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  • - It's a frozen, whole pig. (laughs)

  • Russia, a place of vibrant culture,

  • mysterious beauty, and mayonnaise;

  • so much mayonnaise.

  • I'm Adina Steiman from Epicurious

  • and I've come to Net Cost Market in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn;

  • one of the chain of Russian supermarkets

  • across New York and Pennsylvania,

  • to learn more about the food of my family's heritage,

  • and there's no better way to explore it,

  • aside from booking a trip to Moscow,

  • than Net Cost's mile long double wide buffet.

  • It's time to get lost in the supermarket.

  • What I love about this is that the Russians

  • will literally pickle anything.

  • In addition to pickles, you also have whole pears

  • that they've pickled.

  • I don't know why they've pickled them.

  • Apples, pickled green tomatoes, pickled watermelon.

  • I've never had pickled pear before.

  • It's definitely very firm.

  • Wow, I expected it to just be tangy from vinegar,

  • but it's actually like a little garlicky.

  • It has like a sweet, sour note to it

  • that's really delicious.

  • Now we're getting into some serious carnivorous territory.

  • I'm looking for chicken cutlets.

  • Here, it says "cutlets baby".

  • I'm very charmed by that.

  • I'm going to try some "cutlets baby".

  • It's a good baby cutlet.

  • This is like busting out with chicken liver.

  • I don't know about any other supermarket

  • that has entire whole coils of blood sausage.

  • This is one of my favorite things.

  • It's actually called Herring in a Winter Coat.

  • In Russia, you wear a lot of layers,

  • so here, you have layers.

  • Herring, grated beets,

  • carrots, there's definitely a ton of mayonnaise in here,

  • pickles, probably some canned peas,

  • all in this kind of gorgeous stack.

  • These are two kinds of Kholodets

  • Which my grandmother sometimes makes,

  • but I have, so far in my life, avoided eating.

  • I'm going to take this really small piece.

  • This is little bits of chicken

  • with this delightfully firm layer

  • of gelatin on top.

  • (chuckles) It is good.

  • It is very flavorful, very garlicky.

  • I'm sure it's something that really grows on you,

  • and soon you just can't stop eating Kholodets.

  • If I want to graduate from merely tasting Russian food

  • to actually cooking it,

  • I need to break free of the buffet motherland.

  • I need to explore the ingredients themselves.

  • I need to venture further into the other aisles of Net Cost.

  • You can always tell how much one culture loves something

  • by how many options it provides of that thing

  • in its supermarket.

  • Russian people really love cured meat products.

  • It just keeps on going.

  • There's cured pork,

  • there's like all these loose sausages over here.

  • Over there, is like a whole other meat section.

  • Here, they have all of these house-smoked options.

  • Could I get a slice of the veal roll?

  • It has this delightful coil of crushed black pepper,

  • and I'm going to guess, garlic in there too.

  • Way more flavorful than your average smoked ham.

  • It's really good.

  • He looks so peaceful.

  • Wow, this is actually pretty heavy.

  • This is a frozen, whole pig.

  • Full grown beef tongue is large and yeah.

  • Cute quails all in a row.

  • I'm not going to pick up that rabbit,

  • but there's rabbit.

  • So, another thing that's very common

  • is to give gifts of chocolate.

  • This chocolate aisle isn't just here.

  • It continues like all the way down this aisle,

  • all boxed chocolates.

  • Historical themes here too.

  • 1924, the Russian Troika.

  • Who could forget?

  • Now you can remember it while eating chocolate.

  • This pretty much looks like a normal produce aisle.

  • You have your berries, your citrus, your apples,

  • but I think the part of it that's most unique

  • is the root vegetable section.

  • A lot of times it'll be hard to find things

  • like celery root, black radish,

  • really enormous parsnips.

  • Over here, is barrels of food.

  • Two words, sour cream.

  • This is all sour cream.

  • Easily a dozen different varieties.

  • I like the boldness of this.

  • Amish Style high fat sour cream.

  • All these are like regular fat or high fat.

  • All that high fat sour cream is delicious

  • on this wide selection of frozen dumplings.

  • Frozen fruit section in an ordinary supermarket,

  • not super exciting, but I get very excited here,

  • because they have really unusual things

  • like frozen red currents, black currents too,

  • sea buckthorn is a really unusual tart citrusy berry

  • that's kind of trendy nowadays,

  • but it's impossible to find fresh or frozen.

  • Like I've literally never seen it anywhere

  • except at Net Cost.

  • Like a shot of vodka and a bite of pickled herring,

  • Net Cost is a one two punch of the familiar

  • and the strangely exotic.

  • Armed with leaking takeout boxes and way too much buckwheat,

  • I'm ready to do even more eating and cooking at home.

  • Just don't ask me to eat another bit of gelatinous chicken.

- It's a frozen, whole pig. (laughs)

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