For poor people, for the workers on the construction sites, one had made some sausages who tasted miserably; trying to eat them was like testing one?s will. People ate them, anyway. Humans have a great power of adaptation. (114).

The salami had changed its taste. An oily, soft new thing had appeared: Soya. An agronomist told me that the technical installations producing Soya salami are very expensive and therefore nonexistent in Romania. Anyway we were all convinced that we were eating Soya. In the 80, swallowing the fake salami was no glory, but after the Revolution in ?89, a kind of solidarity among the victims was born. Tell me what you eat and I tell you who you are. The Romanians who had lived in exile, couldn?t according to the popular view participate in the country?s reconstruction because they hadn?t suffered like us, they hadn?t eaten Soya salami. Thus the past humiliation had become a banner, an emblem of the initiating suffering.  One took for granted that a mind fed with Soya had a more realistic and a clearer judgement than those fed with meat. (7)

SPIRITS

Besides the Primula liquor, there was another one, of a greenish color? There was also the Ceres, the whisky surrogate. They made it here. And the Covagin too. The whisky surrogate was quite all right, and you could pour it in bottles with different labels, and when someone came over, you could smart it and say: ?Would you care for some Black&White? ? ?Yes, please?, and then ?Would you like to try some Johnny Walker too? ? ?Sure?, and ?This one tastes better, don?t you think?? (S. R.-B., D. R.-B., 138)

People drank a lot of counterfeited spirits. Booze was made everywhere, in the kitchen, in the garage. Smashed fruit was enough. I did some tests (professional curiosity, what can I do!): I bought, for instance, three kilos of cherries. I fought for them in the line, then took them home. One kilo and some were good. The rest I boiled right away. Whoever liked it stronger could make it out of crushed plums, they make good brandy. And then you used a distiller, they sold small ones, of 3 or 5 liters. But you could adapt kettles, or even test tubes.

I used to get the Brifcor juice in those greasy and absolutely squalid bottles, I think they never washed them.