I always enjoy dipping into a new cuisine, so when I headed off to
Estonia I was curious as
to what kind of food I was going to get. Would it be like Russian cuisine?
Scandinavian? A bit of both since the country is sandwiched between those two
areas?
Turns out it's a mix with its own local twist. At least that was my impression.
I was only in the country a week and so take all my observations with a dash of
salt.
The first thing I noticed is that bread comes with everything. The most distinct
kind is a heavy black rye bread. Breakfasts include bread and an assortment of
cold cuts and cheeses to fortify you against the cold day. Bread reappears for
lunch and dinner and snacks. You'll see kids tromping down the street with a
slice of black bread and butter for a snack.
Estonian cuisine includes a lot of meat, especially pork, usually served with
some form of potato. One dish I tried was juniper-smoked pork with honey
cabbage, mustard sauce and potato-groat porridge. A good recipe that was only
adequately done at the place I tried it. In the winter Estonians like soups and
stews. My favorite is seljanka, a meat soup that warmed me up after a
cold morning chasing the Estonian army through some snowy woods. More on that
story in the next post. The vegetable soups thickened with cream or yogurt will
keep you going too.
Despite being a maritime country, fish doesn't rank high on the menu. Herring, eel and flounder are found the most, although I didn't try any of them.
Eating Spanish food every day, I'm accustomed to simple, direct flavors, while
Estonians like to mix up their flavors. Trying to buy pure honey was a bit of a
challenge. Most brands are mixed with pollen or bits of various herbs.
A lot of Estonian cheeses tend to have seeds in them, like this sampler plate
shown above. My favorite was the one mixed with the rye seeds. I got this at the
Seaplane Harbour Museum, which unlike many museums has a surprisingly good
and affordable restaurant. The best cheese I tried was a heavily smoked cheese
called
Lepasuitsu Eesti juust. If you like smoky cheeses, hunt this one down.
This mixing of flavors even extends to beer. Some of the main brands and
microbrews I tried were sweetened; one of them was honey flavored. Mead, sadly,
was nowhere to be found. A good place for Estonian beer in Tallinn is
Hell Hunt, a bar/restaurant that's
hugely popular with both locals and tourists.
As for the harder stuff, there's no shortage of Estonian and Russian vodka.
Estonia is also known for Vana Tallinn
("Old Tallinn"), a sweet liquor that wasn't to my taste. It's made with vanilla
pods, orange, lemon, bitter orange oils and a bit of cinnamon mixed with
Jamaican rum. Often called the "Baileys of Estonia," I brought some back to my
Baileys-loving wife and she found it overly sweet just like I did. We'll foist
it off on some unsuspecting guests. Apparently this is what the Estonians do.
Several told me that it's mostly an export brand.
In the bigger cities you'll find plenty of other cuisines. Besides the usual
staples such as Chinese, Indian and Italian, there are plenty of Caucasian
restaurants featuring the cuisines of
Armenia,
Georgia and
Azerbaijan. These
places will give you a very different dining experience and I recommend visiting
at least one while you're in Estonia. At
Must Lammas in Tallinn I
tried a dish of crisphead lettuce with grilled chicken filet and garlic-cheese
sauce that was excellent.
Visiting Estonia in winter, I missed all the fresh herbs, berries and nuts the
country folk like to gather. Everyone raves about the local strawberries. I did
have a fun culinary experience, though. Plus I took the Estonian advice to eat a
lot of garlic to keep from getting a cold. It worked!
Read the rest of my series: "Exploring
Estonia: The Northern Baltics In Wintertime.
Sean McLachlan
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