Every time I write about the times of the USSR (or rather, about the products and culinary traditions of that historical period), those who start stamping their feet claiming nothing happened. Well, there was nothing, food in the country appeared only with the advent of democracy. Before that, all were eaten by evil party officials. And all the rest of the chocolate candy was kept in the sideboard for years, taking out from time to time - to smell.
Well, who can argue - in the nineties, the windows of grocery (and not only grocery) stores began to look richer. Products have appeared that now can not be called anything other than symbols of the triumph of democracy and the nineties.
Let's remember?
Chicken sausages, paper flavored ham and other sausage delights
One of the main complaints that they make against the Soviet food industry and the Soviet trade is the lack of sausage on the shelves. Someone says that they have not seen her at all for years, someone is outraged by the fact that there were few varieties presented.
In our family they bought when the doctor's, when some semi-smoked sausage, when - uncooked smoked, and especially the varieties and names were not thought. And I loved sausages. In childhood. And in his youth too. Even now, I would not refuse a delicious sausage.
But it turned out in the nineties. that sausages can be very strange, not sausage taste at all. These sausages appeared first in cans, then - also in vacuum packages, they smelled strange, had an equally strange taste and... turned out to be chicken.
But they were swept away, because they were imported. Hurray, the triumph of democracy, instead of domestic "dairy" there are incomprehensible chicken, but - imported.
Another salami sausage, which was obviously colored with something not entirely natural, and pressed ham in huge briquettes - expensive and... inedible, because it tasted like paper. Sometimes salted.
Pork liver, minced chicken and parts of oversized chicken carcasses
There was no meat in the USSR, and if there was, then it was expensive on the market - they usually write in the comments.
But with the advent of the nineties, pork liver, huge hams pretending to be chicken, and minced chicken became publicly available. All this was delivered to retail outlets (most often stalls) in the form of giant briquettes, well if they were additionally in cardboard boxes. Chopped, chopped, chopped right in the stalls, most often on the floor, covered, at best, with film.
I remember once in my youth in the market I saw a salesman throwing such a briquette on the asphalt with all his foolishness to split it. Well, what - they will buy it anyway. Because there was no meat in the USSR, and in the nineties it became completely inaccessible, because there was still no money. These chicken legs were considered a delicacy ...
Confectionery
Well, how to get past them? There were few cakes and pastries in the USSR, and those that were did not correspond to the refined tastes of the public. There was either no chocolate in the SSR (one option), or it was too expensive (the second option), so people were content with caramel.
In the nineties, caramel was gone. Cakes and pastries, by the way, too. It was not clear where they were. But imported luxury appeared in stores - cupcakes and rolls. Weighing 400 grams, packed in beautiful bags that smell like chemical strawberries. Or a chemical cherry. Or no less chemical lemon.
Their taste was appropriate - just delicious! From the first bite it became clear - they did not regret sugar and baking powder for the dough. But... They were imported. And they bought such rolls for children, for the most part, on holidays. Because it's expensive.
Someone from my parents' acquaintances complained that a small strawberry roll is more expensive than a large "Flight" (there was such a cake). Like, rip-off. But what taste, what taste ...
Soviet sweets were abandoned. Instead of a platter (wow, this is Soviet chocolate!), The children were given so-called chocolate bars. There was little chocolate in these bars. Very little. And they cost more than the banal "Alenka", I remember, and even more expensive than the "Assorted" candies (wrapped in multi-colored foil).
This desire for "imported" to me now reminds me of the history of colonization of the Americas - both South and North. There, the locals were also happy to grab the cheap trinkets that the colonialists offered them. But the channel is not about history, but about food.
So I personally remember these grocery symbols of the nineties. And you?