Perhaps owing to the imminent commencement of the World Cup the Irish pub around the corner from our school asked for their food menu to be translated into English by the competent teachers that work with me. Hereupon I was summoned to assist. This was interesting for me as, if you are an avid reader of this here blog, you will know that I have become obsessed by food just through my sheer annoyance at not being able to eat Sainsbury's finest humous and olives every day.... I mean c'mon, we're in the vastly expanding Capitalist, uh, capital of Siberia, what do you mean there's no Tesco? Actually, my obsession derives from something a lot more sinister than simply a lack of a well-known celebrity-endorsed chain superstore; pure starvation. Oh how I long for a slice of pizza whose taste does not linger in my mouth for a whole two days after I have eaten it....

Anyway, see how I digress at the mere thought of food. So, the most interesting aspect of assisting in the translation was that I got to see how restaurants actually make their food sound appealing to the Russians in their own language.... a mean feat if any restaurant is to survive, surely.... The answer? They don't. For this is the difference between our two fair cultures. The Russians don't lie, they just say what they see. Ok here's one example: 'pork lard' .... I explained to my colleague that although this is, technically what pork scratchings are, no you can't put the word lard on a menu and expect people to buy it – especially an American, you take another completely unrelated word and put it in Lard's place, thus we have 'scratchings'. Similarly with Pork Neck... you don't want to know that you're eating a neck!!! NO! That's just wrong....

So it was my job to turn all these unappealing delicacies into dishes that would tempt even the weariest of travellers, as they pop in for a quick bite and a pint of Harp fresh off the Aeroflot flight and in need of a brandy to calm their nerves, with nothing to aide me besides the Great English Language that we all know and love..... I only hope that one of those darn Americans, who love so much to sue the asses off everyone they meet, don't stop by and order the 'finest selection of succulent meats' only to discover that they have just chewed into a dog testical!

OK just one more anecdote about food, and tomorrow I will change the subject (I am sitting in my room and the waft of freshly cooked fish is reassuring me that tonight I will be fed like a queen because my Russian host is cooking. Alas she doesn't cook very often but when she does it's only the finest fare that roubles can buy, and she probably spends about a month of my salary on one fish...) Ok so I'm Johnny Foreigner and I don't have much money to be extravagant when it comes to my shopping, but I go to the best supermarket in town where even the Oligars do their weekly shop so why can't I find good food? These people keep telling me that Russian food is the best in the world but where are they hiding it? Distressed, I asked a colleague (she's a family woman, so surely she wants her children to grow up healthy and wouldn't dream of feeding them bad food) 'what brand of pilmeni shall I buy, which is the best?' says I. She has a joke with one of the other girls in Russian and I enquire what's been said, 'ah we were just laughing because there used to be a really good brand but now they put dog meat in their products' she says smiling. First of all, is that funny? And second of all, if I hear one more comment about dog meat I shall cry.... I'm just thinking what horrors I must have inflicted on my poor body these past 4 months.... I'm sorry, insides, for making you digest the meat of stray dogs....

So I just don't get it, the food is bad, they know it's bad, they continue to buy it (perhaps in the vain hope that one day it will improve, perhaps because they have no other choice?) and continue to delude themselves that it's the best food in the world. I suggested that they write a letter to the Pilmeni company demanding that they improve their products or maybe just stop buying it as a protest... They look at me wearily and tell me that the days of revolutions are over, people are tired of revolutions...I didn't think that expecting high standards was a revolutionary act but who am I to comment, I'll never understand, our worlds are so distantly apart....bizarre..... and it's not just with food that they have this strange mentality.... but that's another story for another time when the light is fading and there's a plentiful supply of red wine at hand...... Until tomorrow, dreamers..