Travel Notes: Moldova

No, I haven’t been to Moldova lately. In fact, I’ve never been to Moldova. But my daughter went, in May. She knew exactly what sort of pictures I’d like to see. Our Moldovan pal Cristina helped me interpret the photos.

grape leaves

Beside the lettuce in a Moldovan market are grape leaves ready for stuffing. They are simply laid flat, sprinkled with salt, and then rolled together for sale.

pickled watermelon

Here are whole brine-pickled watermelons, and slices of pickled watermelon. Apparently I’ve neglected to report on my own adventures in pickling whole watermelon, so I’ll do that soon. The watermelon flesh loses its crispness and becomes . . . I don’t want to say slimy. A nicer term might be tomato-like.

pickled cabbage

 

Cabbage is pickled whole, too. Here the leaves are separated and laid in a mound, ready for making sarmale—or, “in the folk,” Cristina says, galush. These long-simmered rolls filled with rice and ground meat are the Moldovan version of the Turkish sarma.

pickled tomatoes

Brine-pickled tomatoes, like other pickles, are sold drained. You take home as many as you’d like in a plastic bag.

pickled stuffed peppers & eggplants

On the right side of this picture are brined stuffed peppers. Though I included a Turkish version of this pickle in The Joy of Pickling, I haven’t made brined stuffed peppers in ages. Now I’m inspired to make some this fall. Most amazing here are the enormous brined stuffed eggplants, at left. I don’t think I’ve ever fermented stuffed eggplants, and I can’t conceive of using—or eating!—such huge ones.

dried & smoked plumsfruit-drying oven

Some plums are sun-dried; others are smoke-dried. The smoke imparts a distinct flavor that I can only imagine. In the right photo above is an oven for smoke-drying plums.

pickles in jarsIn the picture above, a woman is selling an assortment of homemade pickles and relishes. You don’t see the jar labels because there aren’t any. The jars are in various sizes and shapes because they formerly contained various factory-made foods. But don’t her pickles look good?

At the top right in the same photo are plastic soda bottles filled with borsch acru, fermented from wheat bran, bread (preferably dark and a bit stale), salt, and sometimes lovage, for flavor. You use this sour liquid in zama, a chicken soup with vermicelli, or in borsch. “Once you use up the borsch acru,” says Cristina, “don’t throw away the bran. It can be used again.”

wellwell shrineHere is a Moldovan well and, purposely placed right beside it, a shrine. In Moldova, wells are still sacred places, as they should be everywhere.

walnut liqueurFinally, on the Orthodox Easter table is a bottle of cognac. In Moldova cognac is not fancy French brandy but green-walnut liqueur, like the Italian nocino. Have you picked your own green walnuts this year? If you can still pierce the walnuts to the center with a needle, it’s not too late to make green-walnut liqueur.

 

All photos copyright © Rebecca Waterhouse 2013. Thanks, Rebecca!

6 thoughts on “Travel Notes: Moldova”

  1. These are wonderful.. Although I’ve never heard of Moldova, I do believe I’d love to go there now.. Thanks for sharing a part of the world I’ve not known existed..

  2. Moldova looks like somewhere in the European block to me (time to look it up with my old mate “Google Maps” 😉 ). I LOVE the photos of all of the pickled things. I am going to be pickling my brains out in our coming harvest season all thanks to your daughter and her wonderfully enticing images of someplace where they have their heads screwed on straight. Cheers, again, for a wonderful post 🙂

  3. How wonderful that your daughter visited this little known country. I worked with a wonderful woman who came to the US from Moldova 24 years ago. She brought the most delicious treats for potlucks, including pickled things and gorgeous cakes. I loved talking with her about foods, culture and languages. Thanks for this great post and photos!

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