baby gravy
Despite Russia’s demographic crisis, baby food fever is sweeping the capital. element wasted a lot of time and money trying to find out why.
TEXT WILL BERRY feedback
Here at element Towers, we love a good debate. Whether we’re discussing pool halls, karaoke bars or abortion clinics, we won’t drop the subject until we’ve thrashed the thing out properly. Emotions always run high and, more often than not, they spill over, leading to tears, fisticuffs and, sometimes, passionate necking. But the subject that boils our blood the most is baby food. “But why baby food?” I hear you wonder. Well, baby food isn’t just for kids and crazies, it’s for real people too. Because in Moscow, with all the miserly portions of dysentery-filled fruit and vegetables kicking about, it’s probably your best bet for getting a quick shot of safe, easily-digestible nutrition. But which baby food is the best? In the office our publisher was touting the virtues of the FrutoNyanya range, the editor claimed he loved the Semper horse and potato (48 rubles from Azbuka Vkusa) and the intern was definitely trying to say something, but it was hard to understand him through his element standard-issue gimp mask. So, quicker than our advertisers could say “Do some proper journalism,” we devised a taste test, with me as the blindfolded guinea pig. After a quick trip to Ramstore, we began. The first thing we learnt was that you should forget buying meat baby food, especially if it’s in a tin — the producers are hiding what it looks like for a reason. My tasting of the tinned beef and tongue from Babushkino Lukoshko (40,90 rubles for 95 g) nearly made a mess of element’s pink deep-shag carpets. The chicken puree from the same makers was hardly better, with the editor cackling sadistically as I gagged in revulsion. With the office now smelling of a mixture of dog food and perekhod, we moved on to some of the less meaty numbers. First up was the FrutoNyanya buckwheat and apple (32,90 rubles for 200 g), succinctly described by the editor as “apple-flavored dirt.” Then came the Babushkino Lukoshko milk and marrow (15,90 rubles for 100 g), which, to everyone’s surprise, was actually pretty good — sweet and smooth. The tide was taking a turn for the tasty. Next up was the fruity stuff. Sempers’s apple and apricot and sugar-free apple (both 40,85 rubles for 135 g from Magnolia) and the Babushkino Lukoshko sugar-free peach (16,90 rubles for 100 g) all elicited welcome groans of joy upon sampling. They all tasted like the fruit they claimed to be, weren’t excessively sweet and slipped down nicely too. A conclusion was quickly reached — the fruitier, the better. Buoyed by this discovery, we hit the streets looking to score some harder and fruitier stuff. At the Krestovsky univermag on Prospekt Mira, we found a myriad of baby food, including some western brands like Heinz, Gerber, and, most amazingly, the classy Hipp Organic brand of baby food, all in flavors ranging from mixed berries to plain, sugar-free apple, and all as great tasting and vitamin-filled as each other. So as we bounded back to the office, convinced that our research meant another Pulitzer prize was in the bag, we reflected on what we had learnt – although you should avoid meat and tins like the plague, baby food could well be the best way to get your five a day in this town. |
