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?