Food, Glorious Food

A few days ago I discovered that Estonia celebrates Estonian Food Month in September and that’s why I thought I could talk about food while having my Colombian coffee and French croissants, although baked in Britain and originated in Austria.

Recently I’ve got used to having ‘leib’, Estonian rye bread for breakfast which I store in the freezer and always bring back from the visits to my home country. I guess the same way as Britons tend to carry baked beans from the UK to abroad, even when just holidaying. When my Mum is about to pay a visit here and asks what would I like her to take for us, there’s only one answer for that – one particular kind of black bread. I’d like her to be really considerate what she packs into her suitcase, and I’m hopeful she’s learnt that by now – bread is the priority. I don’t think I was ever that mad about bread when I lived in Estonia, but I guess it’s true – you don’t know until you miss it.

I know they do sell here different kind of rye breads in the UK, but they are not the same. The same applies to baked beans, doesn’t it? In the summer in Estonia I managed to be terribly disappointed in a can of beans by an unknown brand I’d purchased. Definitely not the same I’ve got accustomed to here. Really disappointing!

As disappointed was I when I was a kid and had a plan of taking secretly a chunk of sweet halvah (fudge like candy made out of sesame paste) wrapped in a foil and kept in the fridge, to share it with my friend who waited for me outside. I sneaked into the kitchen, got the square packet out of the fridge as expected, left the apartment, closing the front door as quietly as possible not to attract any attention, then walked behind our block of flats, my heart pumping inside of excitement, sat underneath the balcony, unwrapped it carefully just to find out that it was a chunk of cheese, not halvah. I’d failed my secret mission, and obviously no sweet treat for me or either for my friend!

But Estonians are fond of treating others, for example when they visit someone (abroad), they take something to the host and quite often it’s some sort of chocolate. Estonians are very proud of their confectionary. I’ve obviously done the same, even after seeing an American series where Estonian chocolate was mentioned – someone got a food poisoning from it. Not to worry, my non-Estonian friends, just be aware!

Self-portrait with the all time favourite,
but unfortunately the very last piece of (that particular) candy.

And additionally on the same note, if you ever happen to go to Estonia, please do try our rye bread, there’s such a variety and choice of it and if you manage to come back without trying any of the curd products I don’t believe you’ve had the right taste of Estonian food at all. So you’ve been warned (the second time already, but I can’t carry on writing about food anymore without having any myself. Coffee and croissants are long gone. So I’m going to get some chocolate out of the cupboard now in a plain sight and broad daylight without having to sneak around and have a secret mission, although the latter sounds rather exciting)!