The foods and ingredients that have become standard Russian fare are the result of many divergent factors: the range of climatic conditions in this continental-sized country; the culinary contributions of numerous ethnic groups; the Slavic peasant diet that developed over the centuries; the region acting as a commercial and cultural crossroads east and west, north and south; and the dra atic expansion of the Russian Empire since the seventeenth century. Russians today without difficulty consider all the following foods to be part of their cuisine: Baltic herring and rye breads, Pacific salmon, Siberian ferns and pine nuts, Asian dumplings, Korean pickled vegetables, Central Asian pilaf, shish kebab from the Caucasus, Romanian brynza (feta cheese), Bulgarian peppers, and eggplant from the Middle East. Thanks precisely to this assortment and range of ingredients, dishes, and preparation styles, Russian food is abundant and varied, and as a result, inadequately understood by the outside world.
Colorful Markets
One of the most fascinating and rewarding cultural experiences in the former Soviet Union is a leisurely visit to a local produce market. Even towns with only a few thousand residents set up a weekly, if not a daily, market for foodstuffs, clothing, and personal effects. A typical food market includes garden items grown by locals; commercial products hawked by middlemen; and the bright fruits, vegetables, and nuts usually controlled by merchants from Central Asia and the Caucasus. Elderly ladies (babushki), often adorned in multicolored scarves, sell their greens (parsley, dill, green onions, and cilantro); the industrial vendor retails his hothouse tomatoes and cucumbers; and everyone else offers what he or she can grow, acquire, or make.
Throughout the seasons, the markets present an amazing variety of foodstuffs. Starting with the unprocessed or bulk section, the pantry traditionally contains a selection of grains and flours; pulses and dried beans; vegetable oils sold in reused plastic bottles; walnuts, almonds, and pistachios; macaroni and vermicelli for soups; rice; and dried apricots, raisins, and dates. The vegetables, in order of quantities sold, include potatoes, cabbage, carrots, tomatoes, cucumbers, beets, turnips, and radishes. Besides apples, pears, and berries, most fruits come from the southern regions or are imported. Though rarely perfect in shape, marked with minor external blemishes, and small in size, most of the fruits and vegetables have a vibrant and distinctive taste, one that is slowly fading from Western memory. Pickled garlic, peppers, and cucumbers are almost always locally produced and homemade. Most markets have a Korean food section with prepared dishes of spicy pickled vegetables and fish.
In the dairy products section, vendors tempt the passerby to taste their homemade specialty. Sour cream, fresh cheese (tvorog), cheeses, yogurt, and kefir are displayed in glass bottles or buckets and sold by volume. Extraordinary honeys—liquid honey, creamed honey, combed honey, and even walnuts or almonds preserved in honey—are often found in this section.
The meat market is not for the squeamish. Whole heads of cattle, pigs, and sheep are mounted next to their quartered flesh. Men with hatchets and axes hack sides of beef on well-worn tree stumps that serve as cutting blocks. Whole plucked chickens, hares, and game (on occasion) dangle from the pipes or girders above. Dogs, cats, and flies are continually shooed from the fresh carcasses. As primitive as it sounds, meat sterilely packaged in Styrofoam and plastic wrap cannot compare with the taste of freshly slaughtered beef, mutton, and pork. If the stench and the proximity of death become overwhelming, a quick stroll down the aisle reveals the prepared meats: smoked and cured hams and pork, rows of sausages and salamis, roasted chickens, and cured pork fat (salo). There are many rivers, lakes, and seas in Russia; therefore, fresh fish is often found at the market. It is also available smoked, dried, canned, and frozen. The fish section certainly includes caviar, black and red.
Delectable fresh or prepared products from the remnants of the Russian Empire still permeate the country's markets. Yet the foodstuffs available in the markets provide only a hint of a country's cuisine. It is how those ingredients are prepared and during which occasions they are served that distinguishes the cookery of one region from another.
Elusive Categorization of Russian Cuisine
The pitiable international reputation of Russian cuisine is usually based on deleterious experiences with Soviet commercial cookery, which suffered decades of deprivation and demise under a centralized economy. Restaurants in the former USSR rarely did justice to the flavorful domestic cookery found within its expansive territory. Over the past century, even the handful of decent and even fine Russian restaurants in Paris and New York could not challenge the connections of Russian food with cabbage, sausage, and vodka. Discussions of national cuisines usually focus on haute cuisine, the ornate and skillful manner of preparing food, often based on classical French ideals of the eighteenth century. It is the cuisine of the court, of the nobility, of the wealthy.
For those who can afford it, haute cuisine is inextricably related to gastronomy, the art and practice of choosing, preparing, and consuming fine food and drink. Cuisine, on the other hand, defined as a certain set of cooking traditions, is simply the French word for "kitchen." As in many European languages, cuisine in Russian is also the same word for "kitchen" (kukhnya). When associating certain foods with an entire nation, stereotypes are unavoidable. Yet products are ever changing, aesthetics evolve, and cuisine rarely heeds national boundaries, especially in an era of globalization. Gastronomy in Russia essentially vanished with Soviet power, but cuisine was never vanquished. Under Communism, Russian cuisine did not disappear; it was merely impeded at home by the lack of products. There was insignificant opportunity for Russian culinary expression globally as opposed to other "national" cuisines, which showcased their culinary treasures through cookbooks and restaurants.
To have any chance of understanding a country's cuisine on the most basic level, pigeon holing is inevitable. One approach is to identify the cultural superfoods of a nation, an attempt to describe the meaning of foods within their cultural context. It has been noted that "even when material characteristics frame food preferences, culture makes such eating habits respected, and in this way turns them into traditions."2 Certain foods take on such symbolic overtones that they come to represent the cuisine as a whole. They may be humble, everyday foods. The Brits have roast beef, Americans have hamburgers, and Russians have caviar—or cabbage, depending on perspective. Most so-called descriptions of ethnic or national cuisines end up being a list of representational foods that are rarely eaten on a daily basis, but those that are predictable, cliched, and mythologized.
One food historian in the 1980s attempted to classify cuisines through "flavor principles," or flavor profiles, whereby "definitive combinations of flavorings ... produce distinctive tastes which are unique and characteristic." 3 This structural approach to cuisine divides the world into food regions and defines the main flavor elements. Mexican cuisine is reduced to only two primary flavor profiles: lime-chile and tomato-chile. According to this typology, Russian food is simply "sour cream-dill, or paprika or allspice or caraway," a mere subcategory of Northern and Eastern European cuisine. Central Asian cuisine is defined as "cinnamon-fruit-nut," obviously a reference to Iran and not the entire region. These generalizations, while interesting, do more to simplify cooking approaches than to achieve an understanding and appreciation of a culinary culture.
A more practical, yet labor-intensive method for describing cuisine is proposed by a leading sociologist. He discards national boundaries and focuses on foods in a cultural context. A researcher is thereby forced to examine in great detail the range of foods in a given area and search for origins, similarities, and contrasts with adjacent areas. This results in organizing culinary cultures that, of course, generally defy geographical borders.4
Many countries not only have several culinary cultures within their borders, but they also overlap and share a culinary culture with other nations. This is certainly the case in Russia, China, and India, for example, where the size and diversity of the country have produced a "nation of nations." Therefore, the term culinary culture is a much more flexible concept culture are products, techniques and tools, and most significantly, its cultural context. Russian cuisine (as for most cuisines) is not exclusive, easily defined, or static. It is as dynamic as life itself.
Food Production
Geography, religion, and tradition are the major influences on the Russian diet. Look into Russia's larder, and although most foodstuffs may be familiar, there will be plenty that is unusual, if not downright mysterious, to foreigners. Ferns and wild mushrooms vie for attention next to the potato and tomato. The variety of grains, vegetables, fruits, meats, fish, and dairy products used by Russian cooks is dazzling, even during the lean decades of the twentieth century.
The early Slavs (before the ninth century A.D.) were subsistence agriculturalists and relied heavily on wild or natural foods from the forest. Their fields and herds provided them with food and clothing.5 "Gifts of the forest" (dary lesa) is mainly a reference to mushrooms, although it may also include nuts and berries (currants, wild strawberries, gooseberries, raspberries, blackberries, lingonberries, among others), as well as game such as rabbits, squirrels, and deer. The diet consisted chiefly of millet, rye, and milk. The principal task each autumn was preserving food for the long winter months by means of pickling, drying, smoking, and freezing. Slavic communities in the wooded central European plain were small and scattered.
Long-distance trade with the Vikings from the north and the Byzantine Greeks from the south was not well established until the tenth century. This trade gave Slavs access to the bounty of Asia and the Middle East. By the eighteenth century, however, Russia was becoming a power in Europe, and new foodstuffs and dishes entered the cuisine. This was also the time that New World foods—potatoes, tomatoes, peppers, chocolate, among others—began to diffuse throughout Eurasia. The later European culinary influence in the Russian noble houses transformed local ingredients and peasant dishes into haute cuisine, forming the primary characteristics of Russian national cuisine today.
Catalog of Common Foods
Grains
Grains, specifically rye, buckwheat, barley, oats, millet, and wheat, are the main staples. Cereals (seeds of cultivated grasses) are of central importance to Russia, so much so that they in many ways define the national cuisine. They form the basis for the delectable breads, filling gruels, savory pies, pancakes (bliny), dumplings, and the beloved fermented beverages. In general, cereals are resilient and easily cultivated, a requirement for survival in the northern regions. Russia maintains the top spot worldwide for both production and consumption of rye, oats, and barley, though barley is used primarily for beer brewing and livestock feed.6 Maize and rice have only recently entered the Russian table. Maize was mainly livestock feed until sweet corn appeared consistently in the 1990s. Rice, of course, has a longer Russian connection through Central Asia. Cereals are used whole in gruels, hulled and crushed (groats) in porridge and soups, or ground into flours for baked goods and fried or boiled doughs.
Rye was the preferred grain for breads of the north, found in the famous Baltic and Russian black breads. Farther south, on the fertile steppes of southern Russian and Ukraine, the Scythians were among the first to cultivate wheat. The Greek historian Herodotus claimed that Russian wheat, exported by the Greek colonies on the Crimean peninsula, sustained the builders of the Parthenon in Athens in the fifth century B.C.7 Starting in the thirteenth century and lasting almost continuously until the 1917 Russian Revolution, merchants from Genoa and Venice established trading posts on the northern coast of the Black Sea to supply wheat to the whole of Europe. In the late nineteenth century, hard durum wheat from southern Russia, stamped "Taganrog"—reflecting the name of the Russian port on the Sea f Azov—yielded the most prized semolina flour for pasta making in Italy and the United States.8
Baked Goods
Bread forms the basis of the Russian diet, symbolizing sustenance and hospitality. Russians consume an amazing two pounds of bread per person a day. It is the ubiquitous delight of every meal. The very word hospitality (khlebosovstvo) derives from the roots khleb (bread) and soV (salt), which were traditionally presented to guests as a sign of welcome, warmth, and generosity. In almost endless varieties, most tables are graced with slices of both white wheat bread and dark rye or black bread. Bulka is a small roll or loaf, from which arises the word for "bakery," bulochnaya. In cosmopolitan urban environments, the word baton means "single loaf of white bread," entering the vocabulary with numerous other French terms in the eighteenth century. Though baton in French refers to white bread smaller than a baguette, in Russia, a baton is larger, or what is known in America as French bread.
Among the most popular dark breads are Borodinskiy, a rye-type made with whole coriander seeds, and Rizhskiy, a sourdough rye named for Riga, the capital of Latvia. Although most breads today are made in factories or large-scale bakeries, there are infinite variations and everyone has his or her own opinion on what is truly authentic Russian black bread. Breads and baked goods may be salty or sweet, made from rich or lean doughs, leavened or unleavened, and seasoned with any number of spices, nuts, or fruit, such as caraway seeds and raisins. Although Russians never developed the wide assortment of pastries and sweet treats as in other parts of Europe, their extraordinary breads more than compensate for that particular deficiency.
Other popular baked goods are sushka, bublik, krendeV, and kulich. A sushka is sort of a cross between a cracker and a bagel—a boiled and baked dough, ring-shaped like a small bracelet. Dozens of them are strung together on a thread and draped over the samovar, the ubiquitous tea urn, as the ever-present accompaniment to tea. This barely sweetened treat is often given to teething babies. Sushki are made plain, with vanilla sugar, or with poppy seeds. A larger, softer version of the sushka is the bublik, a white bread dough covered with poppy seeds. KrendeP is similar to a large, soft pretzel and can be either sweet, with raisins and nuts, or else savory. A sign shaped like a large golden krendel is often hung over Russian bakeries even to this day, a tradition from European bakers' guilds in the Middle Ages. Easter bread, or kulich, is the towering airy cake served during the holy week of Easter, made from rich dough that often includes raisins and other fruits.
Other typical cakes and pastries include pryani i (soft ginger honey cookies), tortes (European layer cakes), rum baba of presumed Polish origin (fruit yeast cakes soaked in rum), khvorost (deep-fried wisted pastry strips dusted with powdered sugar), and assorted tea cakes and cookies.
Porridge
Russians have a saying, "Shchi da kasha—pishcha nasha" (Cabbage soup and gruel, that's our food). Kasha, or boiled buckwheat groats, is a Russian cultural superfood, and it is difficult to overrate the symbolic importance of a food that has nourished a people for more than a thousand years. Kasha was most likely eaten before bread baking had been perfected. The process of preparation has changed little over time. It can be boiled with milk or water, prepared sweet or savory, or served for breakfast or as a side dish. Smaller groats are often used to make a more liquid kasha with only milk. Buckwheat kasha can be prepared with almost anything mixed in—eggs, pork, pork fat, liver, onions, mushrooms, fruits, cheese, and so forth. In Russia, particularly in the Urals and in Karelia in the far north, kasha is still an important part of the daily diet. The buckwheat varieties originated in parts of Siberia and China. As the largest consumer of buckwheat worldwide, Russia is also the number-one producer of the crop.
Today kasha can refer to almost any porridge made from any groats, such as cream of wheat, rice pudding, hot oatmeal, or even less common barley or millet porridge.
Pies
Pies (pirogi) in Russia come in a dizzying array of preparations and presentations. The dough can be leavened or not, salty or sweet. Pies can be round, square, triangular, open, closed, large, small, or fully enclosed like the classic salmon kulebyaka (coulibiac), for example. Pirogi are usually 9-10-inch-round filled savory pies, made with a yeast dough or sometimes a short crust. They usually signify a special occasion or are a part of holiday fare. Meat, fish, or berries are common fillings. Their boiled cousins in Poland are actually dumplings, although they have almost the same name as Russian pies, pierogi. The terms pirogi and pierogi, with identical pronunciation, illustrate the point that making definitive conclusions about dishes based on etymology can quickly become a speculative or misleading affair.
Some contend that the Slavic word pirog actually derives from the Turkic borek (also a savory pastry); others point to the Russian root pir, meaning "feast." Smaller, individual-sized pies are called pirozhki. Pirozhki are a baked or fried yeast dough with any number of fillings. They may be served with soup or eaten as a snack or appetizer. Some of the more common contents are meat, mushrooms, buckwheat, potatoes, liver, cheese, eggs, and cabbage.
Pancakes
Bliny, among the few Russian foods known internationally, are small pancakes a little larger in size than a compact disc (5-6 inches in diameter). They are a traditional dish in the Spring Equinox folk festival, Maslenitsa, perhaps symbolizing the sun with their round shape. The yeast batter is what makes the taste and texture distinctive. Piled high with a pad of butter between the pancake layers, bliny provoke a festive reaction. Though traditionally made with buckwheat flour, wheat-flour bliny are now more common. Bliny are found on almost every Russian restaurant menu, with fillings of black and red caviar, fruit jams, or simply sour cream and sugar. The Jewish blintz is also a derivative of bliny. It has been suggested that the root blin- is a corruption of mlin, whence comes the word meVnitsa, a mill where grain is ground into flour. Blinchiki, however, are paper-thin crepes made with little flour and served as a dessert or as a tea accompaniment. Olad'i are another type of pancake, smaller than bliny but much thicker and sweeter, panfried in generous amounts of butter or oil.
Pasta and Rice
Macaroni and vermicelli are made from wheat flour and are commonly added to soups. Makarony is the long, tubular pasta, similar to Italian bucatini, sometimes reaching lengths of up to one meter. Buttered macaroni is a common side dish served with any meal. The popular makarony poflotski (literally "pasta of the fleet," because it is filling and easy to make—a bachelor's specialty) incorporates boiled macaroni and seasoned ground beef, fried together in a pan. Makarony can sometimes mean "spaghetti" or "pasta" generically in Russian. Lapsha is an all-encompassing term for "noodle" but specifically refers to homemade flat noodles, similar to linguine and fettuccini. The most famous noodle dishes from the region are pelmeni and vareniki. Both are filled dumplings that are boiled. Pelmeni are associated with Siberia; one Russian ethnographer has attributed the etymology to a Finno-Ugric word from the Udmurt and Komi languages where the combination pelnian means "ear-shaped bread."
Although that may be true, the Chinese word mein—meaning "wheat flour," but also generally referring to dough and noodles (as in chow mein, lo mein, ramen, etc.)—could have made its way into the Russian Far East and been adopted by the northern tribes. Many Turkic noodle dishes also have the same men/man root—laghman, manti, manpar, and so on. Ethnic or national claims to the origin of this dish aside, pelmeni are considered as Russian as fur hats and vodka. Vareniki are Ukrainian, from the Slavic root "to boil" (varit'). They are similar to pelmeni, yet vareniki are usually larger and often half-mooned or triangular-shaped. During the summer vareniki are filled with cherries, plums, or berries. They can also be made with potatoes, mushrooms, soft cheese, cabbage, and meat. Pelmeni and savory vareniki are generally topped with melted butter or sour cream, but vinegar, mustard, and ketchup are also possibilities.
Rice in Russia became common in the nineteenth century, mainly through the pilaf dishes adopted from the territories of Central Asia and the Caucasus that were absorbed by the empire. The American cookbook author and teacher Fannie Farmer, in her 1918 edition of the classic Boston Cooking-School Cook Book, includes a recipe for Russian pilaf, "substituting cold cooked lamb in place of chicken."9 Her Turkish pilaf, however, contains chicken, when lamb was the meat of choice among the Turks and other nomads of the region, and chicken was the Slavic preference. This confusion only underscores the difficulty of identifying the origins of dishes and the unreliability of the concept of authenticity every time a recipe is passed down, either orally or written.
Vegetables
Russians have a hearty appetite for vegetables, usually served in soups or separately as a pickled dish. Cooked vegetables are also a main component of many salads. Eating uncooked vegetables such as broccoli, cauliflower, or mushrooms is unusual. The exception is fresh salad made of sliced cucumbers and tomatoes. Turnips, cabbages, radishes, and cucumbers are considered traditional Russian vegetables. Not surprisingly given its climate, Russia is the third-largest producer of roots and tubers.10 Carrots, onions, and garlic provide the flavors for many savory dishes. One salad that incorporates almost all the customary Russian vegetables is vinegret. Stemming from the French word vinaigrette, a seasoned oil-and-vinegar emulsion, the salad vinegret contains potatoes, pickled cabbage or cucumbers, beets, carrots, and onions dressed with oil and vinegar. This dish has secured an ongoing place at the table during any special occasion.
Nowadays the potato reigns on the table as the caloric king. Peasants adopted the "earth apple" by coercion from Tsar Peter the Great, and the potato overtook turnip cultivation only in the nineteenth century. Potatoes, after bread, sustain the population. The most common and preferred method of preparation is peeled boiled potatoes, garnished with butter, dill, and sour cream. Fried potatoes, similar to home fries, are also widespread. They become exceptionally enticing when fried with bacon and mushrooms. Potatoes are also served mashed or pureed. French fries are now the rage in restaurants. Baked potatoes are curiously uncommon (except at campfires) given the preeminence of the Russian stove, which gave rise to such an amazing variety of breads. Potatoes are particularly suited to the low, long heat of a Russian stove. Potatoes are also frequently found in salads such as Olivye, named for the nineteenth-century French chef Olivier, who owned the Hermitage restaurant in Moscow in the 1860s. Oliv'ye is the famous cold Russian salad of boiled and diced potatoes and carrots, onions, peas, pickles, and chicken, mixed with mayonnaise. The original recipe calls for roast game instead of chicken, but the chef's name and his dish are still found throughout the world.
Russia and cabbage are inextricably bound, and rightfully so. No selfrespecting Russian can survive long without fermented or sour cabbage (kvashenaya kapusta). Russian cookbooks from the nineteenth century on refer to sour cabbage as kislaya kapusta, though kvashenaya is currently more frequently encountered today. The two terms are roughly synonymous, despite some attempts to identify distinct differences. Recipes and methods for making kislaya and kvashenaya so overlap, there is no single ingredient or method that distinguishes one from the other. Homemade Russian sauerkraut contains only salt, no vinegar for tartness, and it is not served as a hot side dish. Every cook has his or her own secret, like adding carrots or certain spices, but the method is straightforward and natural. Hard white cabbage is best suited for kvashenaya kapusta.
The cabbage, preferably after the first frost when it hardens, is scrubbed, rinsed, shredded, and then salted. It is worked and pressed to release the natural juices. This is the fundamental difference between wet-salting in a brine solution and dry-salting, where the liquid comes from within the preserved product itself. The cabbage is placed in an open container, pressed down with a weight, and left out for a few days to naturally ferment (ideally at 70-75 degrees Fahrenheit), converting the sugars to tart lactic acid. Traditionally, it is held in wooden barrels, but glass containers are frequently used in modern homes. Naturally occurring bacteria, yeast, or other small organisms break down the sugar in the cabbage into alcohol and carbon dioxide—a process similar to the making of wine, cheese, yogurt, and so forth. Once the cabbage reaches the desired level of tang, it is refrigerated and ready for consumption.
Cabbage is an extremely versatile vegetable, great in soups, stews, salads, stuffings, and side dishes. A sulfurous scent of cooked cabbage seems to permanently saturate most modern apartment blocks in Russia. Cabbage soup (shchi) rates among the most popular national dishes. It was most likely made even before the consolidation of Kievan Rus' in the tenth century. At one time shchi was the all-encompassing term for "soup," and Russian proverbs are full of references to it. One example is "A good wife not only speaks well, but makes shchi well." Tushyonaya kapusta is braised cabbage, usually with meat, onion, and tomato, cooked for several hours. Cabbage rolls, called golubtsy in Russian and holubtsy in Ukrainian, are another well-known dish in which seasoned ground meat and rice are wrapped in young cabbage leaves, sometimes baked in tomato sauce, and garnished with sour cream. When meat is scarce, they can be made simply with rice or buckwheat filling.
Cucumbers, especially the pickled variety, also have a special place in the Russian culinary psyche. Again, like cabbage, Russian pickled cucumbers are pickled in brine (salt solution) and not vinegar. Fresh and pickled cucumbers are added to many hot and cold dishes. Some salads contain both. The quintessential Russian soup is rassol'nik, made from a broth spiked with pickle brine (rassol) and the following ingredients: cabbage, potatoes, carrots, parsley root and celeriac, meat or poultry, and more pickle slices. Touted as a hangover cure, it was found on the tables of nobility as early as the eighteenth century.
Culinary lore credits Mongol invader Genghis Khan bringing pickled cabbage and cucumbers to Russia, but there is no definitive proof that sauerkraut moved from east to west through Russia—in a beeline from China to Germany. Lacto-fermentation of vegetables seems to be a universal phenomenon. Wild cabbage crops were found growing along the Mediterranean and Atlantic coasts of Europe, and they were probably domesticated about two thousand years ago. The ancient Greeks and Romans ate salted cabbage. Roman texts praise sauerkraut for both its taste and medicinal properties. Pickled vegetables could also have been introduced to Russia by any number of earlier steppe people of Asia, who migrated westward across the expansive plains for centuries before the Mongols arrived in the thirteenth century. And it is also possible that the early Slavs figured out the process all by themselves with a little help from local microorganisms.
Whereas potatoes, cabbages, and cucumbers are essential components of the Russian table, mushrooms create magic in the meal. Mushrooms, or griby, are neither plants nor animals, but Russians would swear they have a soul. Many civilizations, including the Slavs, have relied on mushrooms for medicinal purposes, and mushroom hunting in Russia remains a national obsession. Considering the expanse of forest and the assortment of mushrooms, it is no wonder that many a lazy day can pass in search of the perfect mushroom patch. Some people have equated the mushroom quest to fishing—an exercise in patience, care, and luck, whereas others compare it with shopping and the heady rush of finding the perfect bargain.
Great mystery surrounds these fungi, in no small part because some are poisonous, deadly, or hallucinogenic. Most, however, are edible, although Russians are very particular about their culinary mushrooms. Mukhomor, literally "a fly exterminator," is known in the West as "fly agaric," a common toadstool that is highly poisonous and hallucinogenic. Tasteless or inedible mushrooms are called poganki, meaning "vile" or "filthy," arising from the Latin word pagani, meaning country people or peasants, only later used to refer to "non-Christians." Borovik is any edible mushroom of the boletus family. White mushrooms (cep or white boletes) are the most highly prized in almost all of Russia, although pickled gruzdi, or "milk agarics," are generally preferred in the Urals and Siberia. Other favorites are the orange-cap boletus (podosinoviki; literally, "from under an aspen tree"), the brown mushroom (podberyozoviki; literally, "from under a birch tree"; boletus scaber), maslyata (or "buttery ones"), saffron milk caps yzhiki, "little redheads"), chanterelles (lisichki, "small foxes"), coral milky caps (volnushki), and morels (smorchki).
Every autumn, preferably a few days after a good rain, Russians flock to the woods in search of the mushroom families Agaricaceae and Boletaceae. Mushrooms begin to decay as soon as they are picked, so they are often dried, brined, or pickled in vinegar. But the aroma of freshly picked mushrooms fried with onions in butter creates such anticipation for the meal. Mushrooms are also incorporated into fillings and stuffings, soups, and vegetable dishes. Even a mushroom stock or sauce can transform an ordinary dish into haute cuisine.
Turnip (repa), rutabaga (bryukva), and red beet (svyokla) form the rearguard of traditional Russian vegetables. Turnips are less common on the current Russian table but are still part of the national consciousness through folk sayings ("More commmon than stewed turnips") and folktales (The Enormous Turnip). Often pureed or cooked together with meat dishes, turnips were the staple crop of northern Russia until well into the eighteenth century. Beets were better known in the area of Ukraine, although they are now firmly established as part of the Russian culinary repertoire.
The most famous dish from beets is indisputably borscht. Another common dish is the Georgian salad of boiled and diced beets mixed with garlic, walnuts, and mayonnaise. Sugar beets, sometimes confused with red beets, are the primary source for granular sugar in Russia. Beetroot sugar is generally coarser and more translucent than cane sugar because of the way it is processed. Although chemically identical to cane sugar, earnest cooks swear there is a difference between the two for baking and making marmalade.
Countless other vegetables are grown on private plots or at the dacha. Tomatoes, squash, zucchini, radishes, bell peppers, peas, green beans, cauliflower, and leafy greens add color and zest to the Russian table. Many vegetables, especially eggplant, are made into spreads or a "caviar," which is a cooked mixture of vegetables with tomatoes, onions, garlic, oil, and vinegar that preserves well. During the twentieth century under Communism, most agriculture was nationalized on state and collective farms. In addition to potatoes, Soviet farms grew beets, carrots, cabbages, cucumbers, tomatoes, and onions. A large number of hothouses made it possible to supply cucumbers and tomatoes to the markets of major cities throughout the year. Private plots accounted for roughly 40 percent of the vegetable harvest in the USSR, and even today much of the population grows produce for their consumption.11
The harvests of the individual plots played a vital role in keeping the nation's diet varied as well as keeping alive a taste and appreciation for adeptly grown and freshly picked food.
Fish and Seafood
Fish dominated the table of the Eastern Slavs due to its abundance and to religious prohibitions of meat, milk products, and eggs. Since the conversion of Kievan Rus' to Orthodox Christianity in the tenth century, Russians began to strictly adhere to meatless days of fasting (post), holy days, and festivals that covered just over half of the year in an Orthodox calendar. The Soviets accelerated the trend of fish consumption beginning in the 1970s with the creation of a massive fishing fleet that contain processing facilities aboard the larger ocean-based vessels. Russia remains a leading fish producer.
Caviar is a fish product (more specifically the fish eggs) most often associated with Russia. The familiar dark or black caviar comes from three particular species of sturgeon: beluga, osetra, and sevruga. Beluga roe is considered the most regal, ranging in color from slate to dark gray. Golden to dark brown osetra caviar with its characteristic nutty flavor is also highly prized. Light gray sevruga eggs are generally smaller with a distinctively salty taste. One type of roe rarely seen outside Russia is pressed caviar (payusnaya ikra). It was a preservation method for caviar before the advent of refrigeration. Today, damaged, immature, or overripe eggs are still pressed into blocks, resulting in a robust, salty, and significant fishy taste. The larger, bright red-orange caviar is roe harvested from the Siberian salmon (keta). It is considerably less expensive than black caviar. Recently, trout roe has become a popular addition to the caviar line in Russia. It is a medium-grained roe similar in color and tast to salmon caviar.
All these types of caviar are served with bread and butter, on deviled eggs, wrapped in bliny, or incorporated into a sauce. In more affluent households caviar is served as zakuski. Purists prefer the finer caviar served chilled on white bread, though butter is certainly not frowned upon. A sterling silver mother-of-pearl caviar spoon is also an appreciated accessory. For an elegant presentation, small, light puff pastries (vol-au-vents) are filled with caviar and garnished with piped butter rosettes.
The elite and venerated reputation of caviar also conceals a darker side. Until recently, the state control over Russian harvesting of roe and a U.S. trade embargo with Iran held caviar production more or less in check. Caspian sturgeon have now become an endangered species due to overfishing, unscrupulous poachers, and caviar smugglers. Yet both the caviar and the fish remain available and popular in the former Soviet Union. The sturgeon fish is still served in many restaurants, especially in the southern coastal areas. The firm, white flesh lends itself well to grilling, especially served as kebabs.
Fish is most commonly served as a smoked, cured, or salted appetizer. Salted Baltic herring (seVti or selyodka), by far the most abundant and popular, is found in many cold salads or served plain with oil and onions. Boiled potatoes are a perfect complement. Salted herring is sometimes soaked in milk before usage to remove excess salt. A mixed platter of cold smoked fish (rybnoe assorti) served as zakuski may include thin slices of eel, mackerel, sturgeon, whitefish, turbot (paltus), shad, and salmon. Salmon (losos) comes in four main varieties in order of value: Atlantic (syomga), Siberian or chum (keta), sockeye (nerka) and humpback or pink salmon
(gorbusha).
Other familiar fish are prepared by panfrying, broiling, or baking, such as salmon trout (foreV), carp (sazan), perch (sudak and o/cun'), cod (navaga and nalim), flounder such as limanda or kambala, northern pike (shchuka), and catfish (som). Ukha is a traditional Russian soup made from almost any freshwater white fish, potatoes, onions, and carrots. Like many other Russian dishes, recipes for ukha call for the soup to be topped with fresh dill and parsley and served with a shot of vodka. Boiled crayfish (ra/ci), similar in taste and appearance (though miniature) to lobster, also find their way into salads or are served whole to peel and eat with a foamy glass of beer. Anchovy species such as khamsa (barabuVka or sultanka in Russian) are highly regarded, and the Black Sea anchovies (kiVka) are plentiful, often canned in oil or tomato sauce. Another zakuski treat is rich cod liver (pechen treski) canned in oil.
Canned crab legs, imitation crab sticks, and shrimp are familiar seafood, mainly served in cold salads. Mussels, oysters, and other seafood are primarily found along the coastal regions.
A family of freshwater fish, abundant in rivers, lakes, canals, and reservoirs, the roach fish (vobla) is perhaps the most humble yet emblematic Russian fish. Salted and dried, it is sold in every market. Paired with beer, it is analogous to the American combination of nuts and beer. Nothing promises a better evening than several whole dried vobla laid out on a newspaper tablecloth. The head is ripped off, the side skin removed with great effort, and the little meat that remains runs along either side of the spine. The lucky diner gets the fish with dried roe. As a final part of the ritual, the air sac is burned with a match flame and consumed with glee.
Meats and Poultry
It is difficult to exaggerate the importance of meat in the Russian diet. Whether as an entree or an appetizer, or simply a frankfurter or a sausage, no meal is considered fully satisfying without some form of meat on the plate. Russia is among the world's leading producers, consumers, and importers of meat.12 Beef, pork, poultry, and mutton—in order of preference and consumption—constitute the primary protein types. Soviet agriculture policy addressed animal husbandry in the late 1950s, which soon led to a modest increase in the production and consumption of meat, milk, and eggs. Even though Russia ranks sixth worldwide in meat production, it still produces seven times less meat than the United States.13 Meat also dominates the average food-budget share for Russians, eating up almost 70 percent of the total food expenditures.14
Shish kebab (shashlyk) is the ideal method for preparing any meat or poultry in Russia. Marinated meat threaded onto metal skewers is slowly grilled, roasted, and smoked over the gentle heat of charcoal embers. Mention shashlyk (grilled skewered meat) to people in the former Soviet Union, and they will undoubtedly give credit for its existence and perfection to the people of the Caucasus, although each country has its own name for it. Shashlyk is the national dish of Georgia (called mtsvadi), Armenia (khorovats), and Azerbaijan (kebab). Even Russian dictionaries define shashlyk as a Caucasian food. Yet the words shashlyk and kebab clearly have Turkic roots. Kebab is the dominant term in Central Asia for this dish and most likely derived from the Arabic word kabab, meaning "cooked meat in small pieces." Shish means "skewer" in many Turkic languages, and the suffix -lik is used to form abstract nouns or adjectives, roughly meaning "pertaining to." As a matter of fact, the very word shish kebab is a combination of Turkic and Iranian words, underscoring the difficultly of assigning culinary heritage based entirely on etymology.15 Obviously, grilled meat is a simple and ancient dish of nomads or herdsmen, among the first combinations of flesh and flames. So, regardless of its origins, which are hopelessly lost to antiquity, the significant factor remains that both Russians and Caucasians concede that the dish belongs to the Caucasus.
In addition to shashlyk, beef is generally prepared as fried or baked individual cuts, as part of soups and stews, or as mince-meat for meatballs or various fillings. Zharkoe is roasted meat, potato, and vegetable stew traditionally baked in small earthenware pots for hours in the Russian hearth. Sauteed ground beef patties, kotlety, are perhaps the most common meat dish. Ground beef is cut with breadcrumbs and diced onions and panfried. Frikadelki, from the German fricadelles, are small meatballs simmered in broth. Ground meat mixed with onions also creates the common fillings for pirozhki, dumplings, golubtsy, and chebureki (Crimean Tatar fried meat pies).
Jellied meats still maintain popularity in Russia as well as in Europe. Zalivnoe, from the verb zalit'(to pour in, cover with liquid), is made from fish, meat, or poultry. A gelatinous stock poured into a bowl and allowed to cool forms a translucent congealed stock around the meat and vegetables. A brother to zalivnoe, kholodets is simply a dish of boiled pig knuckles served in aspic, a clarified jellied meat stock. Both are served as an appetizer with mustard or horseradish. A common picnic, hiking, or camping food is tushonka. Stemming from the word tushit' (to braise or stew), tushonka is the canned beef ration found in hiking knapsacks and bachelor pads.
Internationally, Russia is probably best known for its sausages. Although the brunt of foreign jokes and derision, Russian kolbasa can rival the finest Italian salami and German wurst in quality. Sausage is generally made from both pork and beef. Rows of fresh sausages, liverwurst, frankfurters, and links fill store display cases. The most prevalent is the cured sausage—smoked, dried, or both. If the saying "The flavor is in the fat" is indeed true, then Moscow (Moskovskaya) sausage is the tastiest, because it contains more fat than meat. Ham (vetchina) is the most common cured pork product. Among the most flavorful, however, is buzhenina, salted and smoked pork loin. The Ukrainian love for pork has made its way into Russia in the form of salo, cured pork backfat. According to Armenian literary sources, salo is mentioned as a food of the Khazars of southern Russia already in the seventh century. A high-energy food, this salted and smoked pork fat is perfect on black bread as a pick-me-up to start the day in the fields, to work around shots of vodka, or to invigorate the body after the sauna.
Russian chicken dishes are as scrawny as the birds on a Soviet collective farm, so most of the preferred dishes are borrowed from their neighbors. Chicken is a major Russian import, especially since the demise of the Soviet Union. Affectionately called "Bush legs" in reference to President George H.W. Bush, American companies began to flood the Russian market with frozen chicken in the early 1990s. Poultry is used in soups, salads, and pilafs. Chicken Kiev, which takes its name from the capital of Ukraine, is a pounded chicken breast, bone attached, wrapped around a frozen seasoned butter log, breaded, and deep-fried. The sign of a properly prepared kotleta po-kievski is for butter to shoot out when a knife pierces the crust. Tabaka is a Georgian dish of whole butterflied chicken, pressed down with a weight to ensure even cooking, and panfried or roasted. It is served with a plum sauce, tkemali. Chakhokhbili is the Georgian equivalent of coq au vin, a seasoned chicken dish braised in red wine, with the addition of fresh herbs and tomato sauce.
Dairy Products
The amount of milk and milk products Russians consume is surpassed only by the quantity of bread they eat, whether they are city dwellers or country folk. Where the cow is sacred in India, it is part of the family in Russia.16 Cattle provide some of the products most dear to Russians—milk, cream, fermented drinks, cheese, butter, yogurt, sour cream, and ice cream. After sunflower oil, dairy products are the largest segment of Russian agricultural exports, specifically condensed milk and cream, yogurt, butter and milk fats, sour milk, cheese, and curds.17
Fresh milk is a rural treat, though it lasts only for a couple of days unprocessed. Fortunately, nature has its own ways of providing milk derivatives, and humans throughout the centuries have devised ingenious and tasty methods for preserving dairy products. If milk is allowed to settle overnight, the milk solids rise to the top forming cream (slivki). Sour cream (smetana) is cream that has begun to naturally ferment, creating the quintessential Russian addition for perfecting any dish. From the verb smetat\ literally "to remove" the cream from the milk, smetana is as Russian as soy sauce is Asian. Some variations approximate crime fraiche, or "clabber cream." Smetana is the symbolic icon of health and home; most Russians also believe that it improves the flavor of any dish—sweet, sour, spicy, or salty.
Somewhere between buttermilk and yogurt lies prostokvasha, where bacterial cultures act on warm milk to produce a thick, subtly tart and sweet drink. It has the reputed positive effects of aiding digestion, and therefore it is given to young and old alike. Other fermented yogurt-type drinks with active cultures are kefir and ryazhenka. Kefir is from the Caucasus, where numerous people regularly reach one hundred years of age with much of the credit for longevity and health going to the daily consumption of kefir and wine. The sediment of kefir is used to start the fermentation of the next batch. Kefir should be slightly carbonated, foamy, and served chilled. Most kefir today is commercially produced. Ryazhenka is also a common breakfast drink made by baking sour milk to a golden brown color. Sour milk and its offshoots virtually disappeared in the West with pasteurization. Sterilized milk spoils without souring, since any natural bacteria and microorganisms are destroyed in the industrial processing.
Gently heating prostokvasha produces tvorog, the fresh or unripened cheese of choice in Russia, similar to quark. Thicker than cottage cheese and with varying degrees of sweetness, homemade tvorog is sold in every market. Two dishes most often associated with this cheese are syrniki and vareniki. Syrniki, from the word "cheese" (syr), are tvorog pancakes. Fried in plenty of butter, syrniki are topped with smetana and sugar or jam, incorporating three dairy products in one dish. But full dairy dishes are not unusual; another example is tvorog-filled vareniki (boiled dumplings) served with butter and sour cream. Vatrushka is roughly equivalent to a cheese Danish or the Czech and Polish kolacky/kolache, a round pastry filled with a sweetened tvorog filling. But the favorite Russian cheese dish is simply a mixture of tvorog and cream, milk, or kefir, topped with sugar, usually eaten for breakfast.
Russians generally love cheese, although it was not plentiful in the Soviet era. The most common variety was plaveny syr, literally "soft cheese," but a more accurate meaning would be "processed cheese." The consumption of processed cheese for decades distorted the traditional Russian appreciation cheeses are Swiss and Dutch, and the most common semisoft cheese is Rossiyskiy (literally "Russian"), similar to Danish Havarti with a porous and smooth texture. Brynza is a popular salted cheese of Swiss origin (town of Brienz) made from sheep's milk, but made in the Romanian fashion. Homemade varieties most closely resemble a type of feta cheese. Brynza is often part of the hors d'oeuvres (zakuski) and eaten with bread or crackers.
Fats and Oils
An overinformed public, confused about the true value of fats and oils, often unjustifiably relegates them to the role of pariahs. Yet fat is an essential source of energy and it also helps to absorb vitamins A, D, E, and K. The main fats in the Russian diet are butter, sunflower oil, and rendered animal fats. A common critique of Russian cuisine is that it is too greasy. Fatty dishes, however, are a sign of luxury, containing not only the necessary calories to supplement a sparse diet, but also adding flavor and palatability. No wonder the Russians say "One cannot spoil kasha with too much butter."
Russians make butter from the milk solids in cream and soured cream. Maslo, or butter, comes from the verb mazat' (to spread, oil, or grease). To prolong its shelf life, butter was clarified (melted) and stored throughout the winter as ghee. In nineteenth-century cookbooks, recipes called for either Russian butter (toplyonoe; same as ghee) or Chukhonskoe maslo, solid butter made from sour cream.18 Butter is used as a spread, a frying medium, and a condiment. Sunflower (Podsolnechnoe maslo) is the oil of choice for frying and salads. Though native to North America, sunflowers were adopted by Russians who began to commercially produce the crop in the nineteenth century. The Russian Orthodox Church forbade other fats during Lent, and therefore Russia became the world's leading producer of sunflower oil. Finally, as all gourmands know, many of the famous classic French and European dishes, such as cassoulet, begin with rendered pork fat or bacon.
This tradition continues in Russia, and pork fat or bacon is often used in soups and stews and fried vegetables, such as eggplants, potatoes, or bell peppers.
Fruits
Fruit production is highly restricted in northerly climes. Therefore, apples, pears, and forest berries are the most common fruits in Russia. Many other fruits are brought in from the southern regions, particularly peaches, cherries, plums, and melons. Watermelons from Astrakhan on the Volga River delta near the Caspian Sea compete with those from Central Asia and the Caucasus in Russian markets. The best melons, however, are imported from Central Asia, along with grapes, dried apricots, and raisins. During the 1970s, bananas and oranges began to be imported in bulk from brotherly Socialist governments in Latin America and Africa. Today the Russian fruit import market exceeds 1 billion dollars.19 Citrus fruits mainly come from Morocco, Egypt, and Turkey. Until recently, there was no separate word for lime in Russian, since limes were not imported until the 1990s. Now exotic fruits from all over the world are available in the major metropolitan areas.
Berries and cherries are the quintessential fruits of Russia. The sour cherry (vishnya) and the black cherry (chereshnya) are the most common varieties. The bountiful assortment of berries is similar to that of Scandinavia, Canada, and the northern United States. Popular varieties include the raspberry (malina), the gooseberry (kryzhovnik), the cranberry (klyukva), the berry known variously as the lingonberry, bilberry, huckleberry, and whortleberry (brusnika; Vaccinium myrtillus), the blueberry (chernika), the rowanberry or ashberry (ryabina), and currants—red, black, and white (smorodina). The delicious strawberry (klubnika) and the wild strawberry (zemlyanika) are a special treat. The berries can be eaten raw as well as frozen or dried for later use. But more often than not they are made into rich preserves, jams, and jellies used in desserts and to sweeten tea.
Sweeteners, Condiments, and Seasonings
The customary knock against Russian food is its apparent blandness, attested by the general avoidance of pungent and hot spices by Russians. Yet an extremely flavorful cuisine derives from the Slavic combination of sour, sweet, and salty tastes with freshly picked produce. Sweeteners traditionally include honey, jams, jellies, and dried or preserved fruits. Beet sugar and fructose within fruit juices are incorporated into many dishes. Honey is largely fructose and glucose; sugar is pure sucrose. Both honey and sugar are used in preservation of other foods because they stall or prevent the growth of bacteria, yeast, and mold. Sugar bonds with water, which is essential for microbial growth. Honey has demonstrated antibacterial activity, and the moisture content is generally too low for yeasts to survive. A common preserved dessert candy is marmelod, fruit jelly slices coated with sugar.
The most common condiments are mayonnaise, sour cream, butter, vinegar, horseradish, mustard, ketchup, and a couple of Georgian spicy sauces. Mayonnaise is found in every sort of Russian salad, sometimes mixed with sour cream. A bitter root, horseradish (khren) is first grated and mixed with vinegar. Homemade versions at the market are found as either white or red, the latter made with beet juice for additional color and flavor. Horseradish, native to eastern Europe, is usually eaten with fish and cold or jellied meats. It is also incorporated into a cream sauce for classic dishes like roasted pork or poached sturgeon. Despite the Russians' love of this condiment, khren, in Russian (at least its adjectival form khrenovy), can also mean "lousy" or "awful," or describes a person in a foul mood or condition. Mustard (gorchitsa) is also a traditional Russian condiment, served with roasts and pork dishes as well as cold cuts and beef tongue.
It is extremely hot and spicy, although some milder varieties are not uncommon. Finally, tkemali and adjika have been readily adopted in Russia from Georgia. The kemali is a plum sauce served with grilled meats or added to other dishes for flavoring. Adjika is a spicy tomato and garlic sauce used in much the same way as tkemali.
The primary herbs in Russian cuisine are parsley and dill (pertrushka and ukrop). They are found on almost every table in a variety of guises: as a dish of whole stalks, an ingredient in most salads, an added flavor for soups and stews, and a garnish for these same dishes. Bay leaves and sweet paprika are often added to soups and stews. In making many Central Asian or Caucasian dishes, cilantro (fresh coriander) is essential. Seasonings are minimal; usually only salt and black or red (paprika) pepper are used in cooking and also found in shakers on the dining tables. Anise, allspice, cloves, cinnamon, and nutmeg are sparingly applied to some pastries and baked goods. With a traditional dearth of lemons, many Russian recipes call for citric acid, extracted from acidic fruits. The acid imparts sour warmth to borscht, jams, and drinks.
Beverages
In marketing terms, Russia and vodka are inextricable. In reality, however, tea retains the title of the Russian national drink. Beer is the trendy and affordable beverage of choice of the younger generations, while traditional drinks such as kvas, kiseV, sbiten , and mead (myod) still hold an important, if not purely symbolic or nostalgic, place in Russian culinary thought and action.
Tea, or chai (from the Chinese character cha), is consumed at breakfast, lunch, and dinner. It is served in the afternoon and as a late-night drink. Russian tea, with lemon and sugar cubes, is served piping hot in porcelain cups with saucers or in glasses with metal holders. It is usually strong and well sweetened with sugar, or perhaps jam and honey. It is hardly an exaggeration to claim that everyone drinks tea. Even children learn from an early age to enjoy it, no doubt because it is often served with chocolate, candy, wafers, cookies, or other pastries. Although the traditional tea pot, the samovar, is less prominent in small urban apartments, tea drinking has not lost its significance. At the workplace, employees frequently break for tea. At a reception, if a full meal is not served, tea and appetizers or sweets are more than sufficient to create a jovial atmosphere. Tea arrived in Russia in the seventeenth century and was firmly entrenched by the nineteenth century.
As the tea craze was sweeping Europe, especially Holland and England, tea became the ideal Russian drink—strong, inviting, and nourishing—to counter the unforgiving environment. Russia attempted to grow tea in Crimea in 1814 but was successful only in the semitropical climate of Georgia in 1847. From there, it has had limited success in other regions of the Caucasus. Coffee, too, had its admirers, especially among the Baits and Crimean Tatars, but fresh coffee beans practically vanished with the 1917 revolution. Later generations were raised on instant coffee in the Soviet period, a preference that has persisted for many in the older generation. Coffee, in all its Italian varieties, has now found favor with the younger crowd.
Mention vodka and Russia pops to mind. The converse is also true. It may be the most familiar Russian word in the English language. Originally consumed for medicinal purposes, vodka mixed with salt, pepper, or honey is still found in folk remedies. The Russian state has maintained a monopoly on vodka beginning in the seventeenth century that filled the government coffers with plentiful and steady tax revenues. Vodka fueled the indomitable Russian army, bestowed merriment to royal and peasant occasions alike, and in a peculiar way obscured, as well as added to, the misery of the Russian historical experience of the last two centuries. Vodka is served with meals as part of a celebratory event. Toasts to health, the host, success, and family are mandatory. Vodka is invariably imbibed straight, usually in two-to-four-ounce portions. Russians rarely drink cocktails and never drink alcoholic beverages without food. An appetizer immediately follows each drink, even if it is a humble pickle, or a piece of salami, or ead.
Since the breakup of the Soviet Union, beer has overtaken vodka in terms of sheer quantities consumed. This is due in large part because it is less expensive than vodka, it is marketed profusely, and, for the younger generations, it establishes a type of illusory kinship with greater Europe. While beer was also consumed in great quantities in early imperial Russia (until it cut into vodka revenues), kvas continued to be freely produced and sold by street vendors. This traditional drink, known in Kievan Rus' by the tenth century, has a texture similar to beer, but it is sweeter and has almost no alcohol. It was made at home with water, bread, malt, and flour. Today kvas is still very popular as a drink with meals or as a midday refresher, much like soft drinks in the United States. But it is difficult for kvas to compete with ubiquitous western soft drinks.
Honey was used in kvas, sbiten', and, of course, mead. Sbiten'—a hot drink made from honey, treacle (sugar byproduct similar to molasses), and spices (cinnamon, cloves, mint, hops, etc.)—competed with tea and coffee throughout the nineteenth century. It is served with cookies and cakes. Mead (or myod, the same word for "honey" in Russian) is an ancient fermented drink of honey, water, and spices. Roman writers mention that mead was a favorite Scythian drink, although it became widespread in Russia much later. Homemade wine is produced from apples, pears, quinces, cherries, and practically every berry. Nastoyka is a wine or liqueur made by steeping roots and herbs without distilling. Samogon, literally "self-brewed," refers to moonshine and comes in as many varieties as there are home distillers. Samogon was strongly revived in Russia during the antialcohol campaigns of Gorbachev in the mid-1980s, with the unintended consequence of nationwide sugar shortages, since sugar is the main component in the production of alcohol.
Two traditional Russian drinks are kompot and kisel. Kisel is a thick, starchy drink made of cooked, strained fruit with pectin for consistency. Kompot (compote) is made by boiling fresh or dried fruits and sugar in water. Limonad is lemonade but also used generically to include any soft drink. Mineral water, both noncarbonated and carbonated, is available from several dozen sources and manufacturers, particularly from Siberia and the Caucasus.
NOTES
1. Russia has 126,820 hectares of arable and permanent cropland, behind the United States (179,000), India (169,700) and China (135,557). NationMaster. com, "Map & Graph: Agriculture: Top 100 Arable and Permanent cropland," http://www.nationmaster.com/graph-T/agr_ara_and_per_cro.
2. Barbara Santich, Looking for Flavour (Kent Town, South Australia: Wakefield Press, 1996), 69.
3. Elisabeth Rozin, Ethnic Cuisine: The Flavor-Principle Cookbook (New York: Penguin Books, 1983), 12.
4. Steven Mennell, A. Murcott, and A. van Otterloo, The Sociology of Food: Eating, Diet, and Culture (London: Sage, 1992), 84.
5. N.M. Karamzin, Istoriya gosudarstva Rossiyskogo [The History of the Russian State] (Moscow: Kniga, 1988).
6. NationMaster.com, "Russia: Agriculture," http://www.nationmaster.com/country/rs/Agriculture.
7. G.R. Mack and J.C. Carter, Crimean Chersonesos: City, Chora, Museum, and Environs (Austin, TX: Institute of Classical Archaeology, 2003), 25.
8. Eva Agnesi, Time for Pasta (Rome: Museo Nazionale Paste Alimentari, 1998), 63.
9. Fannie Farmer, Boston Cooking-School Cook Book (Boston: Little, Brown, 1918), http://www.bartleby.com/87/0006.html.
10. After China (170,478 metric tons) and Nigeria (53,717) stands Russia (35,664). NationMaster.com, "Map & Graph: Agriculture: Top 100 Root and Major Foods and Ingredients 103 Tuber Production," http://www.nationmaster.com/red/graph-T/agr_roo_and_tub_pro
11. AllRefer.com, "Country Study & Country Guide—Soviet Union USSR," http://reference.allrefer.com/country-guide-study/soviet-union/soviet-union360.html.
12. USDA Foreign Agricultural Service's Production, Supply and Distribution (PS&D) online database, "Beef and Veal Summary Selected Countries," http:// www.fas.usda.gov/psd/complete_tables/LP-table2-7.htm.
13. China is the largest producer with 53,747 metric tons, followed by the United States (35,085), while Russia ranks sixth (4,953). NationMaster.com, "Agriculture: Top 100 Meat Production," http://www.nationmaster.com/graph-T/agr_mea_pro.
14. USDA Economic Research Service, "International Food Consumption Patterns—Russia," http://www.ers.usda.gov/Data/InternationalFoodDemand/RERUN.ASP?RUNID=126850454&RSTYLE=1&VIEW=FBS&FILETYPE=None&Country=Russia&Commodity=999.
15. The word shashlyk was well known in Russia as early as the seventeenth century with the first written reference appearing in Staneinii spisok 1639-49 (a type of diplomatic report) by F. Yelchin, who spent much time in Georgia. Central Asians mainly use the word kebab/kebob for all types of skewered meat dishes, but shashlyk is also commonly heard.
16. M.S. Zimina, Entsiklopediya russkoy kukhni [Encyclopedia of Russian Cuisine] (St. Petersburg: Diamant, 1998), 125.
17. Ye. Gaidar, Russian Economy in 2000: Trends and Outlooks (Moscow: Institute for the Economy in Transition, 2001), http://www.iet.ru/trend/.
18. Chukhontsy is the pejorative Russian term for the Finno-Urgic peoples living around the area of St. Petersburg, particularly the Estonians.
19. In 2002 Russia imported 2.8 million tons of fruit. "Russian Fruit Market—Tendencies. Materials for Study Case at Eurofruit Conference at Cape Town, 2003," http://www.foa.org.ru/news/capetown/fva_sp.doc.
By Glenn R. Mack and Asele Surina in "Food Culture in Russia and Central Asia", Greenwood Press, USA, 2005, excerpts pp. 67-91. Digitized, adapted and illustrated to be posted by Leopoldo Costa.
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