Targoviste. Cabbage market at the crossroads - ciorba and recipes

 Targoviste

Leave time to stop, or just to get lost on the way to Targoviste.  We were happily lost, fog was coming in over the flat fields. The fog then suddenly lifted and we were in the middle of a large cabbage line of trucks, extending all four ways at a crossroads on the way to Targoviste.

Much bartering, selling, moving about as it got dark. Trucks piled high.

The advantage of a car is the ability to pull over and see another side of a culture: the earning a living.  We saw manual picking in the fields, very few automated machines.  And there is where the produce comes:  Drive carefully because around the bend, at the crossroads at dusk after the picking, may be a truck-lined cabbage market.  Buying and selling, the trucks lined up in all directions.

Cabbage is a mainstay.

• Try the ciorba, a sweet-sour cabbage soup. Go to http://www.mcgees.com/kitchen/recipes/soupsand/ss109801. 

And stuffed cabbage. See http://www.bitsyskitchen.com/romanian1. This includes Vegeta, a seasoned salt with bits of dried vegetable.  Vegeta is also part of Western Balkans (Bosnia, Croatia) cooking, and available in our markets in the international foods sections. I use it often, when a bouillon cube is called for or a seasoned salt.  It does contain msg, however.