L is for Latvia

L is for Latvia

Hey there, kids! It’s time for another step along this path of culinary delights, and today it’s time to pay a visit to the land of the L’s. This is an interesting little group, not blessed with any classic gastro heavyweights, but nevertheless putting a couple of interesting fellas up for nomination. Looking at the 9-strong gaggle, I suppose Lebanon would be the obvious choice in terms of tried-and-tested tastiness. Any mention of Lebanese food sends me crashing back to my days at Newcastle University, when I quite literally stumbled across an oddly placed restaurant on my way out of one of the city’s less salubrious establishments, ‘Blu Bambu’ (purveyors of their own specially brewed, alarmingly blue, top notch alcopop, I might add). Lebanese grub is full of chickpeas, herbs, tomatoes, aubergines, eggs, bread - basically my weekly shopping list - but this being a challenge, I decided not to opt for the obvious. Laos, Liberia, Luxembourg…what to do?? Well, as it happens, there is only one country beginning with L that I’ve actually properly visited, so really, there was no getting around it: guys, grab a bottle of vodka ‘cos we are off to Latvia!

The carrots before the fateful addition of honey

Why have I been to Latvia? It’s a good question. This little Baltic nation is not exactly Europe’s number 1 travel destination (unless you are a British or German stag party) and I can’t say I had ever had a burning desire to go there. However, faced with the prospect of hanging around for a bank holiday weekend in less-than-thrilling small town Lower Saxony, my year abroad partner in crime and I decided to book the cheapest and most convenient flight we could find (oh, the follies of youth) and take ourselves off on a little adventure. Lo and behold, Riga was an absolute bargain and, after figuring out where it actually is, we were off. I won’t bore you with the details, but it’s fair to say that Sarah (the aforementioned partner in crime and all-round superhuman) and I spent approximately 90% of our time in Riga utterly perplexed, starting from the moment we got onto the bus into the city centre and were, errrm, ‘gently encouraged’ to hand over an unknown quantity of Lats to an old dear who may or may not have worked for the bus company.

Our experience of Latvian food back in 2008 was…hmm, how to describe it? Interesting is perhaps the best word: most of the time, we weren’t too sure what we were putting into our systems, except that there was a whole lot of garlic in it. When we reminisce about this truly weird and wonderful trip, Sarah and I always come to the conclusion that our lasting memory of Riga will be of garlic, in every shape and form imaginable. Delicious it may have been, but it certainly did not bode well for the trip back in a hot, sealed metal container filled with about another 100 people who had also eaten nothing but garlic for 3 days solid. The poor airline staff.

Rye pastry fun

Despite our personal memories of the food, Latvian cuisine does have a little more to offer the inquisitive visitor. As you’d expect, traditional Latvian dishes aren’t exactly a myriad of colour – they tend to rest firmly within the appetising spectrum of beiges and greys so common of Northern European cooking, with the odd violent splash of beetroot pink. In fact, the quasi national dish is ‘pelēkie zirņi ar speķi’ which translates as the spectacularly uninviting ‘grey peas and speck’. Speaking of speck, if you’re heading up to Latvia for, you know, a romantic getaway in the former Soviet Union, prepare yourself for gargantuan amounts of pork. Latvia not being the richest of lands, they are all about making the most of what they’ve got, which means that these guys were doing nose-to-tail eating before any trendy London types jumped on the meaty bandwagon. A fine example of this would be ‘grūdenis’, a tasty stew of pearl barley (yep, that beige classic), peas and, ohhhh, just a little pig’s head, floating around in chunks in your otherwise pretty normal stew. Other porky favourites include ‘Kupāti’ (very inoffensive pork sausages) and ‘galerts’ (wildly offensive pork hocks in aspic). Another thing which the Latvians are quite fond of, apparently, is mushrooms. If the internet is to be believed, come autumn, the whole country pulls on their wellies and yomps out into the wilderness to pick wild mushrooms. Hardly surprising when there’s a bounty of 4100 different species out there up for grabs. Unfortunately, it would seem that mushroom picking in Latvia is something of a Russian roulette, given that about a quarter of them are going to give you a very sore tummy indeed.

The two layers of the 'sklandrausis': potato and carrot

When it came to finding a dish to cook, I was happy to see that ‘pelmeni’ are consumed with gusto in little Latvia. If you have never tried these amazing little dumplings, I urge you to hunt them down – with a dollop of sour cream, they are the stuff of dreamskis! Sadly for me (and my guinea pigs for the week, my dear family), ‘pelmeni’ are the brainchild of Latvia’s ginormous neighbour, Russia, so they were off the menu quicker than you can say perestroika! So, I found myself writing a shopping list of the ingredients for ‘sklandrausis’, a semi-sweet pie made of rye pastry and filled with carrots and potato. Interestingly, in 2013, the European Commission gave this Baltic bake the ‘Traditional Specialty Guaranteed’ designation, putting it up there in the same league as ‘prosciutto Toscano’, ‘Lübecker Marzipan’ and ‘Waterford blaas’ (the famous!). The name ‘sklandrausis’ can be broken down into the words ‘skland’ and ‘rausis’. The latter, meaning ‘pie’, is derived from the verb for ‘to rake over or strew’, which suggests they were traditionally baked by raking hot ash or coals over them. ‘Sklanda’¸ I’m reliably informed, is an ancient word that means ‘fence-post’ or ‘slope’, which is probably a nod to the upturned edges of the pie crust. I’ll say this though, mine didn’t look a jot like any fence I’ve ever seen.

The pies themselves are certainly not difficult to make, but I was very mistrusting of the addition of honey into the carrot mixture, given the overwhelming savouriness of the rest of the components. This scepticism transpired to be well-founded, as the resulting pies had a slightly displeasing sweet aftertaste, much to the disdain of my sister, who lives life by the motto that sweet and savoury categorically do not belong in the same dish. As for the rest, I’m a fan of rye in most forms, but in a pastry mixture without lashings of butter, it ended up being quite tough. However, that could very well have been down to my heavy-handed kneading. For my guinea pig family, the ‘sklandrausis’ lacked a certain oomph in the flavour department (apart from the above mentioned strange sweetness), but it has to be said that they tasted better after a day or two in the fridge…reheated with a bit of grated cheese on top – soz, Latvia!! Of all the dishes I’ve cooked so far, these have been my least favourite. They were by no means horrible, but they weren’t a knockout like some of the previous things I’ve whipped up. That said, Latvia is a country full of – mostly garlicky - delights… even if you do end up repelling anyone with a sense of smell for about a week after your visit!

The final product!