Latvia — Sweet rye bread, dry biscuits astringent liquor and bitter history
Pre-Brexit, the world was my oyster and Birmingham the centre. Within 15 minutes I could get to any manner of global produce from Montenegrin ajvar to Estonian barley. Post-Brexit, the world is my dried up slightly fermented clam and Birmingham its rubbish strewn heart. I have lost my Latvian bar, my Baltic shop, a rather lovely Greek emporium, and the chance to move overseas. Luckily, Farage and his ilk haven’t yet convinced the country of the sunlit uplands of closing off the internet so I can still order in, but nothing beats heading to a new shop and getting recommendations from actual humans with real experience of the worlds I am virtually visiting. Which is a long way of saying that I started this week by opening a box of Latvian rye bread, carraway cheese, Riga liquor and more without having any idea of what to do with it.
Still, as we Brummies say, I mustn’t grumble, as it turns out that the Latvians have dealt with far worse than the closing of their favourite local shop. For example, this week’s book Soviet Milk, documents the life of a mother and daughter as they contend with war, depression and soviet collectivism. It’s a Latvian bestseller, but depressing as hell, underscored as it is with a powerlessness you feel when your governments are run by psychopaths. Despite the books genius, I found myself wondering why anyone would choose to spend their time reading about such tragic lives, I mean I could have, at any point, put it down and picked up a Jilly Cooper. In the end though, I was glad I persevered as it was another great reminder that no matter how appealing communism looks on paper, it almost always ends up in forcing young kids to march, salute and never question authority.
The same can be said of this week’s film, the Blizzard of Souls, a title too poetic for the Americans who renamed it The Rifleman. It is the story of a son too young for war and an a father too old, both signing up after the Germans kill the family matriarch. First they join the Russian Imperial army where the father proves himself an incredible soldier, and the son a pacifist. Soon the patriarch passes and the son realises the Imperial Russians are little more than a marauding murdering force. He changes sides to follow Lenin only to discover that the Bolshevik army has similarly little respect for life. There is nothing to do but to return to Latvia and fight for the freedom that nationalism brings!!! Luckily no-one told him that the independence he fought for was coopted by the authoritarianism of Kārlis Ulmanis.
Still even given Ulmanis’ Mussolini-light fascism, I too would want to return to the Latvian motherland, having spent the week drinking and eating triumphant foods such as these vegan bacon piragi (like pirogi but baked not boiled), and this potato salad, and sweet soft rye bread topped with gently fried eggs covered in chives! In fact everything we ate was a joy until I opened a packet of dry tasteless Selga Classics — Latvia’s favourite biscuits. My message to you is this, do not eat without dunking 😊.
If you have never drunk Latvia’s premier liquor — Riga — I am not surprised. It is mouth-scrunchingly bitter, so astringent in fact that even my most drink-loving friend refused the offer of a second shot. I realised I would need to spruce it up to get through the whole bottle, so returning to the internet I found the black and stormy — Riga, plus ginger beer, lime, sugar syrup and a shot of coke!
Which just leaves us with the music and once more we have a blinding playlist, mainly made up of songs sent to me by an actual Latvian. It is not just europop and Eurovision, this is a land of choirs and people who love to sing, some times experimentally! Each week it seems my ears are opened to something refreshingly new… I wonder what joys Lebanon will bring!
