Breakfasts each morning were an assortment of breads, juices,pickled herring and eel, smoked salmon,cheeses, dried meats, caviar…marmalades
each morning a bit different than the last
I would often order a soft boiled egg
that would come with a small horn spoon… wearing a boiled wool cap.
Blinai…like crepes, would have smoked ham and cheese…or salmon in them. Always served with sour cream.
This was a dried cheese, loaded with caraway seeds that was delicious…and everywhere.
They grow mushrooms in the forest….and pick them and use them in so many things.
And I am sure if you looked reallly hard in said forest
you would see little teensy families harvesting them.
One of Lithuania’s most favorite meals is called ceipalini…
essentially means zeppelin they are made with potatoes, potato flour. stuffed with
wait for it…potatoes and sausage.
They are the size and weight of an airship. And I am pretty convinced
Led Zeppelin was named after them. Why not?
In the town of Trakai….where honest to goodness castles still remain…
we had kyblinai…a phenomenal pastry filled with minced meat and onions and mushrooms.
And a soup of cabbage and mushrooms in a bowl made of rye bread. Those forest families were working overtime for us!
We tried as much of their local food as we could
Haddock with more caviar
A favorite was Šaltibaršèiai …. a chilled soup with kefir, cucumbers beets, dill and an egg
I braved a trip to their local market in Vilnius
And lost myself in several of their grocery stores
They have a drink they call Gira. which is made of fermented bread and sugar
A whole different kinda taste.
We even had grapes growing outside of our hotel room window that we could reach out and taste.
Anyone else eat their way through the Baltics?
::Burp::
‘scuse me.
