Photos from the "old days"
- Thread starter DLD
- Start date
It depends on a brand and the ingredients. Publix, down here in Florida, gets theirs from Boar's Head. Mass brands like Oscar Mayer are even worse. But there are small shops that have good stuff. A Russian deli nearby gets theirs from Brooklyn and it's made to taste like the Soviet from the "old days"..
BTW, when we first came to the US, there were no Russian immigrant owned delis in Milwaukee but there was a bunch of the Polish owned butcher shops. You just had to drive across town to get there. Though you'd think that, once a little money started coming in, my parents would go on an American diet of grilled steaks, center cut pork chops and BBQ chicken? Well, you'd be wrong. They kept with their well worn Soviet staples. And, given my mom's cooking skills, made poorly on top of it.
NorBro
Major Contributor
Greenpoint, Brooklyn (NY) AKA "Little Poland" has parts of it that are only Polish and a lot of the stuff is imported (besides some American snacks that make the inventory).
I don't know about the meat but it's so authentic that I feel like they fly it over here on ice.
I don't know about the meat but it's so authentic that I feel like they fly it over here on ice.
NorBro
Major Contributor
The above would be a fantasy for every Soviet era housewife. There are, obviously, shops in Brighton Beach that cater to the immigrant community (by, overpricing everything). In Milwaukee, friends of my dad's opened up a small liquor/deli store. I once asked if they offered any discounts to him personally. He proudly replied that he paid full price. I wouldn't have set the foot in that place again. Nonetheless.
BTW, for meats, they had to drive to Chicago once a week. For breads, there were two local immigrant owned bakeries.
That served stuff like this.
BTW, for meats, they had to drive to Chicago once a week. For breads, there were two local immigrant owned bakeries.
That served stuff like this.
wow! what images! they appear so surreal!
Nightmarish is more like it.
Speaking of nightmares, a top Soviet era star from the mid-1970's onward. Alla Pugacheva and no, she's not trying to do a Luca Brasi.
Mitch Gross
Veteran
Do you know the story about Pepsi and Soviet relations? This little moment was engineered by a Pepsi marketing exec who later became President of PepsiCo. This moment allowed Pepsi to enter into the Soviet market, but since they couldn't pay out in rubles due to international trade embargos they instead traded in Vodka. Thus the Smirnoff brand was invented in the US using imported Soviet vodka. Later with the collapse of the Soviet Union imminent and a US embargo on the import of Soviet goods blocking all that vodka, Gorbachev couldn't pay its enormous debt to PepsiCo so instead they gave the company a bunch of old naval ships. For a brief window of time PepsiCo. was a naval superpower with the 6th largest fleet in the world (a bunch of old diesel subs and some destroyers). The point was to sell it all for scrap which they did but it was pretty funny watching a sugar water company demilitarize a superpower faster than the US could. Pure capitalism.
https://medium.com/history-in-bytes/when-pepsi-had-6th-largest-navy-in-the-world-4612708b70d2
https://medium.com/history-in-bytes/when-pepsi-had-6th-largest-navy-in-the-world-4612708b70d2
The barter was roughly in the 17/1 volume for volume ratio, Stolichnaya for Pepsi.
I first had Pepsi back in 1974 or so. Mom bought a 500 mL bottle at the central city court shop. The three of us drank it warm too.
Typical street refreshments were the self-serve drink fountains. I could describe them to a detail but it'd gross - no pun intended - everyone out.
I first had Pepsi back in 1974 or so. Mom bought a 500 mL bottle at the central city court shop. The three of us drank it warm too.
Typical street refreshments were the self-serve drink fountains. I could describe them to a detail but it'd gross - no pun intended - everyone out.
Side note- next to Nixon is Klement "Klim" Voroshilov, Stalin's crony and one of the most powerful figures in the USSR until taken down by Khrushchev and his group. Prior to WWII, Voroshilov was known as the "First Marshal", who will lead the Soviet tank crews to glory. And he had this 46 ton tank named after him - KV-1.
