Life in Capital Letters

I seriously have the best timing for going to the grocery. 

I was perusing the bread aisle this evening when a young man invaded my personal space. I turned around, took one look and a whiff of too strong, the-store-suddenly-smells-like-a-Moscow-dance-club, wtf-you’re-just-grocery-shopping cologne and knew the guy was Russian. Plus, he had no sense of personal space.. so Russian. Also, he was sporting a Russian hipster mullet, very similar to this:

He and another early-20s dude were looking visibly irritated at the bread. I’ve never seen anyone look more like they wanted to use rocket propelled missiles in the grocery store. Suddenly the one that’s too close for comfort says, “Shit, all this bread is really big!” (roughly translated)

Now that probably doesn’t sound like a huge dilemma to you, and certainly not worthy of busting out WMDs. But if there’s one thing I’ve come to understand about Russians over the years, it’s this: they are bat-shit crazy about their bread. THEIR bread - Russkii Hleb. It’s the only kind of bread they want. No russkii hleb = one cranky Russian.

Some of you might be asking, as I did before I learned to shut my mouth about russkii hleb, “What’s so great about Russian bread?” I know the answer, but you have to promise that you will never, ever repeat this to a Russian and if you do, that I won’t be responsible for the ear-raping tirade that you will get in response. The answer is….

NOTHING.

Not only is Russian bread not the most delicious bread you’ll ever eat, it is occasionally some of the worst bread you’ll ever eat. It’s dry, bland, and a lot smaller and denser than American bread. Basically, it tastes like the bread that I bake once a year like clockwork just to prove to myself that I still can’t bake worth a shit. (I also do this with cakes and cookies. It’s bad.)

But even though it’s as thirst inducing as a mouthful of wood shavings and bland like old gum, there’s something behind the Russian love of Russian bread. First there’s the cultural status of bread - it’s considered a staple of human existence. In Russia, “bread” was used as a political stand-in for “food stability”, hence the Soviet motto, Peace for the people, land for the peasants and bread for the hungry!

Then there’s the fact that most Russian bread is still made in nearby bakeries with natural ingredients. That’s probably a huge reason why Russians are skeptical of any bread that lasts for longer than a week without sprouting something living. And hey, maybe they’re onto something.

Anyway, you can now guess why the motto for one of the big Russian bread companies is “Русский хлеб. Каждый день для каждого из вас!” - “Russian bread. Every day for every one of us!”

So the question is, what’s the one food that Americans are really particular about?