The most Russian food is buckwheat. Similarly consumed nowhere else, the only way to even learn it exists as an American is to dive into the crunchiest subcultures left of Whole Foods and discover that there is yet another, even more super grain than quinoa—buckwheat.

In terms of taste, it’s somewhere between horse feed and the aftertaste of staring into the abyss, which is to say I love it. As a child, your grandmother serves it in milk, lightly sprinkled with sugar, reminding us all that “cereal” once meant something akin to “grain” and not Froot Loops.

As an adult, you eat it dry. Simply piled on a flat plate along with a cutlet that was hopefully made with a fatty enough ground meat that the remaining juices on the pan can be generously poured over the buckwheat to make it somewhat swallowable.