Reese Erlich is on assignment in Moscow. He offers this humorous memory about a long ago visit to that famed city. I was nineteen when I first visited the country, then known as the USSR, with my parents and sister in 1966. It was quite exotic for Americans to visit Moscow in those days and nothing was more exotic than eating at the Peking Restaurant at the Peking Hotel. It was an enormous dining hall with high ceilings, representing the best of Stalinesque architecture. We perused the menu, which was written in four languages. One item stumped us: trepangs. My father suggested I consult the...