Potatoes were among the rare basic goods in Bucharest during the 80s. The state shops, "Aprozar" (Greengrocery) either had empty shelves or sold (now and then there were huge queues) some egg-like nipped potatoes or, on the contrary, with tubers and covered in soil. In a nutshell, impossible to be eaten. That is why, as soon as autumn came, I drew up a list of all my friends who wished to eat fried potatoes all winter round (gastronomic imagination had to comply with those times) and drove my Trabant to Targoviste. Starting with Tartaresti, the peasants displayed a basin full of potatoes in every village and waited for people of Bucharest to come. You could buy whole sacks, choosing your favorite species (white, pink or mixed) for a sum that was a bit larger than that settled by state greengroceries. The bad thing was you had to give up a part of the monthly petrol share and provide more money all of a sudden, according to the quantity you wanted to buy.

The petrol shortage made peasants come very rarely to the market, not only with potatoes, but also with other vegetables, greens or fruit. Instead, some markets appeared "in situ". Every two weeks (according to the traffic regulations, because I had an odd registration number) I went to Adunatii Copaceni, on the bank of the Arges river, where you came across a crowd of cars with Bucharest registration numbers. Greens and fresh fruit, flowers, eggs and other "rarities" made you spend at ease and fill your bags. The laws of the market economy have become functional ever since then: a great demand and prices accordingly. People did everything to buy a decent strawberry! (129)

You couldn?t find anything in those times. We got to the point where my wife would send me to an acquaintance of ours who had a lime tree in her garden and I?d pick up lime leaves. Do you know what for? Sarmale. We made them of minced salami and instead of vine leaves to roll it in my wife used lime leaves.

I?d sometimes crave for one thing or other, and one day told my wife I?d give anything for some roe. That was a manner of speaking, for there was no way one could find any. The next day when I came home from work, I washed my hands and sat for dinner. My wife then took out of the fridge one big bowl full of roe. I gave her a stupid stare and asked how on earth she could lay hands on it, on so much of it. Just shut up and eat, she said, I?ll tell you afterwards. So I ate. It was definitely roe. I gulped it up, as much as I could, it was quite a treat you?d not even dream of, and when I was done, I asked her, where did you get these? Well, she said, it?s not really roe. How do you mean? My wife had prepared roe out of beans and onion and I don?t know what else. They could make anything from anything. When it came to food, there was no end to crazy improvisation. (C. M., 27)