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A Supermarket In Estonia: The Best Sort Of Eastward Expansion

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  • A Supermarket In Estonia: The Best Sort Of Eastward Expansion

    A SUPERMARKET IN ESTONIA: THE BEST SORT OF EASTWARD EXPANSION

    The Economist
    Dec 25 2009

    FOOD in Europe's ex-communist countries has an undeservedly bad
    reputation: stodgy peasant fare ruined by the culinary commissars of
    the planned economy. Your columnist has long disagreed, but proof is
    needed. So, on a recent visit to a supermarket in Tallinn, Estonia's
    capital, he set out to construct a winter picnic entirely from local
    ingredients.

    The basis was easy: black bread, pungent and tasty. It makes loaves
    from the west and south of Europe seem bland and boring. So into the
    shopping basket went four or five different varieties, with different
    features: seeds, rye, crunchy and chewy by turns.

    Alamy

    Aisle be thereThe mainstay of the picnic was pricey at â~B¬15 ($22),
    but succulent--a smoked salami from Lithuania. Accompanying it in
    the shopping basket were a gourmet smoked cheese from Estonia, a
    tin of smoked sprats (Latvia), Polish pickled mushrooms, plus Czech
    horseradish and Hungarian hot peppers. Who says eastern Europe is a
    vitamin-free zone? For dessert, Polish "chocolate plums" from the
    SolidarnoÅ~[Ä~G confectionery works are a fine offering. So were
    crispy, crunchy gingerbread biscuits (Estonian) and a packet of dried
    apple rings (Polish).

    The shopper wanting alcoholic drinks is spoiled for choice. Estonia is
    the country that pioneered the vodka box--a five-litre freezer-filler
    much favoured by Finnish tourists dodging their own country's punitive
    duties on alcohol. Your columnist is partial to Å"ubrówka, which
    should have a stem of bison grass in every bottle and gives the whiff
    of a summer meadow even in the depths of winter. Poland is the main
    source, though you can also find it in Belarus and Ukraine.

    But drinking vodka at a picnic is not to everyone's taste. Wine works
    better. Your columnist always tries to use his budget to punish
    protectionism and support freedom-lovers, which can lead to some
    conflict with wine snobs. The supermarket had a range of cut-price
    offerings from the Balkans, including Macedonia and Moldova. But the
    intelligent consumer should encourage those who are trying to move
    upmarket, as opposed to those competing at the bottom end. Pricey
    bottles from Ukraine and Russia were on offer too, but only sweet
    wines: a big headache in every bottle, at least in your columnist's
    experience.

    A good range of Georgian wine was more tempting: the basket was soon
    laden by a promising-looking upmarket Saperavi, for the equivalent
    of â~B¬12. But Georgian wine can be a bit inconsistent. For safety,
    a few beers never go amiss, especially if a sauna is in the offing.

    Estonia's Saku and Le Coq are both good lagers, but the final choice
    was a brace of real Czech Budweiser (so much better than the fizzy,
    insipid American version) and some Polish Å"ywiec.

    For a post-prandial snifter, Armenian brandy was a strong contender.

    But throwing caution to the winds, your columnist plumped for a bottle
    of Estonian dessert wine. Grapes do grow even in northerly Estonia,
    and wine-growers have been known to make something drinkable from
    them. But this bottle was from the Põltsamaa winery, which uses
    apples and berries.

    Soft drinks are more distinctive. Western-style juices and fizzy drinks
    are ubiquitous, but more interesting local concoctions are on the
    shelves too. A carton of Ukrainian birch sap was irresistible, along
    with one of the greatest treats in the northern part of eastern Europe:
    sea-buckthornberry juice. This is bright orange, more like a puree
    than a juice, and has an incomparable astringent and invigorating kick.

    The taste requires some acquiring; your columnist drinks it neat, but
    it also makes a useful ingredient for other cocktails--mixed with birch
    sap, for example. The toast at the picnic was to free trade in food:
    who needs protectionism when you have stuff that consumers really want?
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