Krovfeta

‘Following a drive during which we learned that Agent Fox is gay and Simone herself is bi, Fox tasked Clark with rifling through screens and screens of tipline calls possibly about the Russian, but “people person” Simone instead sneaked off to talk to locked-up Zeke, her former student, asking if he remembered anything else about the bomber. This led to Zeke sketching a Russian candy bar that the guy munched on, and that in turn — thanks to some Russian musicians that Simone’s dad Cutty sometimes jams with — led Simone to a store. Not waiting for Nolan to catch up, Simone approached and tried to chat up Gurin by herself, but that led to a brief brawl, where the Russian walloped the unarmed trainee hard, and then ran off.’

Source: Matt Webb Mitovich, “The Rookie: Grade Part 2 of the Spinoff Pilot, Tell Us If You’d Watch It,” TVLine, 1 May 2022. In Russian, konfeta means “candy,” and is derived from the Italian confetto. The Russian word for “blood” is krov’ (with a so-called soft v), not krov (as here, with a so-called hard v), which, on the contrary, means “roof” and, by extension, “shelter, a place to stay” (“a roof over one’s head”). So, in their misguided effort to confect “blood candy,” the writers of The Rookie actually conjured up a “roofy.” And the Russian word for “chocolate” is shokolad, not shokold, as here. But that mistake can be put down to Zeke’s “poor” memory. UPDATE (2 May 2022). My boon companion, who was born and raised in the Soviet Union, told me earlier today that she and other children were given sweet “Hematogen” nutrition bars to raise their hemoglobin levels, as she put it. These bars were sold in pharmacies and labeled as such, not as chocolate, candy or “krovfeta.” Adults did not eat Hematogen bars, she said, adding that she stopped eating them when she realized what was in them. In 2019, Vice published a provocatively titled article about Hematogen bars that might have inspired the writers at The Rookie. I’m happy to admit that, despite having lived in Russia twenty-some years, I’d never heard of them until today. ||| TRR