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Perhaps the dish will turn out to be a version of the jellied carp your Jewish grandmother used to make or something like a Russian fish zakuska under an inch of hardened aspic.

The Russian word for an appetizer – zakuska – means “chaser,” because you are meant to consume it with vodka.

Gary toasts to the zakuska of the moment, a basket of pickles: “To the produce of the land, be it artisanal or locavore …”

A zakuska is a sine qua non, with an exception allowed for very tough economic times, when it’s acceptable to chase the vodka with a sniff of your own overcoat.

At the Kharkov station a leather-jacketed Soviet commissar bounced in, offered Manstein vodka and zakuska.