Ivars on smoked meats

What do you miss from Latvia?
Zephyrs. They used to come in those thick boxes. There were like 6 or 8 in a box – really fluffy, round, pretty. The vanilla ones. Now they add other things, and I don’t like them anymore. Just recently, Egils Melbārdis from the National Theatre and his wife sent me theatre journals and some zephyrs. Cream zephyrs and those vanilla zephyrs. But they arrived kind of squashed. Flat, like little pancakes.

Anything else you miss?
I’ve never really missed Kārumi [sweet cottage cheese snacks]. … One thing you can’t get in America, which you can buy in every store in Latvia, is barley groats. If you cook bukstiņputra or something here, the taste turns out completely different. I’ve found one thing you can substitute with – oatmeal groats. They don’t swell up like barley, but the taste is somewhat similar. I miss hearty foods more than treats. Home-cooked meals, like sorrel soup – you can’t buy sorrel here. Smoked meats too. In America, there aren’t real smoked products – everything is just run through those smoke baths. Once you realize that it’s chemicals giving the flavor, that it’s not real smoking, you also stop feeling it’s worth the money. You wouldn’t believe how hard it is to find something that in Latvia is considered completely simple.

Ivars Stonins
Interviewed by Ieva Vītola, May 2016
Latvians Abroad – Museum and Research Centre interview