Mar
11
2008
Romanian Cuisine
No matter how hard I tried to fit in with the villagers, I was not as professional a worker in the fields! One Fall morning, I was working in the garden, reaping the harvest of potatoes that we had planted just months before. There were potatoes everywhere! I couldn’t tell when a potato was ripe, although I could tell when they were bad.
A Romanian’s diet consists of lots of potatoes. It’s one of the cheapest foods available, and one can make it so many different ways. It can be eaten baked, mashed, fried, etc. It is a standard food at almost every Romanian meal.
I enjoyed the feeling of accomplishment when I sat down at the table and knew that I had a hand in some part of the meal’s preparation. Somehow, when you are eating the potatoes you planted, harvested, and peeled, they taste different! It was the same with meat, tomatoes, and other vegetables and meats.
Still, it was difficult to get used to the food in Romania.
During the first year, I had a hard time with the typical Romanian dishes. Sometimes the mashed potatoes and meat would stick in my throat, and I would have to summon up the mental willpower to force it down, for fear that I would gag and throw up. It wasn’t because the food was bad. I loved the meals and loved the taste. My problem was with the lack of variety. It seemed like every meal was mashed potatoes and chicken. Occasionally, we would have cabbage rolls or another dish, but generally, all we ate was meat and potatoes.