Bread, lard and potatoes

The Belarusians want to be gourmets. Our food researchers are preparing something new and tasteful for us. Right before the New Year, they started baking a new type of bread with lard.

Don’t think that it looks like usual canapés. The lard, shredded into small pieces, is inside the loaf.

While we are still enjoying this wonder bread, scientists from the nutrition research center at the Belarusian Academy of Sciences have prepared a new present for us. They have developed 22 new potato dishes.

The new potato cuisine also includes the traditional draniki (potato pancakes), which we now will be able to buy in the frozen form and keep them in our fridges for up to 9 months!

The bad news is that the frozen draniki will become available only in 2010. Natallja Ivanova, the chief economist at the Technaprod Co., explains the cause of the delay.

“This year we are starting building the production facilities. Nearly Br1.8 billion from the state budget has been allocated for the construction phase. We plan to start the production in 2010. The factory will be located in the town of Mar’ina Horka and will target the whole country. It will produce not only draniki, but also dumplings, frozen foodstuffs like peas, vegetable and fruits. At the moment, it is hard to say exactly when and what is going to be launched,” she said.

As for the bread with lard, you can easily enjoy it already in Homel. The wonder-bread is yet to pick up popularity, but the managers at the Homel bakery No 1, which bakes this bread, are confident the situation will change as soon as the bread hits the stores in the other areas of Belarus and the neighboring districts of Russia.

“We have not yet moved across the borders of the Homel region. But, we plan to expand to Russia and the Vicebsk region of Belarus. We will be offering the bread both in the fresh and the frozen form. So far, we bake 100 loafs per day. The demand is not high yet,” Ala Kisjaljova, the head of the bakery’s marketing department told our radio.

But, the Belarusian nutrition specialists are not going to stop there. Bread with a smoked ham is likely to appear on the store shelves soon.

“We plan to produce bread with a smoked ham. We have already started making vegetable and ham pizzas. Currently, we make four types of bread with lard: “Bread with lard”, “Hunter’s bread with lard and onion”, “Hunter’s bread with lard and garlic and “Ukrainian bread with lard”. At the moment, we have held on a bit on that. We have only launched the pizzas and are planning to launch ham and cheese pies,” Alena Tkacova, the Homel bakery No 1’s production manager said.

We only have to wait for a new interesting stuff on offer and hope that the originality will be accompanied with a good taste.