the seafood counter answered our query.
“Yeah, do you have any more than these?”
There were a mere three or four of the things, and while the hoary sight of them was nice – oysters! In Ukraine! – the situation was still disappointing. What good is such a small handful of oysters? Besides, several of them had opened, which meant they were dead.
“How often do you get new shipments?”
“Don’t know,” came the smiling reply. “Ask the manager.”
He wasn’t around. “How long do they live after delivery?”
Another bright smile: “Until they die.”
Furshet also sells oysters. Like Sympatic, it scatters a couple as an afterthought out on the shaved ice next to the salmon steaks, the crayfish and sudak. Again, there were just a few of them.
It’s kind of disappointing to say this – it would be nice if they solution weren’t so obvious – but the place to get oysters, in the end, is Bessarabsky Market. Talk to the people at the main fish counter near the Market’s south entrance, right there where those big sturgeon are floating around in that murky tank, all snaggle-toothed and funky.
Apparently, shipments get sent in once or twice a week, and the specimens, which are quite big, cost around Hr 15 each. Unlike most everything else in this country, oysters are not going to be cheap. On the other hand, on two separate occasions, all of the Market’s oysters were closed tight as drums – that is, alive. Talk to the guy if you need oysters in bulk. He’s friendly.
If you don’t want to go to the trouble of shucking your own oysters, you can always drop by Marche, one of my favorite upscale downtown restaurants. A half dozen well-sized oysters on the half-shell will set you back Hr 144. Ask for the driest white wine they’ve got, making sure it isn’t the so-called Chablis by the glass, which isn’t only way too expensive, but doesn’t have that flinty, stony taste it ought to.
Berry Good, Sir
Fall brings two crucial berries to readiness: the kalina (guelder rose) and the oblepikha (sea buckthorn). The former grows in jolly red clusters, and is one of Ukraine’s folk symbols; the latter is the dark yellow or orange one with the sweet-sour taste, and that grows on those spiny branches.
Both have applications in peasant medicine. Oblepikha is rich in pectin, vitamins, fatty acids, minerals, and other good things. It’s strong against heart disease, cancer, radiation poisoning, circulatory disorders and liver problems, and is a good anti-inflammatory.
Tincture and tea of kalina, meanwhile, is considered good for nervous complaints, lockjaw, rheumatism, spasms, convulsions and other illnesses no one really gets anymore.
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| Red kalina and yellow oblepikha berries are now in season. (Post photo byValdemar Gorlushko) |
As far as eating goes, oblepikha makes a nice preserve, and is excellent as a garnish for rich meats, or as a sauce for them: veal, duck, venison, pork. Use it in lieu of whatever fruit sauce with which you usually serve game meat. You can get a whole bunch at Lukyanisky Market right now for no more than a couple of hryvnas.
Cooks will find kalina a good substitute for cranberries, and, just like oblepikha, it’s a great substitute in fruit-game pairings. Lingonberries be gone.
