Haggis, Russia pics

I did a literary seminar in St. Petersburg, Russia, this past summer (of 2005), and then hit Scotland on my way home. Yes, it has taken me this long to figure out the manner and means of posting images on LTH. Also, I seemed to have lost nearly all my digital pictures. But, culled from the Byzantine machinations of my Mac, here are the survivors.
Haggis. Upon my first good Haggis (my first haggis, in Pitlochry, was on the order of eating every bad organ you can think of distilled into perfect wretched organ manifest destiny). This picture was in Glasgow, at Babbity Bowster, whose cullen skink was also amazing (at its basic, fish chowder). The best I had was in Edinburgh, made by MacSween's. Haggis is, more than anything, a dish of pepper--wonderfully spiced, and served with neeps and tatties (turnips and mashed potatoes). I would consider haggis as having a strong run at my last meal on earth, were I to be in such a position as to request it (it shudder to think what it actually might be) Sorry for the resolution.


In St. Petersburg, just outside of it actually, I bought these pickled tomatoes. I saved them to eat on my last day, though both myself and another could not get the jar open, and we took it as a sign. They may well still be sitting in the windowsill of my room.




I bought them from this woman:



This was at another rural market; this lady is digging through an assortment of pickled thing, among them whole heads of garlic.



Dinner? Another rural Russia resident (probably weighing upwards of 600 pounds, I was told):



In St. Petersburg's enormous central market, I was offered everything from badly-done Korean to worse-done Tandoori chicken, to spoonfulls of decent caviar (though I was looking at better that just was sitting there in the case, not to be offered to people like me.) Here is a blurry picture of the butcher blocks in the corner of the store. These are notable for their size, up to the waist, easily almost a large oak stump's worth of girth. The picture is blurry on account of the nice butcher men threatening my life with the cleaver, saying, "No pictures. I kill you. No pictures."



When one is sick of Russian food, one prays for something better. When nothing happens, one turns to beer. The mustache is incidental.