Monday, February 6, 2012

Care ghiveci vreau sā maninc?

Translation: which ghiveci should I eat?  (Ghiveci is pronounced like kvetch but with a g instead of k.)

My host mom just told me to go down to the beci (root-cellar) and choose a ghiveci for lunch.  This is always a job I love, because normally I just end up choosing my favorite.

This is a section of our basement, with all its wonderful assortment of ghiveci, compote, and every kind of fruit preserve imaginable.  Did I mention this is only a section of the basement?  And winter is more already half over at this point.


Ghiveci, by the way, is a kind of preserved and canned (and maybe fermented?) vegetable salad.  My dictionary says the English equivalent is hotchpotch, but I have absolutely no idea what that is nor have I ever heard it before.  So, per Peace Corps custom re: words/concepts we have never heard before our service, I will continue to simply call it ghiveci.  (This also goes for things that are so specifically Moldovan that the English word just seems inappropriate.  In Peace Corps lingo, the market will always be the piața, and the speeding death traps mini-buses will always be a rutiera.  English rules of pluralization and declension still apply.)

This is the ghiveci I ended up choosing.  It's my favorite, a peppery mix of eggplant, onion, and carrots.  MMM!