Hrushevyi Kvas (грушевий квас, dried-pear kvas)

Dried pears are not shy. Drop them into a pot and they stain the water late honey, tea, a little smoke from the oven where they were dried, and suddenly the cheapest fruit in the pantry is making a drink with a backbone. This is not bread kvas with fruit floating for prettiness. It is an orchard drink from the Lisostep, the forest-steppe, where pears were dried hard for winter and then woken back up in summer.

The deciding moment is the cooling. Simmer the pears until the smell changes, from dry hay to cooked honey, then sweeten and wait until the liquid is no warmer than your wrist before adding the starter. Hot liquid kills what needs to wake; cool liquid gives yeast and sourdough a clean place to make fizz, tartness, and that faint bread-shop smell at the edge of the pear.

Aunt Nadia's letters use the same maddening instruction for drinks as for dough: "until it sounds right." Here that sound is tiny, bubbles ticking at the shoulder of the jar, not a wild foaming show. Make three litres at least. It costs almost nothing, it waits for you in the fridge, and one cold jug on a picnic table can feed a mood better than any grand dish.