WITNESS: Siberian pickled tomatoes blew my mind

Jackie Cowhig, Reuters coal correspondent for around 18 months, is based in London but has a global remit. Reporting on commodities for over 18 years, she has visited coal mines and ports around the world. In the following story, slugged she reports on a surprising meal in Siberia.

By Jacqueline Cowhig

KEMEROVO, Russia (Reuters) - I looked at the whiskered chops of the black-skinned, smoked Siberian catfish on my plate and it looked at me.

In Russia to visit mines in the heart of Siberia's coal industry, I'd been told the food would consist of doughy hunks of unidentifiable origin that leaked puddles of grease at the slightest pressure -- with cabbage, potatoes. And dill. On everything.

In the middle of a pine forest near Kemerovo, the Graal restaurant boasted that much of its food was "hand-made by babushki". This sounded too rustic to reassure me.

I squared up to the catfish: it was probably the ugliest creature I've seen on a plate.

To avoid offending my hosts, I was prepared to hide inedible food in my handbag.

But I was about to discover the peculiar pleasure of having horrible expectations reversed.

So happily surprised was I by the freshness, intense flavors, seasonal variety and sheer oddness of the Siberian appetizers that I wanted to say "hah!" very loudly.

I don't think it was just the vodka.

These zakuski, which without wishing to offend either culture are rather like Spanish tapas, included a host of Siberian specialties not found outside the region.

The fish was virtually boneless, almost meaty in texture, and luscious. Then there were razor-thin slivers of frozen raw nelma, a white salmon, dipped in salt and pepper and fishy in a taste-it-at-the-back-of-your-nose kind of way.

Rich, divine-smelling black rye bread with unsalted butter. Little fluffy pies stuffed with cheese or chopped egg or a mixture of minced meats were light and wonderful. And caviar. Naturally, lashings of Beluga caviar.

So good that over a few days I ate a quantity I'm ashamed to admit.

INTENSE JOY

But the taste that topped the lot was the pickled tomatoes, which made my brain ring like a bell.

I've struggled to pinpoint what makes a pickled vegetable so unusual. The name sounds so mundane, and contains no suggestion of the intense joy my fellow travelers and I derived from the things.

Umami -- the Japanese word for the savory, gratifying fifth flavor that comes after sweet, salty, sour and bitter -- starts to do justice to these treats.

I called them umami bombs.

The tomatoes are pickled in weak brine with added horseradish slivers, dill, blackberry leaves and vinegar and every family has its own recipe passed from babushka to granddaughter.

But there had to be more to it than that. I couldn't understand how these simple ingredients plus ripe tomatoes could combine to produce something almost hallucinogenic. My head felt like it was exploding. I virtually saw stars.

To liken them to bombs is no exaggeration: when I was about to bite the end off my first tomato, my neighbor dived for cover.

"You can't do that," he said. "It will explode."

You have to cram the whole thing into your mouth and let it burst. Every time a waitress brought another plateful of pickled bombs to the table, hands shot out and grabbed what they could. Very infantile, perhaps that was part of the appeal.

Somehow pickling the tomatoes immeasurably increased their tomato-ness.

There must be a chemical explanation.

As if to prove it was not just the vodka, I returned home to London fizzing with determination to pickle my own tomatoes and share the head-bursting experience. I'd made notes in Siberia: I now Googled recipes and set out to a department store to buy jars.

After hours of filling the house with strange smells and alarming my children, I had several huge glass jars filled with tomatoes ready to be left in the shed for three months.

Not long now.

(Editing by Sara Ledwith)