Whilst rooting in my family history box, I remembered this treasure, which dates from my first year in Ukraine, 1995.
As part of my work, we were trying to get money for a hospital for Chernobyl victim and so we were invited to visit several hospitals in the Zhitomir region where they hoped to build it. On the day in question, we had set off in the morning without much idea of what to expect, and the roads were rather bad, so we were planning to come back early. But things didn't turn out that way. First we went to a sanatorium which was incredibly depressing and gloomy. I am sure we were shown a room where they were given radon baths, incredible though that sounds now, as a treatment for heart problems. Then we had a full Ukrainian lunch with the director, including the usual copious toasts of vodka. Rather worse for wear we were taken off somewhere else and found ourselves in another hospital which was rather new. There we repaired to the coffee bar and had some more liquid refreshments and admired the new building.
Finally about 5pm we arrived in another place where it appeared an annual celebration was to take place and a formal dinner was laid on starting at 7pm. At this point I should add that we were dressed for warmth with several layers of sweaters, socks and scarves and boots, and looked rather out of place with the medical ladies who were dressed up to the nines in their backless dresses. It was freezing in the banquet hall. But we were persuaded to stay and eventually we sat down to the menu above, or at least something as copious.
The menu itself is a spoof. All the items are written as Russian puns or descriptions especially amusing to medical people. For example under Main Courses, No 4 says Beef steak with blood (from a donor, Group 1, rhesus negative). Or electric ray, portions with 110 or 220v. For side orders you can have sapogetti, a type of pasta for soldiers (you have to know that sapogi are boots worn by soldiers). For desert you can have cake with cream (for normal or dry skin).
I don't remember the actual food, though there was a lot, and it was clearly going on for a good few hours. However, our driver demanded to leave early so we could get home safely in the snow, so we missed most of it.
