Sunday 23 November 2008

What Brits can't buy in Lithuania

Currants - or in Georgia; they are just not available; but raisins in various shades are. Black raisins can be substituted.
Marmalade - actually, you can get it at Marks and Spencer's, even in different varieties, thin and coarse-cut, and from blood oranges. Somehow I like to make my own marmalade; recently someone brought me over a tin of Mamade, the pulp and peel of Seville oranges.....
Lard - you'd think you would be able to buy this in a country whose diet is,er, not that easy on fat. But in fact you have to make your own. How do you do that? You buy some pig skins (with the fat on), stick them in a low oven for a few hours and the fat melts. Learnt that a long time ago in Scotland.
Mixed peel - you can get it in Goodwill in Georgia, but when you go there, you end up buying all sorts of stuff you don't need.....Here's a recipe for it; American, and typical in its large quantities.... a 'gallon bag' would almost fill my freezer. I bought a bag of oranges, drank the juice of 8 of them, made the mixed peel and probably have enough for the next year.
Bramble jam - a friend complains about that; also you have to make your own, if you find the brambles.
Baking powder - people tell me. The problem is that it comes in sachets, called 'kvepimo miltelai'. With a German background I know those sachets, from the Dr Oetker company, well. But it seems Lithuanians and Poles bake for larger families; the sachets we get here are for 1kg of flour; in Germany they are for 500g. So careful if you use them for a German recipe calling for one sachet! 'Levure Boulangere', which I bought at IKI the other day, delighted to find sachets for 500g, in fact contains dried yeast, as I discovered to my horror.....

Then again, you can buy all sorts of other lovely stuff, like zillions of sorts of mushrooms.

5 comments:

Unknown said...

I'm very surprised that the author is saying that one cannot buy lard in Lithuania...Almost every shop has it. Normally it's placed next to butter. I'm born and bread Lithuanian and have never ever made lard in my life! I simply go to the shop and buy it...
As about the baking powder, again, the information is very inacurate... First of all, it's spelled 'kepimo milteliai', not 'kvepimo' (thay way it means breathing). You can buy very small sachets of baking powder and for one cake you would need to use one or two teaspoons.

goodbuylenin said...

I hunted high and low in Rimi (Hyper-Rimi), Maxima of various sizes, and Ikis and could not find lard next to the butter or anywhere else. Only found margarine and another yellow fat.

Re the baking powder (yes, sometimes I could do with breathing powder, too:-)) - UK people are used to buying little tubs of it, and then adding the required number of teaspoons to the cake; different amounts for different types of cake. German recipes are based on half the amount of baking powder sold in the sachets available in Lithuania, so it's always hit and miss - my kitchen scales do not weigh small amounts like 15 g.

varske said...

I agree with Alina, we've never had any problem with lard (not needed that often) or baking powder (essential for baking muffins).

You still can't get Greek yoghurt though sometimes you can get brown sugar. I decided that the lack of brown sugar must be due to sugar being made from beet rather than cane, though I was never sure why.

goodbuylenin said...

I would not have mentioned baking powder, having had no problem with it myself, had Varske's daughter not mentioned the topic over dinner....

Anni said...

Hi, time to catch up with all your blogs being marooned with flu. Should be in Vilnius mid Jan so with luck could bring you some home made marmalade, if the Sevilles are in by then. Let me kno what else - baking powder, cream of tartar, bicarb - all have their uses (the latter in parkin).Tbilisi looks to be as cold as Vilnius (both warmer than here) Hope all going well with you
Anni