LAURA: As they say in the Ukraine, “[Unpronounceable word]!”, which means “Welcome, please sit down and stuff your face!” And that is exactly what we did at the Ukrainian East Village Restaurant. Watch our video to see us chow ‘n chat about borscht, varenyky and studenetz, a pork-filled gelatin that would make even Bill Cosby sing, “J-E-L-L-Oh, hell no!” But first, allow us to drop a bit of Ukrainian knowledge on you.

ADAM: Extending an internationally upraised middle finger to Dr. Atkins, Ukrainians eat bread with every meal. Thus our food was prefaced with some amazing, freshly baked challah and rye. The Ukraine has long been known as the Breadbasket of Europe because their farmlands pop up so much grain it’s like God secretly replaced their usual soil with a country-sized mat of Miracle Grow. Despite being smaller than the state of Texas, the Ukraine formerly churned out 25 percent of the Soviet Union’s entire agricultural output. Their fields are so legendary that Hitler had a plan to eliminate the country’s entire population so he could repopulate the farmlands with Germans. (This might lead one to believe that perhaps Hitler wasn’t a very nice man. Or perhaps he just loved bread.)

LAURA: Speaking of grain-greedy men with bad mustaches, Joesph Stalin’s forced collectivization of agriculture in the 1930s caused the worst man-made famine in history, resulting in 10 million Ukrainian deaths and a lot of hangry* people. So no wonder the Ukes go gangbusters on bread today—they EARNED that carb bloat. If you wanna feel extra guilty about going back for thirds at Old Country Buffet, check out the Harvard Interview Refugee Project. Type “Ukraine” and “famine” into the search bar to read heart-wrenching stories of starvation, including at least one account of cannibalism that somehow made our meat jello seem not so bad:

“I was at a bazaar called the Besarabian market. I saw a woman open a valise and put her goods out for sale. Her goods consisted of jellied meat, which she sold at 50 rubles a portion. I saw a man come over to her — a man who bore all the marks of starvation — he bought himself a portion and began eating. As he ate of his portion, he noticed that a human finger was embedded in the jelly. He began shouting at the woman and began yelling at the top of his voice. People came running, gathered around her, and then seeing what her food consisted of, took her to the police. At the militia, two members of the NKVD went over to her and, instead of taking action against her, they burst out laughing. ‘What, what you killed a kulak [a wealthy peasant]? Good for you!’ And then they let her go.’”

ADAM: The most amazing thing I learned about the Ukraine was this: My grandmother was actually born there. I didn’t learn that until I was talking to my dad after our meal. As I was growing up, my grandma used to say simply that she was from Russia—which was the case back then because the Ukraine was part of the USSR—but it turns out she was specifically from Dnipropetrovsk, the Ukraine’s third largest city. She snuck out to the US with her mother after the Russian Revolution. The revelation makes me feel like a complete ass. Here we are on a quest to learn about the countries of the world from strangers in New York, and I never took the time to learn about my own grandmother’s homeland directly from her while she was still alive. So I’d like to put out this request: Dear Internet, If anyone out there happens to be from the area around Dnipropetrovsk, and you wouldn’t mind taking some time to tell me more about it, please reblog or get in touch at navigeaters@gmail.com. As a thanks, I promise to send you some bread.

* When you’re so hungry, you’re angry.

Eats Deets
Ukrainian East Village Restaurant
140 Second Ave. (East Village)
(212) 529-5024