Pavel Syutkin is a historian of Russian cuisine. Pavel and Olga Syutkin about the primogeniture of borscht, Pokhlebkin's controversy and the preferences of the Russian nobility. Being engaged in collecting and mapping gastronomic practices and images, you thought about your status - ethnographer

1. Red Square. Temples, monuments, people

Alexey Pevnev from Kaliningrad takes an active part in all thematic LJ weeks. For the #slovomoskve section, he prepared reports from GUM and from Red Square. Walk with the author along the main square of the country. Each building here is a unique historical monument.

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Another regular participant of the thematic weeks of LiveJournal is Elena Haro. She talks about one of the oldest zoos in Europe - Moscow. It was opened in 1864 and still remains a favorite place for family walks.

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The well-known blogger of LiveJournal, a specialist in Russian cuisine Pavel Syutkin was directly involved in the organization of the Day of the City of Moscow. Pavel and Olga Syutkin acted as consultants in preparing the gastronomic part of the holiday. Thanks to them, Muscovites and guests of the capital were treated to old dishes recreated according to recipes from different centuries.

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Andrei Rumyantsev is a guest of the capital. Having very little time in the city, he visited one of the most ancient and beloved by Muscovites districts - Tagansky. In ancient times, the Tatar settlement was located here, artisans lived. Today Taganka is one of the most developed districts of Moscow.

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Each city looks very different when viewed from the water. Sergei Talykov published a report from a walk along the Moscow River. Neat well-groomed facades, bridges, skyscrapers, ancient and new places of the capital - familiar, but unusual Moscow will open up to you in these photographs.

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Victoria Kandaurova sometimes comes to Moscow from Barnaul with her family. Her story is about visiting the Children's World in Lubyanka. The largest children's store in the USSR was opened in 1957. It was the first retail facility in the country that meets international standards. Today, Children's World has a collection of old and modern toys, an observation deck, a cinema, cafes and restaurants.

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Moscow is always open to guests. Come to the capital, walk the streets, enjoy the unique atmosphere of the ancient city. And what to see and where to visit, you will be prompted by the stories of bloggers in the section “Word to Moscow”

I would like to thank everyone who responded to the post!
The topic of literary plagiarism raised by Olga and Pavel Syutkin did not leave many indifferent. As evidenced by the fact that the post was reprinted 68 LJ users, who collectively have 141 thousand Learn friends.

Different opinions were expressed during the discussion. But the general alignment of judgments, approximately, coincides with the range of opinions

Who, in the end, will turn out to be right, we will only know when we finally hear the answer from the Syutkin writers themselves. For being strict adherents of observance" rules of good manners and decency ", they, of course, will not ignore the desire of more than one hundred and forty thousand LiveJournal users to know the truth, no matter how bitter it may be.

In case of need, I will gladly present Syutkin with a page in my journal for this.

Once again, many thanks to all!

Sincerely, iz-za-pechki

• September 27th, 2013 09:21 am

Miracles with the texts of the Syutkins continue to be created further. In response to my previous post, a strange text appeared on Pavel Syutkin's website signed by Pavel under a strange heading"They scared the hedgehog with a naked ... quote" . This "frightened hedgehog" on behalf of Pavel reports that the authors of all the unquoted quotes I have cited are allegedly mentioned in the bibliographic list of the Syutkins' book, and therefore are not written off.

At the same time, scans of this list are given, from which it follows that the statement of the "frightened hedgehog" is completely untrue, because the list does not contain the names of such authors as professors I. Chepurnoy, Yu.Goncharov, L. Khoroshkevich, Yu.Eskin, A.Yurganov, S. Perevezentsev, Ph.D. S. Bunina, journalists V. Abarinov and O.Bulanova, as well as anonymous authors of sites Torzhok.Info, Yandex Encyclopedia and Khronos.Ru, like the books of the academician M. Tikhomirova "Beginnings of book printing in Russia"and the writer P. Melnikov-Pechersky "The number of schismatics". I'm not talking about the fact that the rules of writer's ethics require not only to indicate the books of cited authors in a list at the end of the book, but to mark borrowed quotations with quotation marks and give a link to the year of publication and the page from which the quotation was taken.

What's happening? Who writes on behalf of Pavel Syutkin? After all, he himself cannot write such an obvious lie, knowing that it is easily detected? It becomes clear that it's not about a computer virus, not about "unscared crooks" and not about "typing monkeys". It turns out that the desired intruder is a certain "Scared Hedgehog", writing on behalf of the Syutkins. Who is this rascal? And why are Olga and Pavel Syutkin silent, allowing some "hedgehog" to shamelessly lie on their behalf?

• September 26th, 2013, 11:01 am

This fashion has not bypassed a narrow circle of culinary writers, among whom the prominent connoisseurs of Russian cuisine - Olga and Pavel Syutkins. In two of his books, LJ-blog, on the culinary site of Elena Chekalova, in numerous interviews with newspapers, magazines, radio and television, they blame William Vasilyevich with enviable constancy Pokhlebkin for his .

And although the Syutkins themselves do not use the term “plagiarism” in their, as they themselves write, “investigations”, preferring to use the word “borrowing”, which is similar in meaning, nevertheless, taking into account that the “Literary Encyclopedia” believes, we are talking about in this, if not in the legal, then at least in the ethical sense of the word, which is clearly seen in the rhetorical question with which the Syutkins repeatedly address the readership: “ Why these "investigations"? We are by no means going to accuse William Vasilyevich of some kind of compilation. Even if the citations show a fairly exact match, it can be assumed that both researchers "went along parallel paths." But, these are just the rules of “good manners”, couldn’t they tell Pokhlebkin that decency requires pointing out similar and previous works of his colleague? ”.

Put in an open form, this question encourages readers to enter into a public discussion about Pokhlebkin's compliance with the rules of scientific ethics in terms of appropriating other people's thoughts and words. Which, in my opinion, in itself can turn out to be a very good deed, because such a discussion allows not only the whole world to deal with the actual presence or absence of repeated borrowings ” in the recognized classic of the history of Russian cuisine, but also in the books of other culinary writers, as well as to wonder whether any coincidence of thoughts and words has signs of plagiarism.

Therefore, being, though biased, but a regular reader of the Syutkins, I decided to accept their invitation to participate in the discussion they started. Well, as an example, in order not to go far, I took their own book " Uninvented history of Russian cuisine", where quite a few phrases, paragraphs and even whole pages are found that literally coincide with the texts of other authors. But there can be no plagiarism among plagiarism fighters, right? Accordingly, the numerous coincidences I found should have some other explanation, and not just shameful cheating.

These other explanations will be my story, which I decided, following the example of the same Syutkins, to put in the form of "questions to the audience", so that the reader can draw conclusions himself, and at the same time help the Syutkins figure out which cases " the rules of good manners and decency require you to refer to similar and previous works of colleagues "and which ones don't.

Connoisseurs of Russian cuisine (Olga and Pavel have published books about its past and present), TV presenters and authors of the LiveJournal blog beloved by many.

Be sure to watch the full video of the meeting, you will find many discoveries and new knowledge!

The evening opened with a themed buffet.. The guests were treated to pies, as well as delicious mead and kvass from the partner of the meeting - company "Ochakovo". Let's share the impression of the guest of the meeting, the doctor, Inga arctic-inga.ru :

Useful prevention of colds - mead with cranberries, warming with apple-ginger-cinnamon, and traditional. I liked this sunny amber drink. Pleasant on the palate, sweet, as it should be mead and slightly sour.

The story of Olga and Pavel turned out to be long and very interesting. Here we present only a small part of what was discussed at the meeting, and we recommend that you watch the full version in the video.

The history of Russian cuisine is full of fairy tales. Specialists, including Pavel and Olga, work with archives to dispel myths. The story about our kitchen began from the most ancient past. It is important to understand when cooking is born as a separate part of the culture. Pavel said that it arose many thousands of years ago from the attempts of people to change the natural natural taste of food.

The listeners learned both about the origin of specific dishes of Russian cuisine and about the full history of its development. Russian cuisine has been known to us since the 9th-11th centuries, but only because the first written sources appeared then. Of course, the development of general cooking began much earlier.

The cuisine, unfortunately, was "not important" for chroniclers, unlike historical events, to write about it separately. Therefore, historians collect bit by bit references to the kitchen in historical documents. It is interesting that archeology studies, among other things, questions of the history of cuisine.

Pavel paid special attention to the design of the Russian stove. The first kilns date back to the 6th-9th centuries, but these are simple hearths and round clay structures. Until the 13th and even until the 17th century, they were not the same as they are drawn in fairy tales. Ilya Muromets could not lie on such a stove. Furnaces acquired their familiar form in Peter's time.

The most important monument to the history of Russian cuisine is Domostroy, published in the 1550s. There is no exact date of its publication, because the first Russian printed books were published without indicating the year. This is a work that gives a more or less complete look at the old Russian cuisine. This is not a cookbook, but a guide on how to invite guests, run a household, and buy food.

It is important to understand that the books show the kitchen of the boyars or wealthy people, and we don’t know for sure what the simplest kitchen was. In 1610-13, the "Painting of the Tsar's Meals" was published. Russian authors showed no interest in cuisine, and the book was created for a Polish prince claiming the Russian throne.

Another significant fact of the history of Russian cuisine. Even "strong masters" baked bread with quinoa in order to "not relax", since difficult times could always arise.

Similar dishes are found in all cuisines of the world. An important question is connected with this, to which there is no exact answer - how many centuries a dish must last in the kitchen in order to be considered national. Pavel Syutkin expressed the opinion that if the product has been included in various dishes of the cuisine familiar to us for centuries and is popular with the population of the country, then it can be considered "our own".

In the history of cuisine, foreign and Russian, much depended on the rulers. For example, Catherine de Medici brought Italian chefs to Paris, which laid the foundation for French cuisine.

Pavel asked the audience a question: "What is the national Russian cuisine?" Answers were given: buckwheat, salted mushrooms, jams and pickles, pancakes, as well as the option "to mix everything that is". It is important to understand that the cuisine consists not only of products, but also of the traditions of the feast and many other customs.

Olga Syutkina said that food consumption used to be very reasonable, often leftovers from previous dishes were used. For example, they prepared a "hangover" soup in brine, vinegar in those days was only beer.

Not all dishes can be reproduced correctly today. For example, buckwheat (“red”) pancakes used to be made from green buckwheat, but now buckwheat is being processed.

An interesting fact: kalachi was the first street food, the first fast food in our kitchen. This is where the expression "to reach the handle" comes from. Kalachi were baked with a handle, you had to hold on to it while eating and then throw it away. If a person was so hungry that he ate a pen, they said that he reached the pen. It is also curious that the names of the dishes levashnik and lavash are the same root.

What general conclusion can be drawn? The kitchen is always "edited" to modernity and that's fine. Throughout its long history, our kitchen has experienced ups, downs, tragedies and achievements. At all times, except for the Soviet period, it was closely connected with the rest of the world, took in dishes and technologies.

At the end of the lecture, the audience could ask questions and get comprehensive answers.

The listeners were interested, for example, what to send to foreign friends, like a real Russian? There are many options: caviar, marshmallow, gingerbread, etc. Should dumplings be considered a national Russian dish? Dumplings originated simultaneously among many peoples. Russian version of dumplings: kundyums, kundyubki, stuffed with cabbage or mushrooms, fish. First they are cooked like dumplings, then they are baked, poured with any broth and cooked in a pot. There were many questions and they were all interesting.

Olga and Pavel's book was presented as a gift to the author of the best question - another industry specialist, gastronomic journalist, blogger and culinary critic Anatoly Gendin anatoly_gendin

Some photos of the guests of the meeting - Vlad shchukin-vlad.ru

Daria daryadarya

Maksim novikovski

Traditional group photo at the end of the evening. Of course, these are not all the participants of the meeting - we are grateful to those who stayed until the end.

We hope that you spent a pleasant and informative evening in the company of friends and like-minded people. Thank you for being with us! We are waiting for you again!

Thank you for the photos for the final post Ingu

Let me be clear. Many people thought that Popados had sold out to the accursed Turkish infidels, went for a long kebab and cursed, damn it, our native Russian pancake. He scribbles how good foreign cuisine is, but from his dear, domestic, his nose turns up. And the Crimean liquid cabbage soup for him, and the chickens are not so cooked.

But in fact, there are still few such food patriots as yours truly. Even yesterday, sitting in the famous Le Train Bleu at the Gare de Lyon in Paris, eating foie gras and reading Charlie Hebdo, I did not dream of French croissants and onion soup at all. I wanted, you know, a normal Ukrainian Russian borscht, but more indulgent, kulebyaki and cold kvass.

2.

Am I a wimp? In this sense - absolutely, the most terry. Wherever the fate of the rootless Russo-Tatar takes, in just a couple of weeks he begins to miss not birch trees, but pancakes with cottage cheese, pickles and that buckwheat porridge with meat that my wife cooks so well. And also smoked fish ...
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And here is the paradox: in Moscow, in the heart of Holy Russia, it is much more difficult to eat real Russian food than Euro-American-Japanese and other fast food. A simple question: when was the last time you ordered a pie, and when did you order pizza or sushi? And why can't you find the usual Guryev porridge in a Russian city during the day with fire? I don’t have an answer to these questions, I don’t remember kulebyak on Moscow menus and on store shelves.
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In general, there is a strong feeling that Russian catering is such a global conspiracy against our culinary traditions. But they, among other things, make up the national identity, along with the language, fairy tales about Ivan the Fool and the strange holiday "Old New Year". You are Russian in spirit, if you cannot live without herring and potatoes with dill.
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Thank God there are people who care. The first steps in popularizing our cuisine are now being taken in Moscow. Right now, in the very center, from Tverskoy Boulevard to Chistye Prudy, there are 6 sites of the "Our Product" festival, where anyone can try fish smoked right there, in the old Russian way and by people dressed according to that era. And behind the cinema "Rossiya" Alexey Ovcharenko's warriors reproduce the whole process of baking Russian bread - from grinding wheat to hot cakes.
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All the products presented here are the simplest. Indeed, according to the same Alexei, in the old days it was much more important to preserve the product than to prepare a complex dish.
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But the complex in Russian cuisine was quite enough. After that, from the festival sites you can turn into a new and very interesting restaurant "Moskovskaya Kuhmisterskaya" on Bolshaya Nikitskaya.
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The enlightened 19th century was a high point for our chefs. On Tsvetnoy Boulevard, Mr. Olivier invents his legendary Russian salad. We call it the author's last name, although on different continents I met it exclusively as Russian salad. Russian restaurants appear in Europe. From simple pickles to the most complex dishes! Alas, those traditions and recipes are completely forgotten. We do not know what our great-great-grandfathers ate, what was the taste of dishes in Russian taverns and ordinary houses. We can only fantasize and swallow saliva while reading Gogol's description of the dinner of an ordinary district merchant.
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That is why the undertaking of the famous capital restaurateur Kirill Gusev and my LJ-friend, historian of Russian cuisine Pavel Syutkin p_syutkin so long awaited and cool. You flip through the menu like a real history book. You can pretend to be a nobleman and order duck noodles with roots and a quail egg. A merchant of the 2nd guild and demand a frying pan of pearl barley porridge with goat kid stew and mushrooms, purely for warming up. An ordinary collegiate assessor from the "Overcoat" and modestly order spelled for himself.
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Imagine, with us, the usual spelled has already become a rare delicacy product! This culinary feast is only the first timid step in a long road of struggle for our stomachs. So that you can eat spelled without an excursion to Bolshaya Nikitskaya, but in an ordinary eatery near the metro. And so that in a nearby cafe they would not sell burgers with overcooked fries and cola 0.3, but hot delicious pies with dried fruit compote.
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Then, quite possibly, the first Russian restaurant awarded with a Michelin star will appear in Moscow. And Nemikhail and I will gladly go there and publish our incorruptible reviews.
Kirill and Pavel, you are doing a very good and tasty job!

p.s. By the way, read Pavel's magazine, it is extremely good))

From the editor:

- historians of Russian cuisine, participants in various culinary festivals and TV shows, authors of books about the past and present of Russian cuisine: " Uninvented history of Russian cuisine"(2011)," Uninvented history of Soviet cuisine"(2013)," The uninvented history of Russian products from Kievan Rus to the USSR"(2014)," CCCP Cook Book» (2015). In their books, the couple explore Russian cuisine in the context of existing ideas about it, trying to understand what in Russian cuisine is originally ours and what is borrowed. Pavel and Olga are also co-authors of the volume “ Cuisine of Russia: regional and modern”, released specifically for the World Expo 2015. Pavel and Olga also maintain a blog in LiveJournal "History of Russian Cuisine", which is especially rated among Russian users. We present the first part of the interview with Pavel to the Russian Faith website. You will learn, for example, why foreign travelers sometimes did not like Russian cuisine, and a lot of other interesting things.

As you know, in ancient times, only seasonal gifts of nature were eaten. Overseas or greenhouses were not as common as they are today. Tell us what was mainly on the table of the Russian people of the middle class 100-200 years ago.

Of course, Russian medieval cuisine was quite different from today's. If we consider the period of 100-200 years ago, then the differences might not have been so significant, but if we move away from the time of Domostroy, and this is the middle of the 16th century, we will understand that a lot has changed.

We often hear talk about how good Russian cuisine used to be and how great it would be to revive it. Is it just that everything that was served, for example, at the royal table of Ivan the Terrible, would we like today? The fact is that over a historical period of several centuries, our tastes have changed quite seriously. Let's estimate, for example, what was at the rich sovereign's table, and understand how it would fit our today's kitchen.

If it was not a fast, then various stews were certainly served: rich ears with fish, meat, fish or mushroom kalya, the main component of which was pickles. (By the way, the word "ukha" in those days did not mean exactly a fish dish at all, the ear could also be from chicken). The main advantage of these dishes was their fat content and richness, and not some refined taste. This is due to the way of life of a person of that era: one had to spend enormous physical effort, the work was mostly outdoors. And the food had to replace those calories. There were various fried dishes on the table, but fried in a special way. They were cooked on a grill (spit), approximately how barbecue or a whole bird is cooked today. Fried swans were a special treat.

According to the writer-hunter S. T. Aksakova, swan meat " so tough that, despite a preliminary two-day soak, it was difficult to chew, "and the taste" was like a wild goose, but the goose is much softer, juicier and tastier"(S.T. Aksakov. Notes of a rifle hunter in the Orenburg province). But at the royal tables, the swan was the main ceremonial dish. “How did they cook it?” Aksakov asked and, not finding an answer, assumed that he was somehow soaked for a long time, and then stewed in the oven for a long time. Today, this recipe has practically disappeared.

Many foreign travelers who came to us in the 16th-17th centuries, for example, Sigismund Herberstein, Adam Olearius, left very different impressions of Russian medieval cuisine. By the way, they didn’t like much about it, and there were two main reasons for this: the huge amount of garlic and onions in the dishes and the quality of the oil.

In our cuisine of that time, garlic and onions practically replaced European spices. In the Middle Ages spices after all performed 3 tasks. The first, of course, is to diversify the taste of not too refined dishes. Cooking techniques at that time were simple - boiled, fried and stewed, because no sauces in the current sense existed. The second is the preservation of food, I would even say, the correction of the taste of not very fresh food, that is, the masking of slightly spoiled products. And the third - some kind of medicinal, pharmaceutical purposes. All these tasks in our kitchen were performed by garlic. It was so widespread that it was even given out as a salary to government officials. They put it anywhere and everywhere. Naturally, this persistent powerful smell of garlic was quite unpleasant for those people who did not live in Russia and were not close to its culinary traditions. I think that today, by the way, this is a very controversial characteristic of Russian cuisine.

The second reason why foreign travelers sometimes did not like Russian cuisine is relevant for us today. Until the middle of the 19th century, ghee was clearly called Russian oil. Butter, of course, was also made in those days, but due to the lack of refrigerators, it spoiled quickly enough, and it could be eaten literally until the end of the day. And ghee, unfortunately, had a bad trait: it quickly rancid, and quite high-quality dishes were sometimes saturated with this taste. Therefore, the same Herberstein notes that almost all the dishes that were sent to him from the royal table had such a flavor, and he could only eat what was fried directly on the fire.

True, by the 18th - 19th centuries, all these shortcomings of Russian cuisine were smoothed out, the so-called "Chukhon oil" appeared in Russia, i.e. Baltic. This was already under Peter I, when Russia went to the Baltic Sea. Among the local population, butter differed from ours, firstly, in that it was washed and it was cleaner, and secondly, in that it was salted. This allowed regular butter to be stored much longer. But it is the basis for the further development of haute cuisine: all sauces, all delicious beautiful dishes were built on the use of butter.

By the end of the 18th century, Russia was fairly well integrated into European life. Chefs began to arrive from Europe. This process was especially intensified after the French Revolution of 1789, when for many chefs Russia seemed to be an island of calm in the stormy sea of ​​European revolutions. Our aristocratic gastronomy of the early 19th century is largely Frenchized.

In general, medieval cuisine was rich and varied, but it was in keeping with its time. Therefore, those dishes will not always be perceived by a modern person as pleasant and tasty. However, while we talked about the kitchen of a more or less wealthy person.

Let's now look at everyday peasant cuisine. One point needs to be emphasized here. Until the 16th century, the table of an ordinary peasant and, say, a boyar was in many ways similar. All were prepared from the same set of natural products: vegetables and fruits grown in the garden, meat, poultry. The difference was only in the number of meals served. If it was good for a peasant when meat appeared on the table 1-2 times a week, then 20-30 dishes at dinner could be served on a noble table every day. However, the food appearance, the cultural code of food and the boyar, and the peasants were very close.

Differences between ordinary peasant and more elegant cuisines begin later. New overseas products, spices, cooking habits became available, and an exchange of culinary experience appeared. It is clear that all these innovations became more familiar to wealthy people who could afford to travel, support foreign chefs, and buy spices. And the world of simple Russian cuisine to some extent remained the same, continued to exist in its old way.

This, of course, does not mean that our peasant cuisine was somehow poor and miserable. Such an understanding would be completely wrong. A huge part of this diet consisted of various cereals, legumes, vegetables, wild greens, and herbs. On the contrary, at the medieval table of the boyar, meat, poultry and other expensive products, from which fatty, rich dishes were prepared, were always an indicator of wealth. Any turnips, beets, nettles were considered below the dignity of the rich strata of the population. But here is the paradox. This far-fetched self-restraint deprived the aristocratic cuisine of simple vitamins and nutrients - from vegetables, herbs, plant foods, cereals, legumes - indispensable in nutrition.

An amazing consequence of this was that in the middle of the 18th century, during the reign of Elizabeth, Catherine, the Russian nobility was struck by a whole epidemic of apoplexy. This is a stroke that most often occurs due to improper diet, due to the abundance of fatty, unhealthy foods. Therefore, the transition of our aristocracy to a lighter, let's say, Frenchized food by the end of the 18th century also bore for this very aristocracy a path to a healthier lifestyle.

And the peasant cuisine, meanwhile, included a set of dishes that were amazing in their simplicity and taste: a wide variety of vegetables, herbs, nettles, gout, wild garlic. Surprisingly, this is another forgotten facet of our medieval cuisine, which, upon closer examination, turns out not to be a chip of a primitive pebble, but the surface of an uncut diamond filled with inner light, a collection of the experience of generations. Unfortunately, this experience was lost, turned out to be not in demand in the new time, when southern tender plants, vegetables, salads came to us, which did not require long processing and preparation; when everything became simpler and easier; when Russian chefs suddenly discovered for themselves new tastes and combinations of products, much more expressive than was customary before. But they missed what Europe started with the primitive taste of turnip, radish and sorrel, having improved it beyond recognition. And we have not preserved our heritage.

Urination, salting, fermentation. Are these cooking methods exclusively traditional Russian?

I don't think there is a clear answer to this question. To be frank, many dishes and culinary techniques are much older than all of today's nations and peoples. For example, the well-known dispute about whose borscht, Russian, Ukrainian, Belarusian or Polish, is actually meaningless, because borscht arose much earlier than these same nationalities that are arguing about it.

It's the same with these culinary techniques. They have their roots going back thousands of years. Some of these methods are typical for the population of Eastern Europe, for the Slavs. For example, they make sauerkraut and soak apples, as in our country, back in Belarus and Poland. But if we talk in general about the technologies of urination, pickling, etc., then they arose in parallel in completely different civilizations. For example, there is Korean cabbage "kimchi", but the way it is fermented, as you understand, is different from the old Russian one. That is, these things were mastered all over the world, all of humanity gradually grew up to them. Just like reinventing the wheel, probably in many regions at the same time.

It is no secret that in our climate vegetables and fruits ripen later than European ones, which bathe in the sun, and sometimes are inferior in taste, so they had to be pre-processed. But as? It is from here that such familiar methods appeared in Russia: salt, sour, soak in kvass - radish with kvass, cucumbers drenched in kvass, sauerkraut. Plus, this is a great way to preserve for the long winter.

What spices and seasonings for dishes were used in Ancient Russia?

Of course, the most common, accessible to literally everyone, are garlic and onions. But in general, pepper, salt, foreign spices have long been at our table - Asian saffron, coriander, which we also called "intestine", ginger, cloves, cinnamon, nutmeg. In the south, they were mined on our site, brought somewhere from afar. Another thing is that even then salt was still very expensive. It is no coincidence that the very sign that if you spill salt, then this is a quarrel. It is clear that if the hostess spilled salt, then the family will eat unsalted stew for some time.

At the Russian table, there were other ways of serving these spices. At least at the time of Domostroy, in the 15th-16th centuries, it was not customary to add spices to dishes, except for salt. That is, dishes were served on the table, and spices were placed just next to each other. Maybe because they were expensive, maybe because so everyone could add to their liking. In addition to such European and Asian spices, we also had some of our own additives, ingredients that played the role of improving the taste and its diversity. These were a variety of pickled, soaked vegetables. Usually, for example, a soaked plum or salted grapes were served with a bird, which simply stood nearby. Of course, pickles and pickled apples were served.

It is also necessary to note such a thing as explosions. This is a kind of analogue of gravy or sauce in old Russian cuisine. It was prepared from berries or vegetables, for example, lingonberry broth, cranberry broth, cabbage broth. Onions were put in a vegetable broth, boiled until thickened, and a sauce boiled to the consistency of cream or sour cream was obtained, which was added to various dishes, poured into meat, poultry, and fish. These are the flavors that existed in that old Russian cuisine.

In what period did soup appear in Russia in its huge variety of variations?

The very word "soup" appears around the 18th century, in the post-Peter times, when European culinary culture had already begun to penetrate our lives. And before that, dishes similar to soup in Russian cuisine were called differently: stew, ear, kalya - soup with pickles. Moreover, the ear, as I have already said, could be the most diverse in its composition: from fish, from chicken, from meat, from mushrooms. Of course, our Russian cabbage soup and borscht were being prepared. However, borscht in medieval Russian cuisine was prepared without beets. In a number of places, hogweed leaves were added to it, which gave it a sour taste. Perhaps this is where the name "borscht" comes from. But this is not the “Sosnovsky hogweed” that today grows along roadsides, but its other variety that could be eaten.

Obviously, the variety of soups in Russian cuisine existed in pre-Petrine times, before the appearance of the word "soup". There were dozens of names of these soups.

Excellent cold soups were prepared - okroshka, botvinya. Some of our contemporaries may not have heard of her. Meanwhile, botvinya is a soup made from good, expensive fish, beet tops, fresh cucumbers, eggs, crayfish necks could be added there (each approached the preparation of this dish in its own way), and all this was poured with kvass. This is such a cold, but quite rich in taste and aroma soup. Of course, there were also simpler variants of botvinia. For example, we recently returned from the Kola Peninsula, where we studied the cuisine of the Pomors. So in their kitchen such a dish has been preserved - fish with kvass. Cod was taken, boiled, disassembled into small fibers, onions were added, and it was poured with bread kvass.

If we talk about the elegant aristocratic cuisine of Russia in the 18th-19th centuries, then the soups in it, of course, have changed. Firstly, they became less fat, more beautiful and thin, in the broth they began to value not its fat content, but its saturation, aroma, taste. The broth was even specially “transparent”, they tried to give it an elegant shade. There were different technologies for clearing the broth, for example, using eggs, minced meat, and even using black caviar. Caviar was put into the broth as a delay, it took on all unnecessary suspensions, and then it was taken out and thrown away.

Soups-puree from vegetables, chicken appeared. It is clear that there were no meat grinders then, so the ingredients for the soup were chopped, ground in a mortar or rubbed through a sieve. It can be said that in addition to the appearance of various new soups, our old dishes were also refined to a new understanding. As a result of this, for example, the old Russian kalya, which is prepared using pickles, gradually turned into today's pickle. In the middle of the 19th century, Moscow pickle was already common, which was an elegant dish made from meat, from rather expensive roots.

And already in Soviet times, it turned into the so-called Leningrad pickle. Old chefs told me how, after the revolution in 1917, Narpit specialists came up with some new menu for mass canteens. Of course, then there was a lack of food, and it was proposed to replace the roots with barley, expensive meat with offal. So the dish was born, which later in all Soviet canteens became known as pickle in Leningrad.