Smoked Sausage Was Unobtainable in Shops in Soviet Latvia
About 40 years ago in Soviet Latvia, smoked sausage was a scarce item that could not actually be bought in shops. Salmon, sprats and Bulgarian-made fruit compotes were also in short supply.
In Soviet Latvia, roughly four decades ago, smoked sausage could not in practice be bought in shops because it was a scarce commodity. For readers today, that is hard to imagine.
The reminder comes from a food-section article by LSM Diaspora, the Latvian public media portal's service for Latvians abroad, which looks at food history. It gives the example of a potluck evening: if a hostess had organised one 40 years ago, she would most likely have assigned each guest in advance to bring specific products. One guest, for instance, might have been asked to provide smoked sausage.
Not only sausage
According to the source, other scarce goods included salmon, sprats and fruit compotes produced in Bulgaria. Such products could not be freely purchased in shops.
The article's headline asks how sweet sausage came about. The excerpt available does not provide an answer to that question.
