snacks to the beer

Traditional Lithuanian food is pretty frightening to me.  That said, Vilnius is a modern city where you can find salads with avocado, pizza, sundaes, even the occasional cheeseburger (although I have not seen many).  Most late night snacking consists of items affectionately termed “beer snacks” on menus, and these are predominantly fried oddities like pigs’ ears and rye bread doused with mayonnaise and cheese. 

 

Beer (alus) is a serious part of every meal.  There are 3 major local beers that every place sells: Svyturys, Kalnapilis and Utenos.  This is like the Bud, Miller and Coors tri-fecta, but much, MUCH tastier.  You can usually find one of these brands, if not several or all of them, on tap at any restaurant.  In addition to the local beers, you can get other European beers (mostly German) at some places.  Wine is also popular here, but if you’re not a beer drinker you are sorely missing out on one of the finer things Lithuanian.

 

As for the traditional foods, if you are of weak stomach or slow metabolism I recommend you vacation somewhere else.  3 major elements to this food:  mayonnaise or cream, heavy starch and boiled meat.  One traditional dish I do love is their variation on borscht, ‘saltibarciai’.  It is a cold beet soup served with sour cream, hard boiled egg and potatoes seasoned and boiled on the side.  It is delicious and filling and very hard to fail at any restaurant.  When in doubt, order this. 

 

Zepellinis are basically boiled pork torpedoes in a huge, starchy gnocchi-like shell that weigh about half a pound each (you usually get 2 on a plate) covered in a sour cream and cheese sauce with fried pork bits.  It’s the kind of food you want to eat before getting deported to Siberia, because it will keep you full for a good week and a half.  Potato pancakes (blynai) are a beloved national dish and it is traditionally served with sour cream.  Salotas means salad, and I think the original definition of salotas is a dish also found in Russian culture of peas, boiled egg, boiled potato, carrots and mayonnaise.  You will find several variations of what we know as ‘cole slaw’ as a side.  What we call salad, they will refer to as ‘vegetables’ in English.  When you see ‘with vegetables’ on the menu, they mean lettuce, tomatoes and maybe a stray olive. 

zepelinai with cracklings

blynai 

A staple of the Lithuanian diet is a delicious interpretation of rye bread called ‘black bread’.  It is dense and sour and so yummy with just about anything (although I wouldn’t use it to make pbj, obviously).  Maxima, and other grocery stores, will sell this bread in a big chunk, the old-fashioned way.  I recommend buying this bread.  It is very fresh and soft in the middle and like all foods wholesome natural – it goes bad in a few days. 

 

You may be tempted to buy a pre-made sandwich at Maxima and throw it in your bag for that pang of hunger you get while touring a city on foot.  Don’t do it.  This isn’t Paris.  Just exchange your American cash and sit at a café (kavine) for lunch.  Don’t worry, you get something like 2.5 litas to every dollar so you’re not going to blow your spending money on food.  The sandwiches are pretty gross unless you like mayo (of course), wilted vegetables (or what we call salad) and mystery meat.  I don’t think it’s a sandwich culture.

 

There are other traditional dishes that have more of an international skew, like the roast chicken, sausage dishes or the pork chop.  These are not bad, just the standard roasted or fried meat cut with local style sides.  Chicken, pork and beef are great but I tend to shy away from fish dishes when I am not right by a huge body of water.  (I’m sure its fine but you can refer to my description of the fish department at Maxima, entry # 3)