Chechil is traditional salty and smokey Armenian cheese. It has a very interesting shape of dense strings plated into a braid.
Chechil cheese is very popular in Russia as a beer snack. One cut through the braid gives you a generous amount of tiny pieces of chechil which makes it an easy finger food. And beer is so refreshing with salty and smokey foods.
Chechil has a low fat content and is considered as diet food (if you give the beers a miss of course 🙂 )
Chelnochok sushka is a variation of this snack. It has an elongated shape and vanilla flavour.
Who said that tea treats should be sweet? Sushki are range from plain to savoury and yet they make a perfect match for a nice brew.
Another very popular variation of this confectionery is “zefir-v-shokolade” – chocholate-coated zefir.
Other Russian tea time treats:
Halva popular in Russia and some other Eastern European countries is made from sunflower seeds paste. The texture of this halva is shortbread-like and buttery and its taste remotely resembles peanut butter.
Goes well with a lovely cup of milky tea. Yum!
Other Russian tea time treats:
Gingerbread is very popular in Russia and you can find a lot of varieties with different fillings or without. This popularity is reflected in many idioms mentioning this confectionery, for instance: “Even gingerbread won’t entice him/her to do something” (meaning a person will not get tempted to do something no matter what is offered in exchange).
A carrot and stick approach in Russian is called “gingerbread and whip” approach.
The most famous of all Russian gingerbreads is an imprinted Tula gingerbread from the city of Tula. Modern Tula gingerbreads typically contain jam or condensed milk, while traditionally they were made with honey. It has a rectangular and flat shape, and the imprinting is made with a help of a special printing form.
By the way, there is another traditional item associated with the abovementioned city — Tula samovar, because this city used to be a capital of samovar production. And an idiom “Going to Tula with your own samovar” means “bringing something of your own to a place where this same thing is in abundance and of much better quality”.
Anyway, Tula gingerbreads that are nowadays produced in compact-sized packages and along with other gingerbreads, are one of the most favourite tea-time treats in Russia.
Other Russian tea time treats:
