The Cold War in the EU market: Euro and Soviet brands in Lithuania

Transcription

1 The Havighurst Center for Russian and post-soviet Studies, Miami University 7 th Annual International Young Researchers Conference Dream Factory of Communism October 25-27, 2007 The Cold War in the EU market: Euro and Soviet brands in Lithuania Neringa Klumbytė Miami University, klumbyn@muohio.edu Work in progress. Please do not cite without permission of the author The Eurooptimist to Soviet idealists: Let s eat Euro food and there is a 30 year guarantee. We will be like embalmed in coffins, like great V.I.Lenin in Kremlin. (an anonymous commentary in response to Džina Donauskaitė s article on Euro and Soviet brands, 2006). 1 Introduction: the Soviet and Euro sausage industry Euro and Soviet sausage industry was started by the two different companies of Lithuania, Biovela and Samsonas, respectively, in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Samsonas started to produce Soviet sausages in Biovela launched its Euro brands before the referendum for the European Union in Samsonas profits skyrocketed after it began to produce Soviet brands (LAFPMRA 2005), which in 2005 constituted more than 50 percent of all meat production by Samsonas. 2 In the mid 2000s Soviet brands made up to 1/5 of the meat market in Lithuania. In 2007 Samsonas produced over 20 Soviet brands including: wieners, smoked sausages, bolognas, and cooked-smoked sausages as well as other meat products such as hams and loaves. Euro sausages did not yield similar profits and did not gain 1 Džina Donauskaitė The Cold War in food industry. Atgimimas, 07/19/2006 8:06 p.m. The article was republished by Delfi, the Internet news portal, 07/19/ Accessed on 05/17/ Personal communication with Rimas Frizinskas, the director for commerce of Samsonas and an employee of the meat-packing plant Kauno mėsos kombinatas in Soviet times. August, 2005.

2 Neringa Klumbyte, The Cold War in the EU 2 of 26 popularity of the Soviet brands. Their production neither increased, nor diminished by The producers themselves referred to them as an uninteresting brand. Although differently rewarded among consumers, both, Euro and Soviet brands, gained recognition in a number of national competitions and fairs and were awarded diplomas and/or medals for safety, quality, reliability, and other characteristics. 4 Euro brand joined the large family of already existing Euro and Europe trademarks, the number of which amounts to 300 in Lithuania (The Patent Bureau of the Republic of Lithuania 2006). 5 Euro and Europe trademarks have consistently proliferated during the post-socialist period marking the new Lithuanian-European space. There is the shopping mall Europe (Europa), the Europe park (Europos parkas) where presumably the center of Europe is, the restaurants Europe (Europa) and Europica, the autoservices Euro auto and taxi services Euro taxi, the playgrounds Euroopa, one of the most popular pharmacy chains Euro pharmacy (Euro vaistinė) and the cleaning chain Euro cleaning services (Euro švara skalbykla-valykla) among many others. In case of Euro sausages the innovation was in assigning the Euro symbol to food. This had no precedent at that time. 6 The Soviet was used in the market as a brand name for the first time in general. 7 Soviet and Euro are the antithetical geopolitical codes routinized during the Cold War. 8 Soviet refers to the former Soviet empire and, thus, past- and, in Lithuania, East- bound identities. Euro denotes the post-soviet history, which epitomized in Lithuania s integration 3 Personal communication with Biovela s marketing director, August, Verslo Žinios, Kauno Diena Accessed on 06/13/2006. Seven Soviet brands were recognized as The Product of the Year by The Lithuanian Confederation of Industrialists. Euro sausages were awarded a gold medal as The Product of the Year of The Lithuanian Confederation of Industrialists arranges the competition Lithuanian Product of the Year annually. Various products are nominated as The Product of the Year if they meet criteria of quality, safety, reliability, and other. For evaluation criteria, regulations and rules see see also and Samsonas webpage Accessed on 05/29/ Euro is the name for the EU currency, however, in Lithuania as a brand name it is usually used for Europe. Using Euro instead of Europe companies escape ambiguities of meaning. For example, Euro vaistinė ( Euro pharmacy ) associates a pharmacy with Europe. Otherwise, Europos vaistinė ( Europe pharmacy, better translated as A pharmacy of Europe ) would mean that this is a Europe s pharmacy or a pharmacy of Europe. The word Euro which is not declined in the Lithuanian language is more convenient for naming including the cases where endings are added to make new words such as Europica. 6 The Euro beer emerged in the market before the referendum for the European Union around the same time as Euro sausages in The Euro beer was produced with the Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Lithuania initiative. 7 In the early 2000s there emerged more food products labeled Soviet, including Soviet bread, Soviet dumplings, Soviet calzone, and Soviet rootbeer. Before Soviet sausages showed in the market, some brands invoked Soviet time realities (e.g., buns Three kopeiks, three kopeiks was the price of buns in Soviet times), however, the term Soviet was not used. There were Soviet chronicles, which preceded Soviet sausages. Soviet chronicles were Soviet time TV reportages broadcasted by the LNK television. 8 On symbolic geographies in Eurasia see (see Bakić-Hayden and Hayden 1992, Todorova 1994, Wolff 1994).

3 Neringa Klumbyte, The Cold War in the EU 3 of 26 into the European Union in Euro also evokes post-soviet Europeanization, in Lithuania harmonization of internal and foreign policy and economy with the EU laws and regulations. Unlike the Soviet, Euro and Europe index the present, the future and the West. Soviet and Euro also stand for antithetical meaning orders, the former often associated with backwardness, totalitarianism, and failure, the later with prosperity, democracy, and success. Thus, Euro or Europe should connect the product to the field of European modernity, quality, and prosperity and link it to what Böröcz (2006) named European goodness, i.e., a European normative superiority that is unambiguously benign (Böröcz 2006: 125). Naming a product Soviet should invoke past oppression and experience of colonization. Therefore, the victory of the Soviet over the Euro brands in the food market seems counterintuitive. Indeed, in the food market Soviet and Euro are integrated within different symbolic regimes than the ones routinized by the Cold War. The Cold War taking place in the EU- Lithuanian market looks very different. I argue that in the food market symbolic field created by Soviet and Euro products provides arena for renegotiating Europeanization and the Soviet past as well as the historical Cold War geopolitical order. At dinner tables and exchanging ideas about food, people rearticulate and recirculate political values as well as symbolic and geopolitical orders. I also claim that taste and desire are intrinsic to production of the political community. My broader argument is that consuming Soviet and Euro brands are examples of taste nationalism, i.e., taste related sentiments about national community embedded in a particular geopolitical order. Taste in this paper is primarily a social process. In this paper I show that sausage is a quintessential Lithuanian dish. I later analyze Soviet and Euro sausage marketing and consumption. I specifically focus on ideas about natural food which are differentially applied to home-made and industrialized food, Soviet and post- Soviet time food as well as Soviet and Euro sausages. The discussion of various post-soviet taste communities concludes the paper. The European and Soviet sausage history Sausages occupy a specific niche in the food history of Europe. According to The Encyclopædia Britannica (1929, 1932), Athenaeus mentioned sausages in Deipnosophists, 228 A.D. Sausages were produced by the ancient Greeks and Romans. Sausage making originally was a method used to preserve meats and the name sausage derives from Latin salsus, salted. Although

4 Neringa Klumbyte, The Cold War in the EU 4 of 26 there is no exact documentation of where the first wiener-type sausage was produced, there are some indications that Johann Georg Lahner from Frankfurt produced it in 1805 in Vienna. 9 Sausages emigrated from Europe a long time ago and now retailers in the USA sell Polska kielbasa, Italian sausage, German Bratwurst, Lithuanian, and Irish sausage. Sausages and sausage dishes still keep moving with the new flows of immigrants: in New York Russian ethnic neighborhood at the Brighton Beach restaurant you can order Soviet sausage. 10 In Chicago Polish Bobaks family successfully run their several delis called Bobak s sausage company[ies]. Bobaks started their sausage business with barley sausage kiszka in While the global career of sausages from Europe appears much more fragmented when compared to the career of other processed foods like sushi (see Bestor 2005) or McDonald s fries (see Watson 1997, Jing 2000), sausage is a distinctive product in the diets of many Europeans, including Lithuanians, within and outside Europe. In Lithuania some companies produced sausages industrially before Lithuania s incorporation into the USSR. A well-known is a joint-stock company Maistas ( The Food ), founded in Kaunas in 1923, which later expanded to the cities of Klaipėda, Šiauliai, Tauragė, and Panevėžys. 12 In pre-soviet Lithuania in 1926 two hundred small sausage companies produced kilograms of sausage per day. Unable to compete with industrial sausage companies private companies decreased. In 1938 there were 117 companies left. 13 Soviet-time sausages produced and consumed in Soviet Lithuania and other Soviet republics were integral to Soviet modernity. 14 The centerpiece of Soviet modernity was its massive drive for industrialization and the creation of an industrial proletariat (see, e.g., Kotkin 1995, cf. Dunn 2004). Anastas Mikoyan, the Communist Party leader in charge of provisioning throughout the 1930s, introduced frankfurters, a kind of sausage new to Russians, derived from the German 9 Frankfurters and wieners are called emulsion-type sausages because of the mixture of protein, fat and water. Emulsion-type sausages may be subdivided into small diameter and large diameter sausages. Frankfurters and wieners are examples of small diameter emulsion-type sausages. Originally, wieners were stuffed in sheep casings and frankfurters in pig casings. See Accessed on 05/29/ I generously thank Kim Lane Scheppele for this ethnographic detail. 11 Personal communication with the manager of Bobak s sausage company in south Chicago (5275 S. Archer, Chicago, IL). April, See also: Accessed on 06/13/ See Panevėžio mėsos fabrikas Vilnius: Aušra. 13 See Mažoji Lietuviškoji Tarybinė Enciklopedija 1966: In Soviet times sausages were not called Soviet. Popularly wieners were referred to as sasiskos (from Russian сосиски) and larger diameter cooked sausages were called sardelės (from Russian caрдельки). People also remembered several brands of smoked sausages. While there were a variety of sausages produced, people do not recall this variety because sausages were in short supply in general. When asked specifically about the variety, some referred to sausages produced in different meat-packing plants. For example, in the resort of Palanga, Klaipėdos meat-packing plant wieners were served at restaurants. A few people distinguished Soviet-time wieners in animal casings from sausages in artificial casings.

5 Neringa Klumbyte, The Cold War in the EU 5 of 26 model, to the mass urban consumer (Fitzpatrick 1999:90 91). He used the imagery of pleasure, plenty, and modernity. Frankfurters, a sign of bourgeois abundance and well-being, according to Mikoyan, had to be available to the masses (Fitzpatrick 1999:90 91). As products massproduced on machines, they were superior to food produced in the old-fashioned way by hand (Fitzpatrick 1999:91). Soviet Stalinist experience with sausage production was introduced to Lithuania after its incorporation into the USSR in 1940 and consequent integration after World War II. In Soviet times in Lithuania huge meat packing plants were erected in Kaunas, Vilnius, and Klaipėda starting with Vilniaus mėsos kombinatas built in Meat packing plants in Panevėžys, Tauragė and Šiauliai were reconstructed and expanded. In the late 1960s there were 6 meat packing plants. Expansion of the meat production reflected the Lithuania s agricultural policy to specialize in meat and milk production. 15 In 1985 Lithuania produced more meat than the Soviet Union on average or than any other Soviet Republic: while there were 62 kg of meat on average produced for an individual per year in the USSR, in Lithuania there was 141 kg on average for an individual per year (Anušauskas et al. 2005:538). Although the production output was high, it does not tell how much meat products or sausage was produced for Lithuania and how much was available for consumers in different periods and at different places. 16 Like elsewhere in the USSR, in Lithuania industrialized Soviet period food, produced in huge plants and connected to Soviet state-sponsored culture, signaled social and economic transformations as well as a change of people s diets, habits, and bodies (cf. Mincytė 2003). 17 Consumers of sausages of various private firms and meat packing plants or self-made sausages in pre-soviet Lithuania, were subjected to common tastes encoded in GOST standards (Γосударственные стандарты СССР), developed and regulated by the Soviet state. Although noone forced to consume Soviet time industrial sausages, they were in demand by many people, especially urban residents who did not make their own sausage. Therefore, it is possible to think 15 See the speech by R. Songaila, the secretary of the Lithuanian Communist Part Central Committee Mūsų kryptis pienas ir mėsa ( Our objective is milk and meat ). R. Songaila, Valstiečių laikraštis. 09/25/1966. No.115 (3156). P.2. See also Anušauskas et al. (2005:538) and Bernatonis (1970) on meat production in Lithuania. 16 On the increased production and consumption of sausages in the 1950s see Бοльшая Советская Энциклопедия (1954:652). The Soviet-time encyclopedia reports that there were 110 different brands of sausage produced in 1963 in Soviet Lithuania (Mažoji Lietuviškoji Tarybinė Enciklopedija 1966:391). On deterioration of food situation in the late Soviet period see, e.g., Kenneth Gray National Food Review, October December 1989, Accessed on 10/20/2005. On varieties of sausages produced using the standards of the USSR and Lithuania in the late 1980s see Asta Dalia Paškonienė Dešros ir rūkyti mėsos gaminiai. Vilnius: Vilnius University Press. On Panevėžys meat packing plant output in the 1990s see Panevėžio mėsos fabrikas (1992). 17 For example, Joyce Toomre (1997:208) argues that in Armenia the adoption of Soviet-style sausages was the biggest change, since they were not part of the traditional Armenian cuisine. In Lithuania, as it was mentioned, some companies produced sausages industrially before Lithuania s incorporation into the USSR.

6 Neringa Klumbyte, The Cold War in the EU 6 of 26 about the industrialized Soviet time food as a form of colonization or as a means for selfcolonization it helped to link the empire together, creating common tastes and forms of daily life among people with previously distinct culinary traditions (cf. Toomre 1997, Dunn 2004). Consequently, Soviet sausage is still meaningful throughout the former Soviet space. Post- Soviet Soviet sausages are being sold throughout Russia, as well as its former constitutive republics, such as Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, or Kyrgyzstan. 18 Industrially produced sausages indicated the vitality of the Soviet empire: from the building of huge meat-packing plants which produced a variety of brands of sausages to the stagnation of the food situation in the 1970s and 1980s when food production and per capita consumption deteriorated over the decade. All the Soviet republics were requested to economize on meat. 19 Since the 1970s in Lithuania s stores there was less food products, especially meat (cf. Anušauskas et al. 2005:535). This degradation was an object of many jokes, such as the one about the Soviet Union s progress toward communism: Communism, Socialism and Capitalism plan a get-together. But Socialism arrives half an hour late. Socialism: Sorry, comrades, I had to get some sausage for dinner, and there was a long line. Capitalism: What s a line? Communism: What s sausage? Svetlana Boym relates a similar joke about shortages from the Brezhnev era: A man asks the salesgirl: Don t you have meat? You must be in the wrong store, she answers. Here we don t have fish. Across the street is where they don t have meat (Boym 1994:227). In another anecdote which I heard in Lithuania a person laughs at the utopian official discourse promising prosperity, while juxtaposing this utopianism with actual shortage of sausages: - Under communism in the Soviet Union every family will have a personal plane! - Why does a common family need a plane? Where are they going to fly to? - Where are they going to fly to? For example, they will hear that in Kostroma [Russian Кострома, a city in central Russia], they have put out sausages in the store (Lith. išmetė translates thrown out ). 18 In Latvia the sausages are marketed using the native term Padomju as well as Russian Советская. In Lithuania exclusively native term Tarybinės is used for Soviet brands. In Kyrgyzstan Soviet sausages also have a Russian name Советская. The usage of the Russian term for Soviet most likely depends on targeting Russian-speaking consumers. 19 Personal communication with Rimas Frizinskas, the employee of Kaunas meat packing plant in Soviet times and Samsonas director for commerce. August, 2005.

7 Neringa Klumbyte, The Cold War in the EU 7 of 26 In the 1970s and 1980s sausages were a luxury in the sense of transcending basic needs or exceeding the regular shared standard of life in the eyes of people and the authorities. 20 In the Soviet space, and less so in Lithuania itself, sausage (Russian колбаса, Lithuanian dešra) was a sign of material good and people emigrated to the West for sausage (за колбасой). As Katia Belousova pointed out leaving for sausage was opposed to leaving for freedom like the freedom of speech and both constituted two self-identified lines of emigration. 21 Many of my informants remembered that they did not consume sausages on a daily basis because sausages were rarely available in stores. The extravagance of late Soviet times, Soviet sausages were saved for children, the sick, offered to guests, and served at dinner, birthday, and even on wedding tables. 22 Getting two wieners with bread and mustard at a state-run restaurant in a resort was a way to engage in pleasurable gastronomic indulgence, which made vacations more delightful. Sausages were also distributed through the workplace and were served as incentives and rewards which helped to unify some people around the Soviet state (cf. Gronow 2003 on champagne). However, the highest quality sausages were available at more regular basis at special stores for the most honored members of the Soviet state, such as war veterans, mothers with many children, and the nomenclature. In late Soviet times parallel emotions, desire for industrialized sausages described above and distrust of them coexisted. Industrialization of agriculture in Lithuania was accomplished with amelioration, mechanization, and electrification as well as chemicalization. Huge Kėdainiai Chemical plant built in 1962 and Jonava azote fertilizer factory provided fertilizer which increased harvests, but caused important ecological problems (Anušauskas et al. 2005:541). In Soviet times people were negative towards chemicalization of Soviet industry and agriculture (see Mincytė 2003) and distrusted industrialized food. In villages they resorted to their private plots, to shield from the state reaching into their bodies and health. The food grown on these private plots was considered healthy and reliable. It was also channeled to the cities through 20 See Yukka Gronow (2003:25 36) on luxury foods in the author s discussion of champagne and caviar. The prestige of sausage in Soviet times was lower than some other foods, such as caviar, smoked eel, exotic fruits, such as pineapples and bananas. Moreover, sausages were ranked differently with wieners being less prestigious than an expensive smoked sausage Servelatas. In Soviet Lithuania many other foods were in short supply with the exception of basic staples, thus, they were not consumed regularly and can be considered luxuries. Chicken could be another example. 21 Personal communication with Katia Belousova. April, May I thank Katia Belousova for introducing me to these ethnographic facts and for the help with the related sources. 22 In Lithuania other meat dishes, such as steak, were more appropriate meals at birthday parties and more so at weddings. H. Martirosian reports that after the Soviets built a sausage factory in Armenia in the 1950s, Soviet-style sausages suddenly became fashionable and were even served as a delicacy at weddings. But, Martirosian continues, the fad faded quickly. It was purely a phenomenon of the 1950s (see Toomre 1997:208). Interviewees from Lithuania remembered serving sausages for special occasions in late Soviet times. However, some women argued that a respectable hostess would never serve sausage to guests unless she had home-made sausage.

8 Neringa Klumbyte, The Cold War in the EU 8 of 26 connections of trust and kinship. Distrust to the industrial foods was part of the distrust of the Soviet state which has been transposed on the market in post-soviet times. At present consumption of industrialized sausages and distrust of them coexist. Industrialized sausage not only suffers from criticism surrounding its production, ingredients, and consumption, but also from common infantilization and feminization. As food, containing little good quality meat, it is thought to fit primarily the diets of children and women. My husband does not eat wieners, he cannot be filled up with sausage are oft-repeated claims by women. 23 Meat, commonly associated with men s diets, is a sign of nutritional goodness and masculinity. Meat through chemical processes of one s body can be transformed into power and masculine energy including the sexual one. Sausage, especially cooked one, such as wieners and frankfurters, is food defined by the lack of this goodness, it is something appreciated only by the weak: women and children. After 1989 the decentralization of Soviet economy shaped the post-soviet meat industry: Soviet-time meat packing plants shrunk into smaller private companies or went out of business. In 2007 there were 199 meat packing plants and slaughter houses in Lithuania 24 many of which sold their products to the national market. At present in small village stores customers can choose between several brands while large supermarkets offer a huge variety of sausages most of which are produced in Lithuania. The Euro and Soviet sausage marketing By introducing Euro sausages before the referendum for the EU, producers intended to benefit from the heightened interest in the EU. Since there were a lot of anxieties among people about the rise of prices after joining the EU, Euro sausages were made cheaper. However, lower price meant lower quality. Euro sausages are the first quality sausages, while Soviet brands are of the highest quality and among the most expensive. As Soviet sausage producers claimed, by producing Soviet sausages they responded to the emerging niche in the food market a request for a high quality product. However, Soviet sausages are not an exclusive group of sausages, there are other highest quality brands of sausages. 23 See Mamu portalas. Alvinija. 08/25/2003, 9:41p.m. In Lithuanian: O mano vyro atvirkščiai dešrelėm neužkiši. Pasak jo, jis ta sintetika nesimaitins Valstybinė Įmonė Žemės Ūkio informacijos ir kaimo verslo centras. Accessed on 05/17/2007.

9 Neringa Klumbyte, The Cold War in the EU 9 of 26 Euro sausages expressed Biovela s image of a European meat packing plant. 25 According to Biovela s webpage, the company s production and control of quality correspond to the EU requirements. The company has the right to transport its products into the EU countries. 26 Biovela also stresses safety of its products, a new, related to the EU requirements, food value. It claims that its Euro sausages respond to the model of contemporary good nutrition they are not fat and contain a lot of proteins. According to Biovela s marketing director, in Biovela s philosophy of food, European refers to new technologies, innovations, a new perspective, trust, high quality and expensive products. Euro sausages have also a global dimension, since Euro symbol can be understood throughout Europe as well as elsewhere. Figure 1. The package of Euro sausages. July, Below the EURO there is a sentence: European quality, Lithuanian taste! Similarly, Samsonas represents itself as a European and modern company. Such description implies that Samsonas produces healthy, safe, and good quality products, that company meets the EU sanitary and hygienic requirements, uses new production and packaging 25 Personal communication with Biovela s marketing director. August,

10 Neringa Klumbyte, The Cold War in the EU 10 of 26 methods as well as conducts effective quality and production control. 27 Samsonas takes pride in producing sausages using mature Western technologies. 28 Technology associates sausages with progress, prestige, success, and the West. Since various Soviet sausage industries, as it was mentioned, proliferate outside Lithuania, the Soviet symbol also has a global dimension, although geopolitically different from the Euro. However, taste is disconnected from the European modernity embedded in Euro and Soviet sausages. Taste of both brands is considered to be non-european or non-western. The Euro sausages have a label European quality, Lithuanian taste! (Kokybė europietiška, skonis lietuviškas!). Biovela s marketing director argued that Lithuanian food is much more delicious than European. According to the laboratory experiments with taste conducted by the Kaunas University of Technology Food Institute upon Biovela s request, there is a continuity of taste with Soviet times Lithuanians like garlic, they also love to see a piece of fat in sausage, something you can rarely find in the West where these pieces are mixed well to make sausages like saliami. Fat food is much more appreciated by Lithuanians as well. Based on these findings Biovela developed a brand Lithuanian standard, a much more successful group of sausages than Euro, which represents Lithuanian taste. There are, as Biovela s marketing director inferred, the people of the Lithuanian standard, who like live (gyvas) and right product. In case of Samsonas s Soviet brands, neither technology, nor recipes used to produce Soviet sausages are Soviet. However, many people associate post-soviet Soviet sausages with Soviet time sausages 29 and sausages are thought to represent the Soviet tradition of a good taste. Rimgailė Vaitkienė, the former director of marketing for the company Samsonas, claimed that in Soviet times sausages were made without meat substitutes (mėsos pakaitalai); Samsonas production catalogue =3. Accessed on 06/13/ Such associations are confirmed by various sources. Linguists who conducted evaluations of the term Tarybinis ( Soviet ) argued that the term Soviet could invoke associations with Soviet period products, with recipes or technologies used in Soviet times. Various surveys also confirmed that many people associated Samsonas s Soviet brands with Soviet times. According to the advertisement and image company Serna survey of June 20 25, 2003 in the five biggest cities of Lithuania (they interviewed year old people), 45.6 percent of respondents associated Soviet Milk Sausages and Soviet Doctor s Sausage with Soviet period products, 35.2 percent had no associations. According to the Sprinter representative survey of November 24 29, 2003, consumers of the Soviet brands associated the name Tarybiniai ( Soviet ) with Soviet times (20 percent), quality products (16 percent), and delicious sausages (14 percent). See Vilnius District Court. Case No. 3K See also Klumbytė (n.d.). 30 According to Jolita Martutaitytė, a chief specialist in Quality Branch of the Food Safety and Quality Department (Saugos ir kokybės departamento Kokybės skyriaus), the highest quality meat products have to be produced only from meat. Plant and animal proteins, food fillings (maisto užpildai) and mechanically separated meat cannot be used. The highest quality products have to contain the established minimal amount of meat, represented by amount of meat proteins, and fat. Vilma Kavaliauskienė, the spokesperson for the minister of Agriculture, The meat quality was defined more clearly. 01/06/2004. See

11 Neringa Klumbyte, The Cold War in the EU 11 of 26 therefore, they were more natural and more delicious. 31 Various popular surveys, 32 popular opinions as well as my own interviews show that Soviet sausage taste for many consumers is invincible. Some claim that sausages are like sausages in Soviet times, very delicious, good, and healthy. Others argue that even if not the same they do remind of Soviet time sausages and of traditional tastes. For most consumers Soviet sausage is a synonym for a good quality sausage even if not connected to Soviet times (see Klumbytė forthcoming). Synthetic and natural modernity Among many consumers Western and European modernity and its symbol Euro are connected to synthetics, a value of difference which has a social, individual, and, through taste, materialphysical dimension. Conversely, Soviet is linked to the tradition of natural and good food. This tradition materialized by Soviet sausages and objectified through them stands for the alternative (to the Western) modernity (see Klumbytė forthcoming). Consumers articulate this alternative modernity in their arguments about natural food. Naturalness is among the major food value categories throughout the former Soviet space. Melissa Caldwell in her study of slow food movement in Russian countryside shows how food grown in one s garden even if unwashed is perceived as natural and more healthy than the one from the store. 33 Diana Mincytė in her study of unpasteurized milk in Lithuania, discusses how social relations and trust rather than licenses and certificates are essential in assigning a value to the raw milk and to perceiving it as safe. Mincytė argues that for the raw milk consumers in Lithuania, safety and quality as defined in terms of Western industrialized foods are irrelevant (Mincytė forthcoming). 34 In Lithuania natural is often perceived as coming from nature, unindustrialized, and selfmade. The raw milk from countryside or sausage produced at home from meat acquired from a trusted farmer are the ultimate natural products. In Internet discussions disagreement about t=10. Accessed on 17/05/2007. According to the Department of Standardardization of Lithuania, protein meat substitute (baltyminis mėsos pakaitalas) is a food substance (maisto medžiaga) consisting of proteins which constitute the most part of the functional food substance (for example, egg powder, blood plazma, milk powder, wheat protein concentrate and others). Protein meat substitutes replace meat to replace proteins in a meat product (Lietuvos Standardizacijos Departamentas 2003, Lietuvos standartas LST 1919, 2003 December). 31 See Accessed on 02/13/2005. See Accessed on 06/13/ See the program on sausages on Lithuanian Television Accessed on 09/30/ Paper on the slow food movement in Russia delivered at the AAA conference in See also Lankauskas (2002) and Caldwell (2002).

12 Neringa Klumbyte, The Cold War in the EU 12 of 26 Euro and Soviet sausages is often interrupted by home-made food advocates. Sausages can be made at home, these are the most delicious and healthful, commentators suggest. The quality of home-made sausages is good not only because one controls the process of producing a natural sausage, but also because one adds best quality meat to enhance its goodness. Eks, a pseudonym argues on Internet: When I spend some time in village during holiday and eat natural cucumbers, meat, milk, eggs, then after my return to the city it takes me a month to accommodate to all kinds of trash from the store, everything stinks and has no taste. < > Thanks God, I am a woman from Soviet times, who has culinary skills forced on us then, thus I can make more natural food at home. 35 Similarly another person expressed his or her distrust of Soviet and post-soviet sausage by juxtaposing it to the natural one: You can buy natural sausage in special small stores, in the market (with some exceptions). Milk sausages always includes variety meats, that s why you always have all kind of garbage there. Earlier toilet paper, now E and skin. (about natural, 07/20/2006 6:51 a.m.). In the first commentary Eks connects her culinary skills with Soviet times, which indicates that not only food becomes corrupted, but also people who become unable to produce quality food. Corruption index post-soviet decline, a narrative common in various other post-soviet spaces (see Petrović 2006, Šliavaitė 2006, Kideckel forthcoming) and recirculated in discourses on food consumption. Natural also implies that sausages have no meat substitutes, the notion popularized by the company Samsonas, producing Soviet sausages. Moreover, natural food has no preservatives and oft-mentioned chemicals. Genetic modification of animals or using harmones and antibiotics make food also unnatural. Kristina, in her early 50s, from Vilnius, argued that butter milk, milk and sour cream remained as they were, good, but meat got much worse. For her, even the Soviet sausages are not that good as they were in those [Soviet] times. However, she used to buy Soviet sausages since they were the best of all available, delicious and without meat substitutes like soy, hemaplasma, skin and starch. Kristina claimed to be a pure food enthusiast, and Soviet sausage which was made of presumably pure meat was congruent with her nutrition ideology. Kristina remembered that earlier: we used to buy sausages and wieners, they were very delicious. [They tasted well] not because we were more hungry. The Doctor s sausage [a type of bologna] was superb, now it is hard, you do not know what they put in there. No brand can equal sausages of the Soviet period. I am telling this not because I feel some kind of sentiments to that order (emphasis in original). 35 A commentary to the article from the Internet site The Cold War in food industry by Džina Donauskaitė. Atgimimas, 07/19/2006. See

13 Neringa Klumbyte, The Cold War in the EU 13 of 26 However, unlike Kristina, many others thought that Soviet sausages are as good as sausages in Soviet times. A doctor in her early fifties from Kaunas argued that she buys Soviet sausages because they are without meat substitutes. Like earlier [in Soviet times]. Without chemicals, soy. They are the best of all. Very delicious. Informants who like Soviet sausages often replicate an inversed geopolitical order, where Soviet is bound to goodness and European or Western is defined by the lack of it (see also Klumbytė forthcoming). Regina, in her early 70s, from the city of Kaunas argued: earlier food was natural. My relatives from Germany used to ask to bring butter and cheese from Lithuania because they did not have good food. And Lithuanian food was delicious and natural. Now, when they [the producers in Lithuania] started to copy everything from the West, all food got much worse. < > Sausage was also good [in Soviet times]. Now bologna is simply starch and hemaplasma (kraujo plazma). Unlike in post-soviet Europe-privileging modernization narratives, in Regina s discourse the opposition is reversed: Soviet time food is good, while Western copies are not. Germany, the West of Europe, is claimed to lack Lithuania s goodness. Sausages producers respond to people s sensibilities about body, health, and taste embracing semiotic ideologies about natural food. Samsonas argues that because of its products naturalness, products became very popular among the healthy life advocates as well as among those, who have hardships adjusting to these days synthetics. Soviet sausage packaging is also designed to reflect producer s attitude towards quality and naturalness (see Figure 2) Ibid.

14 Neringa Klumbyte, The Cold War in the EU 14 of 26 Figure 2. The faces of Soviet sausages on a billboard in Aleksotas, Kaunas. Tarybinė (sg. fem.), Tarybinės (pl.fem.), and Tarybiniai (pl.mas.) mean Soviet in Lithuanian. These labels are on the Soviet sausage packages. The nature and young people are the icons of naturalness advocated by Samsonas. August, Biovela s production is also natural and of good quality. Many Biovela s sausages and meat products contain natural seasoning or are natural. However, many people do not connect the Euro sausages to natural, unlike the Soviet ones. Euro and Europe, as both producers note mix well with technology, production quality, progress, but not with the taste and desire for the natural. Entextualized in history, memory and experience Soviet sausage usually constitutes a meaningful order integral to Soviet and post-soviet semiotic universe, while Euro sausage is often understood as an incongruent or even nonsensical match. In many spaces of Lithuania, Europe, especially outside large cities, intellectual and political circles has little experiential ground and is not easily translatable into everyday local vocabularies. 37 Interviewees claimed that to put a label Euro on sausages is nonsense, since for them Euro and Europe is about 37 After integration into the EU and through the agricultural policies, Europe becomes increasingly present in rural areas as well (see Mincytė 2006, Knudsen forthcoming).

15 Neringa Klumbyte, The Cold War in the EU 15 of 26 geography, politics, but not food. Moreover, the European quality and safety are not appealing to most consumers who like natural sausages, which not necessarily comply with the contemporary model of good nutrition, containing less fat. 38 Furthermore, in Lithuania Europe becomes increasingly a high class marker, unreachable to many people. It designates post-soviet modernity from which many feel excluded. The businesses using Euro or Europe in their company names are found primarily in the capital or the other large cities and prestige marked by Euro or Europe usually implies high prices. Companies like Biovela variously try to recirculate and to benefit from European prestige by disconnecting it from high prices and making it appear more egalitarian. In this context the President of Lithuania promised to bring European welfare to every home! However, if Euro does not mix with Lithuanian taste well, why Soviet was able to mix so well in many cases? One answer is nostalgia for Soviet times. Nostalgia for Soviet times and desirability of Soviet brands were often intertwined in people s memories. To think of good Soviet time sausage was also to remember the goodness of the Soviet past, delivered in arguments about social and economic wellbeing, moral and just order, and personal prosperity (see Klumbytė 2006). Dalia, a coat room employee in her 40s from a city of Kaunas, who was nostalgic for Soviet times, spoke to me: Meat does not look nice in shops [at present]. One sausage is brown (ruda), another also, until you find something. Well, there is a variety, but, well, all those sausages are... Earlier [in Soviet times] there were few, you went to a shop, you bought it. Now you search and search and all of them look suspicious. Once I bought a rosy one. I think there were some kind of colorings added (dažų pridėta). Earlier a sausage was a sausage, you knew that you eat meat, well, maybe there was some starch in it, anyway. I don t know... There were times, there were good times then [she smiles]. As if engaging in a dialogue with others who have a different opinion, the woman added: They say we ate bones. No, we ate meat all the time. We didn t eat bones. Really. Her mother sighed in agreement: The best šoninė (a type of bacon, Keiserfleisch) was two rubles. Nostalgia was indicative of experiences of post-soviet marginalization and difference (see Klumbytė n.d.). A narrative about the present, it expressed negativity towards post-soviet times and restored individual s dignity and respect. As Charles Taylor (1989) argued our life narration and our sense of self are inextricably linked to our sense of the good. Finding this goodness in 38 People did not speak about Biovela s model of good nutrition, although awareness about the benefits of fat-free food is increasing. One poor villager claimed that she does not use animal fat for cooking which she has available since she raises pigs. She buys oil at a shop and cooks in a new way. In urban families I know many have stopped using pig fat and started using various oils around the mid-1990s. In Soviet times good food was rich in fat (see also Drezgić on kajmak in the Balkans, forthcoming).

16 Neringa Klumbyte, The Cold War in the EU 16 of 26 the past, people anchor their moral subjectivity in the Soviet tradition, recreate alternative social history and personhood to the ones promulgated at present (see also Klumbytė forthcoming). However, there were those who did not feel nostalgic for Soviet times, still remembered Soviet time food positively and bought Soviet sausage as a good quality brand (see Kristina s commentary above). In these cases a Soviet sausage served as a medium for criticism of the post-soviet food situation and even of the post-soviet period. It was disconnected from common political meanings and the Cold War rhetoric. Political indistinctiveness of Soviet sausages and reinvention of Soviet symbol in the food market, opened the space for consumption of the post-soviet Soviet goodness. Taste nationalism Although among my informants the tendency to choose Soviet over Euro sausages was visible and usually those who bought Euro did not buy Soviet and vice versa, there were still other consumers who tried both of them. In any case, taste is intertwined with political stances, social identities and people s subjectivities. Like clothing or religious practice, taste may be a bodily marker of particular national sensibilities and local identities. Recirculating taste, contextualizing it within political and social history or decontextualizing it from the Cold War geopolitical order whether in stores, dinner discussions, or Internet sites, is a way to produce the communities of taste and distinct national belongings. Vignette #1. Fieldnotes. June, 2006, Kaunas. On my first day back in Lithuania my host offers me Soviet sausages and comments: these are very good, pretty inexpensive, about eight litas [about three dollars per kilo or about two pounds], I get them at Girstupis market. I start wondering why Soviet sausages became inexpensive, since the Soviet brands produced by the meat-packing plant Samsonas were known as costly. After arriving at Girstupis market and walking for a while among the counters, I find the lady selling Soviet sausages. Sausages are sold by weight and their name is written by hand in black on a shiny label. When I ask the woman behind the counter why these sausages are called Soviet, she tells me that it is because they are very good, delicious, like in Soviet times. Yes, she says, I put the label there myself and shows me the real name on the other side of it stating Townspeople s sausages ( Miestiečių dešrelės ) produced by the company Runeda. Another customer, a lady in her late-sixties or seventies with a scarf on her head, interjects our discussion: We were full under kacapai ( Russians derogatory). Her voice is

17 Neringa Klumbyte, The Cold War in the EU 17 of 26 stunningly reproaching. With her few words and tone she establishes commonality with the seller and difference to the non-present addressee. For both women buying and selling Soviet sausages is a communication in common language. In this example, the taste is part of the semiotic universe which establishes Soviet past goodness (see Klumbytė n.d.). The sausages, as the example shows, do not have to be produced by Samsonas, Soviet sausages are the ones that are good and delicious. Although the renaming of sausages was a trick by this small business retailer whose profit depended on amount of products sold, it nicely showed how recirculation of the Soviet value is taking place in small-scale spaces in response to consumer tastes like the lady with a scarf. This example indicates that Soviet goodness and post-soviet Soviet taste are social artifacts having little to do with the actual characteristics of the product itself. The lady with the scarf entered our discussion as a meaningful field. Her claim about fullness under Russians reminded me of the post-socialist drama: subjective hunger at present and goodness of the Soviet past as well as overarching nostalgia for Soviet times. 39 Derogatory name for Russians showed that nostalgic stance does not imply tolerance for Russians and, as other studies confirm, are not about return of the USSR (cf. Boyer 2006, Petrović 2006). Nostalgic sentiments are often critical commentaries on the present social and political order and taste is a venue to convey and consolidate people s claims (see Klumbytė n.d.). Like in ritual performance (see Connerton 1989), tasting food and imagining tastes produces physical relation to history and nation. Here physical is as much imagined as community or nation itself. Vignette #2. Commentaries from Internet to the article The Cold War in food industry by Džina Donauskaitė. Atgimimas, 07/19/ To Džina [the author], 07/19/2006 1:00 p.m. < > In Soviet times producers used more water [to make sausages], and now they bring from the EU all kind of shit and poison our people. The Eater, 07/19/2006 1:16 p.m. 39 In Lithuania most people do not suffer from hunger, however they feel hungry. Many who subjectively are hungrier at present think not about what they actually consume, but what they could consume in a changing society with multiple venues and options. Experience of subjective hunger is often the experience of marginality. See Melissa Caldwell s (2004) discussion of subjective hunger in post-socialist Moscow in Not by Bread Alone. 40 The article was republished by Delfi, Internet news portal, 07/19/2006 at Accessed on 05/17/2007.

18 Neringa Klumbyte, The Cold War in the EU 18 of 26 Well, Samsonas Soviet sausages are truly the best. My grandchildren acknowledge this. When I ask them what kind of sausages they want, they all start crying: only Samsonas. Cuba to the Eater, 07/19/2007 1:31 p.m. Just don t say that grandchildren aren t crying Čili pica and Coca-Cola. Children are the most susceptible to advertising and the first to consume synthetic good taste. They will grow up like real Americans! Unsigned, 07/19/2006 1:36 p.m. The real Soviet sausages were always putrid. I associate this brand only with putridity and muck, because food in Soviet times was DISGUSTING [capital in original]. Damaged memory, 07/19/2006 1:48 p.m. There was an anecdote in Soviet times, maybe from Armenian radio: why is toilet paper in shortage? Because they mince it and put it in wieners (sosiskas), this was the explanation. The similar explanation was for why cats turn away from Doctor s sausage. Then such anecdotes seemed correct for those who ate wieners (sosiskas) or other difficulty acquired sausages. Thus, you can only guess that because they ate that sausage their present memory is damaged. Blue chicken, 07/19/2006 3:21 p.m. Oh, even if the bluest, but real [chicken], with unmodified genes, clean of antibiotics and harmones [Imagine that] yellow fat from the chicken going up, uuuuuch. [she craves for Soviet time chicken which popularly was well-known as being blue 41 ]. Noone died from hunger [in Soviet times] and there were as many fatties as there are now. Darius, 07/19/2006 3:36 p.m. I am 31. I lived in Soviet times and worked in Sigma factory. I received education, graduated from college. For me Soviet times are like the lost paradise. It is much better than present-day America [the USA]. In Soviet times < > food was without chemicals and food supplements, it was very delicious, very natural and healthy, it cost little. The Soviet, 07/19/2006 4:20 p.m. For Darius indeed, I also remember how good it was to live in Soviet times in the morning you eat natural bread with natural sausage Doggy s delight [Russ. sobaciaja radost, the derogatory metaphor for Soviet time sausages], at work for lunch you get a dirty aluminum bowl of unidentifiable soup, not only without preservatives, but also without fresh ingredients, in the evening you make noodles po flotski. 41 In Wolfgang Becker s film Good Bye Lenin! (2003) only one chicken in the store fridge with blood around is a sign of East German food consumption experience. The often mentioned chicken as well as sausage were common idioms among consumers to speak of the Soviet past. In Lithuania the blue chicken meant that it was skinny, with bluish legs. A blue chicken was always a negative comment.

19 Neringa Klumbyte, The Cold War in the EU 19 of 26 Kaunas resident, 07/19/2006 6:08 p.m. What kind of nonsense is it good quality Soviet time sausages. Real rubbish. Half of Lithuania ate stolen meat. Sausages were made of lignin, water, blood, and all kind of other handy things. < > Once I ate a stolen Doctor s sausage which was made for the Exhibition for Agriculture Achievements in Moscow (liaudies ūkio pasiekimų parodai). Oh, this was so good! Meat packing plant workers did not suggest to eat sausage from shops. Don t make fun of people, there are also elderly people who read these commentaries and who remember those times well. < > It helped Samsonas to export its sausages to Russia. They sold out themselves, svolačiai [Russ. svolachi]. Meat, 07/19/21 9:36 p.m. I do not remember that it [food] would have stunk. Milk sometimes got spoiled and. < > But what does it mean? It means that it was real. Now you can keep it for weeks and it is still good. Oh, I would like to get sausage with mustard so badly, as in the station buffet these are such romantic memories. Pardon, 07/20/ :29 p.m. The best food was around when Soviet quality wasn t gone and when euroquality was not there yet. Ziggy, when did you eat dumplings from the store last time? What concerns Soviet [dumplings]- these were quite good Vilniaus, Ekstra. Now you cannot try any brand Well. These commentaries illustrate that Euro(pe)/Soviet goodness is distributed unevenly in food market. The judgments about Soviet and Euro brands or, more generally, about Soviet and post-soviet or European food, indicate that European food and sausages can almost never be good. Only in a couple of commentaries out of 531 commentators agreed that the post-soviet brands are safe and of good quality since they meat the EU food safety standards and regulations. In many other cases, either Soviet and European/post-Soviet food was defined as bad expressing negativity towards industrialized food in general or Soviet food was thought as good while European/post-Soviet as bad. The picture, which could be drawn from the commentaries above, shows that European or post-soviet food is not safe, healthful, and of good quality. Soviet food was presented as being of poor quality, unsafe, and unhealthful or of good quality, tasteful, and desirable. The arguments about sausages often were generalized to all kind of food whether Soviet or post-soviet. Alternatively, ideas about other food were projected onto sausages. Unlike villagers, who often claimed that there were no shortages in Soviet times (see Klumbytė n.d.), the commentators usually agreed about shortages, but still tended to argue about better quality Soviet time food. Even if most informants did not associate Soviet sausages with Soviet time sausages, a Soviet sausage was a lens to look at the past and a way to articulate traditional good taste.

20 Neringa Klumbyte, The Cold War in the EU 20 of 26 Both, Soviet and Euro products appeal, although with a different success, to familiarity, authenticity and tradition. Natural, without meat substitutes food is presented as authentic. Producers and consumers who buy Soviet sausages depoliticize and nationalize Soviet food tradition as well as remake it into our and Lithuanian. They claim Soviet sausages to be about bare life and pure taste. Unlike abundant Soviet sausages sold elsewhere in the former Soviet Union, 42 some of which are marketed as The great taste of the great country [the USSR] (see Figure 3), thus, directly linking the USSR with the taste of Soviet sausages, Samsonas s Soviet sausages appeal to local tastes and desires. The fact that these tastes and desires as the ethnographic studies, marketing and consumer commentaries show, are largely congruent with many other localities of the former Soviet empire, is neglected. Figure 3. Advertising of Soviet sausage in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan. July, Note that on the advertisement producers also claim that their product is made of 100% meat which resonates to the appeals about a natural product or a product without meat substitutes in Lithuania. I thank Serguei Oushakine for the photo. Euro sausages are about Lithuanian taste. Europe is nativized or becoming nativized through domesticating and accommodating to alternative ideologies of quality and taste. However, at present because of historical gastronomic elusiveness, problematic post-soviet transitions often related to Europeanization and the EU, experiences in post-soviet market with a 42 In Russia the trademark Soviet is not controlled by the trademark ownership laws, thus, many companies produce Soviet sausages.