The Alpha-Bestiary
V is for Vladimir,
A vole from Vladivostok
Who vitiated his vichyssoise with sturgeon stock.
The maitre-de was mad as could be,
Bid Vladimir boil up borscht burgundy beets,
But Vladimir was true to the vichyssoise he knew, And bade the maitre-de to stuff his beets
With Caspian caviar and broccoli buds.
The maitre-de evicted Vladimir from Vladivostok. Now he wanders from Voivodina to Valparaiso,
From Vincennes to Venice to Vienna to Vilnius, Vaunting vichyssoise as the vitamin for all.
V is for Vladimir,
A vole from Vladivostok
Who vitiated his vichyssoise with sturgeon stock.
The maitre-de was mad as could be,
Bid Vladimir boil up borscht burgundy beets,
But Vladimir was true to the vichyssoise he knew, And bade the maitre-de to stuff his beets
With Caspian caviar and broccoli buds.
The maitre-de evicted Vladimir from Vladivostok. Now he wanders from Voivodina to Valparaiso,
From Vincennes to Venice to Vienna to Vilnius, Vaunting vichyssoise as the vitamin for all.
A vole is a small rodent often called a field mouse or meadow mouse. It normally dines on succulent root systems rather than on Vichyssoise, a thick soup made of boiled and puréed leeks, onions, potatoes, cream, and chicken stock. In the 18th century Louis XV was so afraid of being poisoned that he employed such a long line of food tasters that the soup would be could before he could eat it, but he liked it that way so it has continued as a cold dish. Borscht is a Russian soup made mostly from beetroots though it may also include meat or bone stock with sautéed vegetables such as cabbage, carrots, onions, potatoes, and tomatoes. When Nikolai Nikolaevich Muraviev-Amurskiy was expanding Russian control over east Asia he named a bay on the Peter the Great Gulf "Vladivostock" (ruler of the East) in 1859, but the next year Alexei Shefner founded a town there by the same name. Vojvodina is an area in Serbia; Sremska Mitrovica (then called Sirmium) was 1 of the 4 Roman capitals, and the 1st independent Slavic states emerged in the area in the 9th century. Valparaiso, Chile, was named by Juan de Saavedra, after his hometown Valparaíso de Arriba, Spain, in 1536. It remained a village until the ealy 19th century but became an important harbor after Chile became independent in 1818. Vincennes ia suburb of Paris. Vienna (Wien) was called Vindobona by the Romans when they fortified it in 15 BCE. Venice (Venezia) is a city on the Adriatic sea built across 118 small islands separated by canals and linked by over 400 bridges. A dozen "apostolic families" established the Repùblica de Venèsia in 697, and by the 9th century it emerged as the 1st international financial center, acquiring control over Cyprus in the Mediterranean sea and Crete in the Aegean sea as well as Italia as far west as the Adda river. Napoleon Bonaparte took the city in 1797, ending its independence; he ceded it to Austria a few months later but retook it in 1805. The Austrians regained control in 1814, and it eventually became part of the new kingdom of Italia in 1866. Vilnius was founded by Gediminas, the founder of Lithuania, in 1322: On a hunting expedition near the Vinia river he dreamed that a giant Geležinis Vilkas (Iron Wolf) was howling on a hilltop, sounding like 1000 wolves; Lizdeika the priest instructed him to build a castle on the spot as the capital of the kingdom he would found and predicted that the glory of his dynasty "shall echo throughout the world; over the coming centuries his family ruled Poland, Hungary, and Bohemia.
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