The Food
When masses of Russians would gather, with their differing stories, backgrounds, and advice, one thing would always unite everyone, food. When diluted to a single phrase, Russian foods are greasy, meat containing dishes and assortments of wraps and dumplings containing everything from besides meat, jams, fruits, and chocolate. Almost all of it is bad for you, the word “diet” is not one that is recognizable in the Russian language. I recall that every trip to my grandparents’ was met with a mixture of excitement and dread. The excitement came from an explicable desire to escape the clutch of my parents into the embrace of grandparents’. The dread came from the fact that I knew that I would be fed from the minute I arrived to the minute I left. Regardless of what I was doing, whether it was reading, watching television, or doing work, there was a dish of something edible next to me. I would awaken from naps and in the mornings with a plate of food on my nightstand. When I would drive away from my grandparents’ I would be sent home with several Tupperware containers holding dumplings, cutlets, soups, and a mixture of unidentifiable liquids and meats. I was almost always bursting at my seams, bloated, and waddling from one dining experience to another. Food is an essential component of the Russian lifestyle. Everything is settled at the dinner table. Arguments start, political debates ensue, familial gossip is dispelled, and issues are resolved over multiple courses of soups salads, pork lamb, and cake. The happiest memories from my childhood was when my parents would host large dinners for family and friends. The dishes that were cooked at home were supplemented with the dinners that the guests brought with themselves, and the night would drag late into the night as family and friends mixed, matched, and created memories. It was this nutrition nostalgia which caused me to differentiate between my American and Russian self. It was not necessarily the edible content (Americans are not known for having the healthiest of diets), but it was the events that accompanied the meals which were truly unique. The dinners encompassed everything that I felt made me Russian. There were loud relatives, drunken friends, Stereotypes were perpetuated, and discipline was dished out to the younger members of the meeting. It was here that I felt a rift between being American and being Russian.