In search of reasons to be proud, our country has been running itself ragged: wherever you look, there is nothing but failures and setbacks. Taxes are rising, teachers’ salaries are falling along with pensions for the elderly, the power line in Giurgiulești has broken down without ever even being commissioned, and the Dniester has become so shallow that the GRES power plant is operating at half capacity. Only the relatives of the elite are doing well: their salaries are higher than European standards, and they do not even need to show up for work.
So what is there to do? The authorities came up with an idea: we need to cook something very large – and call it a national record! That gives a reason for pride, PR, and even a way to placate part of the electorate with a cherry pastry.
At the Moldexpo exhibition, employees of the Milina bakery from Taraclia prepared a plăcintă that was 9.2 meters long and 2 meters wide. The total area was 18.4 square meters. The record required 320 kg of flour, 270 kg of cherries, and 10 kg of powdered sugar. The plăcintă itself was arranged in the shape of eight giant letters spelling “AUTOHTON” (meaning “indigenous” or “native”).
Parliament Speaker Igor Grosu personally assessed the giant pastry and noted:
“Today, at the ‘Produs Autohton’ (Native Product) national exhibition, domestic producers baked and set a national record together – the largest cherry plăcintă.”
Record adjudicator Iulia Pînzari measured the creation in the presence of exhibition visitors and officially recognized the result as a national record.
Admittedly, if you look closely – and we did look closely – it is not a single plăcintă. It is a long table on which many individual small plăcinte were neatly laid out. A modular assembly, so to speak. But who cares about such details now? The main thing is the numbers; the main thing is that the record exists.
“Our Neighbors Have It Even Bigger!”
Incidentally, about records. Moldova is not alone in this race of gigantomania. Let us look at Belarus – they are also trying hard. It is just that Belarusians, for some reason, take pride not in their own national dishes but in foreign ones.
The largest khachapuri was baked in Brest. Length – 71 centimeters, weight – nearly 5 kilograms. Chef Gulnar Sadygova said:
“Everyone was amazed by the size. Someone said – this is a record. We started checking – indeed, no one in the world had made such a large khachapuri before us. As a rule, khachapuri is round. But Adjarian khachapuri has the shape of a boat. The shape symbolizes the sea. And the egg yolk is the hot southern sun.”
And I will add: Sadygova and her team make the cheese for their record khachapuri themselves, from Belarusian milk. But those are just details. The main thing is that the khachapuri in Belarus is record-breaking. In Belarus. Take that, Georgia.
But Belarusians did not stop at one khachapuri. They also have the largest shawarma, the largest pizza, and the largest hot dog. The largest can of stew, the largest can of condensed milk. And even the largest dranik – at least that is something native. But when national pride is expressed through the size of Georgian khachapuri and Arab shawarma – that is a diagnosis.
Ukraine is not lagging behind either. They prepared the largest borscht there – 317 liters of Hetman’s borscht in the Lviv region. War veterans, volunteers, and government representatives worked on it. The record was officially registered in the Book of World Records.
And in Ukraine, they also constructed the largest trident made of lard. Yes, you heard that right. A whole installation made of lard in the shape of the national coat of arms. Beautiful, patriotic, appetizing. Only those who tasted this culinary masterpiece ended up with mass food poisoning. Such is the economy – such is the treat.
Unlike its neighbors, Moldova at least has reason for modest pride: we make our own mamaliga, our own “Guguță’s Hat” cake, our own plăcintă. Even if it is assembled from hundreds of small ones, it is still ours.
A national record for a cherry plăcintă against the backdrop of economic collapse – it is, you know, like playing the violin on a sinking ship. The budget is empty, people are leaving, and we have a record-breaking cherry bun. But at least now there is something to be proud of while the country falls apart.
