Culinary cultures of Europe: Russia 1
Одним из важных для меня итогов прошлого года стал долгожданный выход в издательстве Совета Европы вышеупомянутого сборника (разумеется, с политкорректным подзаголовком Identity, diversity and dialogue) со статьями об особенностях кухни 40 европейских стран. Статью по России писала я, мучилась с ней два месяца еще в 2003-2004 году, причем совершенно бесплатно, так как подразумевалось, что это прекрасный добровольный вклад в дело образования и бла-бла-бла. Какие-то вещи, конечно, уже изменились, но редактировать, пожалуй, ничего не буду, пусть уж остается как есть (кстати, никто не знает, можно ли в жж сохранять примечания?). Так что теперь публикую здесь первый, несокращенный вариант на британском английском (в сборнике все было отредактировано и переделано под американский английский) - может кому-нибудь это будет интересно и я страдала ненапрасно :-))) потому как кто интересно, будет покупать такой сборник за 50 евро или 75 долларов? Грр. К тому же хочу вам потом представить русский дайджест остальных 39 статей (там, конечно, есть и откровенная халтура, но есть и что-то интересное) - иначе сама их никогда не соберусь прочесть! Это вступление и первая часть - о дореволюционной России.

During the last hundred years Russia experienced so many shattering changes, some her very own, others – together with the rest of Europe, it is no wonder that the private life of her citizens has also undergone some powerful mutations. The basic implement of the Russian cuisine up to the 20th century – the so-called ‘Russkaya pech’ (a mighty stove which took up half of the house and served as a warm sleeping place cum oven combination) can now be found only in the remote village settlements. Traditional dishes that were created thanks to this facility — cooking starts at the intense heat of a well-stoked oven and then the temperature gently drops down as the logs burn out (most of the cooking was usually done overnight), hence the profusion of soups, gruels and breads in Russian cuisine — have now become adopted to the modern gas and electric stoves. With the arrival of the new products some of the traditional ones (such as turnips, barley etc.) have fallen into disuse. Some culinary habits and tastes have changed and so certain new patterns of food behaviour especially in big Russian cities, such as Moscow, St. Petersburg, Nizhniy Novgorod, Yekaterinburg etc. are beginning to emerge. Still to perceive new gastronomic developments more clearly we should set them in their historic context and so we’ll first have to move for about a century back in time

Russia before the revolution of 1917

‘A clean teapot, some fragrant tea
Boiling water
My love is slicing a fresh lemon…
I will never forget this sweet moment!’

- one of folk ‘chastushka’ improvisations sang by factory girls at the end of the 19th century

Such idyllic scenes at the tea-houses (where endless pots of tea could be procured for quite a moderate price) as the one quoted above were quite customary at the turn of the 19th century, especially in town where by that time drinking tea became popular with all the classes of Russian society – from the poorest workers to the most opulent members of the aristocracy. The day of the latter often began with a cup of tea, substantial breakfast (two courses) being served only at noon. In the country kvas (fermented rye-bread soft drink) was still the versatile drink for every occasion and the ‘tea invasion’ spread much slower not without funny ‘casualties’ on the way: some peasants for example not knowing what to do with the new product tried boiling tea for hours with carrots, onions etc. striving to make a tolerable soup out of it…
Soup was indeed basic fare for most of the Russian population in the 19th century. Some had been cooked in Russia for many centuries, such as cabbage soups (schi) or soups made with the addition of salt-cured cucumbers and their brine (solianka, kalya), some had been borrowed and adopted from the neighboring nations such as Ukrainian beetroot soup (borsch) or Tatar clear soup with pasta (lapsha). There existed also a variety of cold summer soups, most of them based on kvas (okroshka, botvinya) and the soup of the most poor — stale bread crumbled into water (tiuria) or sometimes milk. The latter is perhaps more close to another staple of Russian cuisine, kasha (groats, porridge or gruel, depending on the thickness, though generally thick kasha was more common). In the country it was mostly made with buckwheat, barley, oats or millet, for more prosperous and cultured families in town it could also be semolina or rice.
Even more important for national self-identification than soup or kasha was bread. Russian black heavy sour rye bread (yeast dough) was much appreciated by the Russians but without habit almost nobody else could eat it: Caucasian prisoners of war accustomed to their flatbreads sometimes fell ill and died because of the prevalence of rye bread in their prison diet. Tending to qualify it as indigestible western visitors to Moscow had been complaining about it in their writings since 16th century. On the other hand some of the Russian aristocracy returned from trips to Paris quite put out – as one couldn’t get ‘normal bread’ there at all.
Russian bakers were also proficient in making other, less formidable kinds of breads together with pirog or kulebiaka (pies of bread dough with various stuffing, sometimes different kinds of stuffing combined in one pirog). The street vendors wandered about town with multiple portion-size pasties (pirozhki) some baked, some fried (mostly yeast wheat dough), the bakeries were full of luxury breads and buns, many towns had their specialties, for example Moscow kalachi (made of fine wheat flour in the form of a lock with a plump purse-like body and a slender bail handle) were sent to the court of the Emperor in St. Petersburg by special train every morning and some of them were even dispatched to Siberia (frozen raw, to be baked on the spot).
At the same time most people of means enjoyed a widely international menu every day. Although containing many Russian dishes for the most part it was distinctly French (cream soups, meat, fowl and fish with exquisite sauces and so on, adapted classics of Antonin Careme and others). English dishes such as beefsteaks and roast-beef were also quite indispensable. German mince, herrings and potatoes (that eventually pushed out traditional Russian turnips) even as Italian macaroni with parmesan were very popular and considered nice plain fare that was often served even in the simplest households. Some culinary influence from the East was also present both in products and dishes: eggplants and pilafs were no longer regarded as exotic and Georgian kebab-selling places had already appeared in Moscow by the turn of the 19th century. After being accepted all new dishes became fitted into the old pattern of fasting and non-fasting as the original Russian dishes were.
By the regulations of Russian Orthodox Church fast should be observed for more than two thirds of a year: two fasting days a week, Wednesday and Friday, and three special fasting periods besides the Lent, and although not all people of means continued to do it in the 19th century (preferring to fast seriously only the week before Easter) most of Russia’s population did, obtaining the much-needed protein from wild mushrooms ‘our forest beef’ (as they were lovingly called by the peasants) for during the fasting period of Lent for example even eating fish was allowed only once (the day of Annunciation the 25th of March) before Easter. Lent was preceded with a week of pagan merrymaking in a true carnival spirit called Maslenitsa (Shrovetide), when everybody was baking various (buckwheat, wheat, semolina) bliny pancakes and devouring scores of them with butter, sour cream, eggs, caviar, smoked and salt-cured fish and so on (only the meat was already not allowed). After much skating, sledge-riding, snowball-fighting, flirting, dancing, hard-drinking and overeating the female dummy representing Maslenitsa was burned on the stake, on Sunday (the Forgiven Sunday) everybody asked forgiveness from each other, and on Monday (the Pure Monday) plunged into forty days of abstemious repentance till Easter.
Easter was and still is the holiday of the Orthodox Church, much like Christmas is for the Western Christian Churches. On Sunday after the midnight mass people celebrated and breakfasted. There were three main protagonists of the Easter table. Painted eggs: it was often and is still sometimes done with onion skins that give a rich warm gold-brown colour. Kulich Easter cake: a high glazed dome not unlike Italian panettone, sweet yeast dough ideally made only with egg-yolks, enriched with lots of butter, studded with raisins and sometimes almonds, coloured with saffron and spiced with mace etc. Paskha (which means ‘Easter’) curds: basically curds ground to a thick paste with sugar, cream, butter and egg yolks, with blanched almonds and candied orange peel (sometimes raisins too) added, the paste is then put in a special pyramid form to set overnight. Kulich, paskha and painted eggs were eaten together. Beside them on the Easter table there was usually a ram made of butter, plenty of roast game and hams cooked whole and many other dishes to the discretion of the household’s mistress.
Christmas was always celebrated on a less grander scale, there was a special Christmas vigil table (the tablecloth sometimes resting on a layer of hay sprinkled on the table) and the feast set upon it contained only dishes suitable for fasting as the fest took place on Christmas’ Eve. Various gruels, mushroom pasties, jam fritters and so on, sometimes a carp cooked with honey, almonds, raisins and saffron was added (which is somewhat ironic as it was originally a recipe of East European Jewish settlements). All the fun began the next day when freshly slaughtered pork and sausages were eaten and that was followed by days of merrymaking (especially fortune-telling, singing for treats (koliadki) and romping in fancy-dress) that went till the day of Epiphany…