Kvass

Our old gals in the village cast a wary eye on all food from the store, because who knows what they’ve got in there? Homemade, that’s the only way to go. And that is why even now they bake their own bread, and brew their own moonshine, and when it comes to kvass, that refreshing black-bread beer, why waste the money? Granny Melya’s grandma taught her to brew kvass and here’s Melya teaching her granddaughter, Anka. Anka’s city folk, but she knows how to respect the homespun recipes. The experience of centuries, she calls them. No chemicals. Microelements. Vitamins. A healthy lifestyle. So granny lies on the stove bench, warming herself, and bosses Anka around: “Fetch water from the spring,” she says. “Strip leaves off the young currant branches. And the hop cones are back there, in a sack hanging in the storeroom.”

“How about raisins, Granny?”

“What raisins? Raisins don’t grow here.”