Mult noroc in tara bascilor.
“Si traiasca tuica”
SAL DeTRAGLIA's VIRTUAL TAPAS BAR
Above average home cook, published humorist, endurance athlete, former ex-pat, recovering attorney, doting husband, dedicated dad, non-Italian speaking Italian-American, and endearingly lousy ukulele player. It’s all true. It’s all Sal. This website (www.saldetraglia.com) is my outlet to inform and entertain, on both the personal and professional fronts.
“Si traiasca tuica”
Como???
Franje: Do you mean to tell me that you *don’t* speak Romanian?
Huh?
Ah, no, not a word. Like a fool, I took French in high school. 🙂
I *knew* I should have paid more attention in Romanian 101.
Are you going to do a post on tuica?
A post on tuica? So…you know what tuica is, eh? I happen to have a bottle of it in my basement. Homemade from Romania, in fact.
Perhaps I will do a quickie (post, that is) soon…
I had a Romanian friend but she couldn’t get past the way i said ‘brad pitt’, ‘guest’, sigh ‘pen’ and stuff. It was doomed really … and she stayed on the conveyor belt that is free Nederlands lessons for immigrants, I went for quality of life, being a Lady Di and all.
Oh, the point!
I don’t know any Romanian at all.
I didn’t know what tuica was until yesterday when my supreme powers of deduction (with a little help from my good friend Google) figured it out. There were some pretty scary explanations of how it was made, some including human blood, but I’ll assume you were drinking the nice kind where they substituted plums?
Yes, a quickie (post, that is) would be very enlightening. 🙂
Human blood? I think the conspiracy theorists on Google are taking the Dracula stereotype a bit too far.
Nope…the stuff I drank was distilled from plums. Tuica is good stuff, but it’s certainly not sweet. I’ve tasted two homemade batches. One was mild (perhaps around 50 proof) and the other batch was fiery (at least 80 proof)…but both were yummy.
My Romanian friends drink it as an aperitif AND a digestif. The aperitif version was taken neat and room temperature. The digestif version was heated on the stove with sugar and whole black peppercorns.
Methinks (sorry Trac) that I’ll write my June entry for The Spirit World about tuica. Sorry, but my May entry (which is about sweet vermouth) is already 75% finished.
Drinking my way from culture to culture…
Sal DeDracula
OK—ok— this one is right up my alley!
“Good luck in the Basque country”
and
“and long live Tuica”
I think I’m right- am I right??
(5 years in Romania has finally come in useful!)
Wow! Accurate to the last word! That’s exactly what it says. These are some Romanian friends of mine, and the husband and wife are moving to the Basque Country next month. I through a going-away BBQ for them and snapped the above photo.
Pretty impressive, Ketel One!
Sal
Finally, I get a crash course in Romanian! I guess it’s better to learn the language with the right drink. Makes the tongue twisters sound more “natural”, does it? 🙂