Featured Photo: You’ll love this—cutlets made from “rapan”
Today my Consignee in Odessa started the day trying to get transportation to take the commodities shipped in a container that have been stored at Port Customs. He finally secured a truck and things got started.
We have to take a break as he was getting an online menu photographed for a seafood café he opened in October but has been in lockdown. He had invited four of us to eat as the menu items were being photographed. I did not know he intended for us to eat EACH menu item as it was photographed—there were THIRY-FIVE menu items! I had 3 bowls of pilaf—chicken, mussels, and duck. I had mussels in every kind of sauce you can imagine and some that go beyond imagination. I had fried minnows that you eat head, tail and everything. I had all kinds of things…
During the revealing of the 35 courses, one item brought was “cutlets.” I asked Tanya, what is this? She said, “I’m thinking how to translate the word but just eat it and I’ll tell you.”
Note for future…when the translator says I’m thinking how to translate this, you need to have antennas UP!!!
I began eating…the inside was a bit rubbery and squishy. I asked again “What is this?”
“I’m thinking how to translate just eat.”
Across the table Igor understood what I was asking and he said it was “rapan.” I thought I’d use the translation app and typed in the Russian word and got “rapan.” No help. Then I thought I’d Google “rapan.” Igor was ahead of me and as I got the images, he reached across the table showing me his phone.
“THIS IS A SNAIL!” Tanya said no it was not. I then found that rapan were a part of the mollusks.
Tanya said, “Yes they are and that’s what I was trying to think how to tell you. It is not a snail it is a mollusks that prey on mussels. They are predators.”
Just to make sure all understand here is a definition of “mollusks”: Mollusks are soft-bodied invertebrates of the phylum Mollusca, usually wholly or partly enclosed in a calcium carbonate shell secreted by a soft mantle covering the body. Along with the insects and vertebrates, mollusks are one of the most diverse groups in the animal kingdom. THIS IS A SNAIL!!
As I dropped Tanya off at her lodging tonight she was saying she wasn’t feeling well and thought maybe she got chilled at the café. I told her she probably was feeling all those “mollusks” crawling around inside her hunting the thousands of mussels she ate! Her parting words, “Do you have Imodium with you?”
Thank you for your interest, concerns and prayers!
John L. Kachelman, Jr
(Odessa, Ukraine)
Cutlets of Rapan 
Igor and a dish of mussels in vinegar sauce (I forget which course this was as there were 35!) 
After a 4 hour lunch of 35 courses we went to Igor and Olga’s for supper
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