Thread: Life in our countries - "good, bad and ugly"...

Originally Posted by Deborski

On rare occasions there was meat, usually pork or chicken, but no way to know for sure.

I usually easily distinguish between pork and chicken, if it's real pork and chicken of course. What were they trying to feed to you?

Originally Posted by Eric C.

I usually easily distinguish between pork and chicken, if it's real pork and chicken of course. What were they trying to feed to you?

Chicken was pretty easy to differentiate from other meats. But pork, not so much. I think there were a couple times when I ate horse-meat. Often the meat was prepared in such a way that it wasn't clear what it was. There were soups with meatballs in it, for example, or meatballs in the macaroni sometimes.

Originally Posted by Deborski

Chicken was pretty easy to differentiate from other meats. But pork, not so much. I think there were a couple times when I ate horse-meat. Often the meat was prepared in such a way that it wasn't clear what it was. There were soups with meatballs in it, for example, or meatballs in the macaroni sometimes.

Yuck! Why do people reduce to things like horse meat cooking?... I think you might even have been lucky to have it as the weirdest sort of meet to eat there, as I'm aware of those cooks adapting even weirder ones for their dishes. A motto at the beginning of one Russian movie says, "only in Moscow, to have a hamburger, you have to catch it first!"

Originally Posted by Eric C.

Yuck! Why do people reduce to things like horse meat cooking?... I think you might even have been lucky to have it as the weirdest sort of meet to eat there, as I'm aware of those cooks adapting even weirder ones for their dishes. A motto at the beginning of one Russian movie says, "only in Moscow, to have a hamburger, you have to catch it first!"

I think it was just a sign of the bad economy back then.

Originally Posted by Eric C.

I usually easily distinguish between pork and chicken, if it's real pork and chicken of course.

I agree with you, but I've heard that "potential confusability" is the reason that strict Orthodox Jews will not eat chicken (or other bird-meat) with dairy -- because, if bought from an unscrupulous vendor, the "chicken croquettes in sour cream" might turn out to be veal, which would break the no-meat-with-dairy rule. Or, it might even be pork -- which, obviously, is трефной no matter how you cook it.

And as Deborski points out, different meats are often chopped/ground and mixed together when making котлеты or тефтели, so then it's harder to tell.