Famous dishes of Russian cuisine. Are there native Russian foods and dishes? Main dishes of Russian cuisine

When we organize a Russian-style feast or go to a Russian restaurant, the menu will definitely include pickled cucumbers, sauerkraut, pickled mushrooms, for the first - daily cabbage soup, Moscow borscht and fish soup, from delicacies - sturgeon, red and black caviar, game. Siberian dumplings, boiled potatoes, Guryev porridge, pancakes… And what did our ancestors actually eat?

Shchi and porridge are our food.

The usual food of Russian peasants was not very diverse. You need to cook quickly and satisfyingly, using what is grown with your own hands or collected in the forest. They ate little meat, although from time immemorial chickens, geese, cows, goats and pigs have been bred.
Our ancestors called shami any soup, and not just with cabbage, as it is now. Turnips, cabbages, and beets were grown in vegetable gardens. All this could be boiled in water or meat broth, whitened with milk or sour cream - that's the whole recipe. In the spring, sorrel or young nettles were used. For "nutritiousness" they added a "ceiling" of fried lard, and hemp oil was seasoned with food during fasting. In the XVI century. it was possible to try “borshch shti”, “cabbage shti”, “repyan shti”.
They often ate tyuryu - bread crumbled in small pieces into kvass, milk or water. Greens could also be added there, seasoned with vegetable oil. It did not require fire to prepare it, so it could also be made right in the field, where the peasants went to work for the whole day. In addition, in the summer heat, such food does not make you sleepy. From tyuri came today's okroshka.
But at first they called borscht a stew from hogweed (not one that can be burned). Then they began to cook it on beet kvass: they warmed it up in a pot, threw chopped beets, carrots, cabbage into boiling water and sent it to languish in the oven.
The most high-calorie in the diet were cereals. them in the 16th century. there were more than 20 species. Different cereals, different degrees of grinding made it possible to cook something new. Just like with cabbage soup, our ancestors did not bother themselves and the word "porridge" called any thick concoction of chopped foods.
Different porridges were popular in different provinces. For example, in Tambov there was the most millet. It was used to make not only porridge with water or milk, but also a kulesh with lard. In the Novgorod, Tver, Pskov provinces they prepared thick - thick barley porridge from whole grains.
Porridge has become an integral part of many holidays, ceremonies and rituals. She fed young people at weddings, workers after doing collective work. Newborns were greeted with "Babkin's" porridge, military successes were celebrated with "victorious" porridge, a truce was secured with "peaceful" porridge, and the deceased was commemorated with kutya.

Bread on the table - and the table is a throne, but not a piece of bread - and the table is a board

They ate a lot of bread. Peasants baked it from rye flour. Since this process is laborious, it was started once a week. The finished product was then stored in special wooden bread bins.
For a peasant, bread was so important that without it, hunger began, even if there was plenty of other food. In lean years, quinoa, bran, tree bark, ground acorns were added to the dough.
Bread was also an attribute of many rituals. Dear guests were greeted with "bread and salt", they took communion with prosphora, they broke the fast with Easter cakes, they saw off the winter with pancakes on Maslenitsa, they greeted spring with "larks".
Not only bread was baked from flour. Fritters, pancakes, gingerbread, rolls, cheesecakes often appeared on the table. Pancakes in the old days were made from buckwheat flour, loose, fluffy, sour. There were a great many pies, they were served with certain dishes: with buckwheat porridge - for fresh cabbage soup, sour - with salted fish, with meat - for noodles, with carrots - for fish soup.
In the seventeenth century there were at least 50 pie recipes. They differed in the type of dough: yeast, puff, unleavened; baking method: spun in oil, hearth. The sizes and shape (round, square, triangular, elongated), the way the filling was placed (open - pies) and closed ones changed. The filling could be: meat, fish, eggs, porridge, fruits, vegetables, berries, mushrooms, raisins, poppy seeds, peas, cottage cheese, chopped greens.

Good snack - sauerkraut

Winter in Russia is long and harsh, which is why all kinds of pickles were so popular. Cabbage was pickled in barrels, apples, cranberries, lingonberries were added to it. Apples and cranberries were also soaked. When cucumbers appeared, they began to use them.
Mushrooms were especially revered. Milk mushrooms, mushrooms, chanterelles, honey mushrooms, volnushki - each region has its own. Some species, for example, white and mushrooms, dried more.
The berries were dried or mixed with honey for storage. There were also blanks in the oven, for example, raspberries could be laid out in an even layer on a cabbage leaf and sent to a cooling oven. The berries reached the desired condition, and then the dried leaf was removed from the resulting cake.

Potatoes and dumplings

Potatoes appeared in Russia only in the 18th century through the efforts of Peter I and did not immediately become the “second bread”. But when they tasted it, they began to grow it with pleasure, and gradually it replaced turnips from the diet. Thanks to the potato, it became easier to survive the crop failures of wheat and rye.
Pelmeni, on the other hand, got into Russian cuisine, presumably because of the Urals. There is no mention of them in any culinary book in Russia until the beginning of the 19th century. The earliest description of such a dish is found in the "Painting of the Royal Food" (1610-1613), which mentions manti with lamb.
Back in 1817, dumplings were exotic in the European part of Russia, although they were common in Siberia. There they were molded in huge quantities and stored in the winter in the cold. In 1837, Ekaterina Avdeeva wrote about "dumplings" as a word used in Siberia, that in Russia they are called "ears", which is made from pasta dough with chopped beef, also with mushrooms or fish.

The nature of Russian cuisine

Features of the national cuisine are better preserved than, for example, typical features of clothing or housing.
Traditional Russian dishes are high in energy value and contain a lot of fat. This is due to the harsh climate: it was always necessary to eat tightly (“While the fat one dries, the thin one will die.”).
Dishes in Russian cuisine are simple, rational and practical. People cooked mainly dishes from bread, flour and everything that the forest gave - honey, berries, nuts, mushrooms (although the population of the southern part of Russia is wary of mushrooms, afraid to use them). The main part of Russian food was various types of cereals and dairy products. Meat was considered a festive dish.
Russians learned how to preserve and preserve food - they smoked, dried, salted meat, fermented vegetables and fruits, pickled, salted (cucumbers, garlic, grape leaves, wild garlic greens - wild garlic), prepared jams, dried fruits (prunes, dried apricots, raisins).

The food of the poor

When there was not enough flour or cereals, people ate the "second bread" - potatoes. They also often ate cabbage, from which soups are prepared, for example, shchi (“shchi and porridge is our food”), as well as carrots, beets and buckwheat (buckwheat porridge).

Bread

In everyday and festive food, bread has played and still plays the most important role. Russians say: "bread is the head of everything."
Russian bread was very revered: according to the old custom, dropped bread must be picked up, wiped, kissed and asked for forgiveness for negligence. People never throw away bread crumbs. A child from childhood was taught to respect this product. The guests were greeted with the words “bread and salt”.
Bread is a snack food throughout the day (for soup, for the second course).
Russian rye bread is baked with various additives (spices, raisins - the most famous aromatic bread "Borodinsky" with coriander).
White bread or lavash is also sold (white bread from the south or from Central Asia in the form of a large flat cake).

Russian national dishes

Snacks

Russian cuisine is especially famous for the abundance of various snacks. These are salads, pickles (vegetables, mushrooms, fish), pies with different fillings (meat, fish, cabbage, potatoes, rice and eggs, apples, lemon, various types of jams), pancakes with different fillings (products made from batter, poured into a hot frying pan in a thin layer), smoked meat, fish, sausage, ham, caviar - black from sturgeon, which is valued more than red from salmon.

Soups

Russian soups are hearty and thick, or, as the Russians say, “dense”. They are cooked on water or on kvass; sour cream or mayonnaise is often added to a bowl of soup. Be sure to eat bread with soup.

• Shchi - cabbage soup, there are about 60 types of cabbage soup.
• Borscht - red soup made from cabbage, beets, carrots, meat.
• Solyanka - soup with pickles.
• Ukha - Russian fish soup.
• Okroshka, pickle, beetroot - cold soups.

Meat dishes

In Russia, there is no tradition of lightly frying meat. Very often, dishes are prepared from minced meat. Cutlets are prepared from minced meat, it serves as a filling for dumplings, pies, cabbage rolls (minced meat in cabbage leaves). Popular Armenian barbecue - pieces of lamb. Russians often eat fish.

Sweet

Russians love sweets, the shops offer a large and varied selection of chocolate, sweets (sold by weight), ice cream, cookies; donuts are popular - baked mugs made from yeast dough with powdered sugar.

Milk products

Fermented baked milk is made from sour milk, cottage cheese products are common - curd mass (with dried apricots, prunes, raisins), sweet cheese.

Festive and ceremonial dishes

• Christmas - sochivo, kutya
• Maslenitsa - pancakes with butter
• Easter - Easter cake, eggs, Easter, do not eat hot dishes
• commemoration - pancakes, kutya, white kissel

Borrowed dishes

Russian cuisine has been enriched over the centuries with many dishes from neighboring nations.

• Shish kebab is a Caucasian dish in origin, borscht and hodgepodge are Ukrainian soups.
• Pelmeni is a Siberian dish in the form of boiled products made from unleavened dough stuffed with minced meat, as well as fish, potatoes, and cabbage.

Modern trends in Russian nutrition

At the beginning of the 90s. Russians fell under the influence of imported products and fast foods. Loved especially fried - pastries, french fries. Now they are again partly returning to domestic products and dishes. At the same time, especially in large cities, proper nutrition is gaining immense popularity, dietary, vegetarian and exotic (mainly Japanese) cuisine is becoming fashionable.

Beverages

kvass

A traditional Russian drink is kvass, a dark, slightly alcoholic drink made from bread or honey.

Vodka

Vodka is considered one of the symbols of Russia, although in recent years the amount of vodka consumption has been inferior to the amount of beer consumption.
There are world-famous brands of Russian vodka: Stolichnaya, Smirnovskaya, there is also an old tradition of home-made vodka, the so-called moonshine.
Vodka is affordable both in price and because you can buy it everywhere if you want, and this is one of the reasons for alcoholism among Russians. There are frequent cases of poisoning with vodka or moonshine.
Vodka and beer should be eaten. An endless range of different products is offered. For beer, they sell dried squid, smelt (small dried fish), vobla (dried fish that must be broken and eaten like chips), chips, peanuts, pistachios, crackers (small dried pieces of bread with different flavors). Vodka should be eaten with bread, sausage, pickles, wild garlic, etc.

tea drinking

In the past, Russians usually ended the day with the ritual of tea drinking, they exchanged news over tea, talked about the events of the day, the whole family gathered for tea.
Tea is brewed in a special teapot, allowed to settle, and then tea leaves are poured into cups and topped up with boiling water, or tea is prepared in a samovar. Sweets are served with tea: jam (cherry jam is most valued), sweets, cakes, buns, cookies.

Samovar

A samovar is a self-heating device for making tea. The samovar consists of a vase (it contains a charcoal brazier with a pipe), handles, a teapot burner, a spout with a key.
In the past, in every home, the samovar occupied an important place in the interior of the living room or dining room. During tea drinking, it was placed on the table or on a special table, the hostess or the eldest daughter poured tea. Gradually, samovars began to look not like teapots, but like decorative vases, became simpler and stricter, and finally became electric. In modern Russia, the samovar has already ceased to be a thing of prime necessity.

feast

There is a big difference between everyday and festive food, between dishes offered in restaurants.

Food during the day

Breakfast (around 9 a.m.)

Breakfast - preferably hearty. During the day, there is often nowhere to eat, so Russians prefer warm food - porridge (oatmeal, rice, wheat, buckwheat, semolina), scrambled eggs, sausages, pancakes. They eat cottage cheese, cheese, drink tea or coffee.

Lunch (about 2 pm)

Lunch usually consists of the first - soup, and the second - hot (meat or fish with a side dish). Russians are accustomed to eating fast food during the working day (there are establishments of this type offering Russian national dishes), canteens and cafes. Unlike a rich Russian home feast, a foreigner may be surprised by the small portions in Russian restaurants. There are quite comfortable restaurants at the highest level, but a normal Russian cannot afford to have lunch or dinner there.
On the street you can always buy something to eat - pies, pastries, pancakes, shawarma (kebab), fried potatoes with various fillings.

Dinner (about 8 pm)

Dinner does not take too much place in the diet. Usually they eat what was for dinner, or what they can find at home.

Holiday home feast

In Russia, family holidays are usually celebrated at home, guests are also invited home and treated themselves. It is not customary to hold meetings in restaurants.
In Russia, there is a tradition of a rich feast. For a long time it has been so established that a guest should be received as best as possible and fed to the fullest.
The change of dishes (snacks, the first is soup, the second is hot, the third is sweet) in the Russian feast is not very clear - as a rule, all sorts of snacks, pies, salads, meat dishes and even desserts are on the table at the same time. At the same time, Russians attach great importance to the abundance on the table - there should always be a lot of food of all kinds and different (despite possible material difficulties).

Purchases

Now in Russia everything is already there, everything can be obtained. This is a new situation for Russians - in Soviet times, stores looked completely different: empty shelves, zero choice, unpleasant saleswomen, low-quality products, long lines. Saleswomen considered the buyer almost their enemy.
Accounts were used instead of a cash register. A product, for example, cheese or sausage, if it appeared, was sold in kilograms (people bought it for future use).

At the beginning of the 90s. almost everyone got food on the market.

„Russian model zákazníka: snaží se ho vždy za všech okolností podvést jeho krajan. Je to hra na kočku a na myš. Až 90% obyvatel nakupuje na trhu a často neví, jak má originální potravina chutnat a zboží vypadat.“
David Šťáhlavsky: Rusko mezi řádky

Now it all depends on the amount of money in the buyer's wallet. There are many trading options. Grandmothers still stand on the street, offering vegetables from their garden, cigarettes or beer. At the entrances to the subway or near other transport hubs, there are counters and kiosks with different types of products (dairy, bread, biscuits…). Each area has its own market.
You can also buy in stores with counters, where the assortment is divided into several departments, but there is only one cash desk and the payment system is complicated - you have to choose a product, then go to the cashier and pay for everything and then return to the department with a receipt and there you will receive the selected product.
You can shop in modern self-service supermarkets. Many of them are open around the clock - 24 hours.
The outskirts of big cities are now being overgrown, as elsewhere, with hypermarkets and shopping centers.
In big cities there are very expensive shops with imported products and high quality products, with branded goods that are intended only for modern Russian V.I.P. - very rich people.

Literature:

• Sergeeva, A.: Russians. Stereotypes of behavior, traditions, mentality. Publishing house "Flinta", Publishing house "Nauka", Moscow 2005.
• Shangina, I.I.: Russian people. Weekdays and holidays. Publishing house "Azbuka-classika", St. Petersburg 2003.
• Pesek, P.: Ruská kuchyně v proměnách doby: gastro-etno-kulturní studie. Pavel Mervart, Červený Kostelec 2007.
• Ruska kuchyně. Champagne Avantgarde. Bratislava 1992.
• Cooking: http://www.gotovim.ru

To flow down the mustache and into the mouth

Russian cuisine has a very rich and, if I may say so, intricate history. She constantly assimilated the recipes of different peoples, often altered them in her own way, “peeped” something and took notes.

In 1816, the Tula landowner Levshin decided to compile the first (in the 19th century!) cookbook with Russian dishes. Then he complained, the poor fellow, that because of the numerous borrowings, the information was “completely exterminated”: “it is now impossible to present a complete description of the Russian cookery and should be content only with what can still be collected from the memory left, because the history of Russian cookery has never been devoted to the description ".

Nevertheless, thanks to numerous studies of European chefs, who were “discharged” by fashion to rich houses, it was possible to restore the history of the original Russian cuisine bit by bit and even return some of the old traditions that have survived to this day.

Where cabbage soup, look for us here

Contrary to popular belief, our national soup is not borscht at all, but cabbage soup. Shchi is the head of the whole dinner, they used to say in the old days. At first it was a soup, most often from fish or on bread, seasoned with cabbage and herbs.

There are two main components in real cabbage soup: sour dressing (cabbage pickle or apples, later sour cream appeared) and cabbage (although there could be other vegetables: For example, sorrel is put in green cabbage soup). In poor homes, soup could only consist of this. But meat (mushrooms or fish), roots (carrots, parsley), spicy dressings (onions, garlic, celery) were added to classic cabbage soup.

First, boil the broth with roots and onions, then add vegetables and sour dressing. By the way, sauerkraut was cooked separately from the meat broth and only then added. Spices should be put at the end of cooking.

In some areas, flour dressing was used in cabbage soup - for greater density. Then they abandoned it, believing that it worsens the aroma and taste of the soup. And they began to put potatoes in the dish.

After cooking, cabbage soup should definitely “simmer” under the lid. Sometimes they were put in a warm oven for several hours, or even for a whole day. Hence the name cabbage soup - diurnal.

One brush - soup pot

Ukha is not a "duty" of fishermen's wives, but another traditional Russian soup. After all, for the first time, cabbage soup was cooked in fish broth. There are no recipes for this soup. We offer to try the "royal fish soup" from sturgeon.

A real ear is cooked in a cast-iron bowl. Better, of course, in the oven and on birch wood. Well, also, of course, it would be nice to have recently caught sturgeon, but then someone will be as lucky.

For three liters of water you need 400 grams of sturgeon, 700 grams of potatoes, 2 large onions. All this languishes in the oven for at least an hour.

Buckwheat from Kulikovo field

Well, what's new to tell you about pancakes? This dish appeared in our country in the 9th century. And it has become so popular that now there are more than a hundred of its varieties. However, in Russia most pancakes were made with buckwheat flour. Here, for example, is a popular old recipe from Kulikovo Field - buckwheat. The recipe is not from the warriors, of course, but from the inhabitants of nearby villages.

Prepare 4 cups of buckwheat flour, 20 grams of yeast, 4.5 cups of milk, salt to taste. We breed yeast with half a glass of warm milk, but not just like that, but in a wooden tub. Add another one and a half glasses of milk, pour in two glasses of flour, constantly stirring the dough. We put in a warm place.

When the volume of the dough doubled, our great-great-grandmothers added the remaining flour, milk and salt and put it back in a warm place. When the dough came up again, the pancakes were baked in a cast-iron pan in hemp oil.

Drink kvass, disperse melancholy

Kvass was one of the main drinks of the Russian table. After all, tea, having appeared, was at first too expensive for a simple person. So, kvass was not only drunk, but used as a “broth” for cold and even hot soups. In the 15th century, there were more than five hundred recipes for this drink. Moreover, they made it not only from bread, but also from vegetables, for example, beets or turnips.

The simplest recipe is rustic rye white kvass. Rye flour (2-3 tablespoons) and water are mixed to the density of sour cream, two tablespoons (per half-liter jar) of honey and a few raisins are added for quick fermentation. Add rye sourdough with warm water and leave for a couple of days in a warm place. Then the leaven is poured into a three-liter jar, topped up with water, 2 tablespoons of honey and two tablespoons of rye flour are added.

After a few days, we drain the liquid and get “young kvass”. Honey is added to it to taste, and for a couple of days it goes to a cold cellar.

And the thickening remaining after draining the young kvass is again diluted with water, adding flour and honey and we already get mature kvass. Each time, the leaven becomes more vigorous, and the kvass cooks faster.

Sbiten-sbitenek drinks a dandy

Mentions of this drink can be found in the annals of the XII century. Sbiten - drink from water, honey and spices. Again, until the tea table became commonplace, sbiten was one of the most popular drinks. Too bad it's almost forgotten. Let's try to cook "Moscow sbiten" - it's not so difficult.

For 5 liters of water you will need 200 grams of honey, a kilogram of white molasses, 2 teaspoons of ginger, 2 grams of cinnamon, 5 cloves, 5 tablespoons of dry mint, 3 star anise, 10 black peppercorns, 7 cardamom pieces.

In boiling water, you need to dissolve molasses and honey. Boil for 15 minutes, add spices and boil for another ten minutes. We filter. Ready!

Eat prison, Yasha!

A very simple meal. In fact, tyurya is salted cold water with pieces of bread and chopped onions. Finely chopped vegetables and roots (turnips, for example), greens and herbs, yogurt were added to it. Recall that it was prison that Tolstoy's hero Konstantin Levin ate with pleasure in the middle of summer mowing. We also hope that summer will soon return to the prescribed regime, and in the midst of summer cares, you will use the following recipe.

For a liter of water, you will need two 2 tablespoons of small rye bread crackers, 1 finely chopped onion, 1 tablespoon of finely chopped plantain, the same amount of finely chopped quinoa, salt. Place plantain and quinoa in boiling salted water, bring to a boil quickly, remove from heat immediately and cool to room temperature. Before serving, add the rest of the ingredients.

Berry-viburnum beckoned us to itself

Pies are still one of the favorite Russian dishes. But you probably haven't heard of Kalinnik yet. And in the old days - it was a very common recipe.

There was a special relationship with Kalina in general. After all, this is a symbol of girlish tenderness, the viburnum bush attracts prosperity to the house. Clusters of these berries were used to decorate wedding loaves and towels.

For Kalinnik you will need rye flour, viburnum, yeast, sugar and salt.

300 grams of berries are dried and ground into powder. Brew 200 grams of boiling water to make puree. Rye flour is added to it, kneading the dough (about 500 grams of flour). Form a cake and bake. Traditionally, the pie should be bland. But you can add some sugar.

You can't feed a Russian peasant without porridge

It is not clear why, but we have reduced porridge to "tasteless and healthy" food. In fact, we simply do not know how to cook it! But without her, dear, the festive table in the old days could not do. Even a peace treaty could not enter into force until the opponents had eaten porridge.

Porridges were very different - buckwheat, millet, spelled (wheat), oats ... Barley porridge was a favorite of Peter I. And it is also mentioned dozens of times in the Bible.

It was cooked in a clay pot in an oven. For a liter of milk you need two glasses of barley groats, salt. Bring the milk to a boil, add salt, add the cereal and cook until it thickens. And then we send it to languish in the oven. Read in the oven. And do it.

Turnip - meat, cut and eat

Until the 18th century, turnip was the main ingredient in Russian cuisine. They did not know about any potatoes then. The turnip was boiled, steamed, baked, added to soups and pies.

In a modern way, steaming a turnip is like steaming it. The root crop must be peeled, cut into slices, put in a pot, pour in a little water and send to the oven to languish at an average temperature (about 120 degrees) for 2 hours.

Steamed turnips were eaten with butter and salt. Or with honey.

Good words, but not all gingerbread

Gingerbreads were known in Russia even before the adoption of Christianity. Such a variety of recipes for this dessert is not found in any country.

We got an old recipe for real Tula gingerbread. It doesn't really have exact proportions. So you have to do it by eye.

Liquid honey and eggs are added to soft butter, beaten well. Knead the dough by adding flour, water and baking soda.

For the filling, apples are boiled with sugar. You should get a thick jam.

Roll out two layers of dough. Chilled filling is placed between them. Gingerbread goes to bake in the oven.

At the end, you can apply a glaze of beaten egg white and sugar.

The dishes of Russian national cuisine have a rather rich history and a large assortment. The composition of dishes of modern Russian cuisine is quite diverse, and, as a rule, their recipes involve several different cooking options, ranging from the simplest to the most complex and multi-component ones. Having a centuries-old tradition, the national cuisine of Russia combines both traditional native Russian dishes and those borrowed from other peoples.

Traditional Russian cuisine

Due to the fact that for cooking in peasant Russia they used mainly a Russian oven, the main methods of heat treatment of products were boiling, languishing, stewing or baking. Fried dishes were an exception, since the design of the closed Russian oven did not allow obtaining the temperatures necessary for frying. Features of Russian cuisine in its traditional old version are in a wide variety of liquid, stewed or boiled dishes, or dishes from baked meat, fish, poultry.

The main or first course of Russian cuisine are soups or stews. Among the first courses, cabbage soup, borscht, pickle, hodgepodge, fish soup, mushroom and vegetable soups, okroshka, and botvinya are most widely used.

Russian cabbage soup and borscht are the most popular all over the world. Shchi is prepared from fresh or sauerkraut, nettle, sorrel. In modern culinary guides, you can find several dozen different types of Russian cabbage soup: with meat, fish, poultry, mushrooms, etc.. Borsch, beetroot cabbage soup, is also considered to be a very popular and widespread Russian dish.

As a rule, porridges were used as second courses of Russian cuisine. Porridge was considered an indispensable attribute of any table at any time, there was even a saying: cabbage soup and porridge are our food. The prevalence of cereals was determined, firstly, by the variety of grain crops growing in Russia, and secondly, by the simplicity of their preparation.

Crushed grain was often used to prepare porridge, which made it possible to reduce the cooking time and obtain a product with a more delicate texture. Kashi was seasoned with butter and melted butter, honey, berries and fruits. After the appearance of potatoes in Russia, it gradually gained popularity and became the “second bread”. Recipes for cooking baked potatoes, as well as "jacket potatoes", along with porridge, are still an important part of Russian national cuisine today.

Boiled or baked fish, boiled or stewed meat, and poultry were served with cereals and potatoes used as side dishes. Fish or poultry were most often cooked whole, beef, lamb, pork and meat of large wild animals were served in large pieces, since meat products were not allowed to be chopped during the cooking process.

There are features of Russian national cuisine that are not widely used in the culinary preferences of other countries. These are marinades and pickles - Russian pickles. The most characteristic of them are sauerkraut, pickled or pickled cucumbers or mushrooms. Not a single festive feast of the Russian people is complete without pickled, salted, pickled mushrooms, vegetables and fruits. Recipes for the most successful cooking options for these snacks are often inherited from parents to children.

It should also be noted popular recipes for Olivier salads and vinaigrette. The latter is called "Russian salad" all over the world. Vinaigrette is a Russian invention. Pickled cucumbers and sauerkraut are used for its preparation. Olivier salad can also be considered an attribute of Russian national cuisine, since it is prepared almost exclusively in Russia. The same characteristic feature of the Russian festive feast, like Olivier salad and vinaigrette, is jelly.

Russian national drinks

The national cuisine of Russia includes such popular drinks as kvass, fruit drink and kissel. Existing recipes for kvass include several dozen options for its preparation. Morse and jelly based on fruit or berry decoctions are also a nice addition to the festive table. You can also mention the oldest Russian low-alcohol drink - mead (or honey mash), as well as many different liqueurs and tinctures popular in Russia. However, most often foreigners remember Russian cuisine when they see black caviar, pancakes and Russian vodka.

Culinary dough products

Initially, Russian pastries were made from yeast dough prepared in the sourdough method. Yeast dough for dough in Russia began to be used much earlier than in many other countries. Pies and pies, pies, kurniks, kulebyaks and many other products were baked from different types of such dough. The filling was various varieties of fish, meat of domestic animals and game, mushrooms, berries, vegetables, fruits, cottage cheese.

Russian culinary specialists began to use unleavened dough much later. Therefore, the range of products from it is relatively small: noodles, dumplings, dumplings, pancakes.

Pies were always served with the first courses: soup, fish soup, cabbage soup. Kurnik and loaf were traditionally baked for the wedding table. Drying and bagels, kalachi, koloboks, cheesecakes, carpets, donuts were served for "sweet".

An important component of the Russian table is the traditional Russian gingerbread. Before the advent of sugar, gingerbread, like other sweet dishes, was cooked with honey. Therefore, gingerbread was originally called honey bread. Later, when various spices delivered from India and Eastern countries began to be used for dough, honey bread became known as gingerbread.

Gingerbreads were baked mainly for the festive table, since many of the ingredients of the gingerbread dough were among the expensive products. Large printed gingerbread has long been considered a good gift for various holidays, weddings, birthdays, name days. For special occasions, huge gingerbread weighing up to 5 kg was baked. Gingerbread with letters became the first alphabet for children.

Gingerbread made with various fillings and seasonings. In addition, gingerbread was of various shapes: oval, round, rectangular, figured - and sizes. After the widespread use of sugar in the diet of Russian people, gingerbread began to be covered with sugar icing. In different regions of the vast country, there were special recipes for making gingerbread. The most famous were and remain Tula gingerbread.

The Orthodox Church has made its contribution to the formation of Russian culinary traditions. Numerous fasts, during which it was impossible to eat meat, dairy, fish dishes, made pastries with mushroom, vegetable and fruit and berry fillings an indispensable component of nutrition. For many religious holidays, special types of pastries were prepared, for example, Easter cakes and Easter cakes to celebrate the Resurrection of Christ.

Famous Russian pancakes and bread

Separately, it should be said about the world-famous Russian pancakes. They have long been the hallmark of Russian national cuisine. Traditional Russian pancakes were baked from yeast dough and were quite thick. Later, with the advent of European traditions in Russian cuisine, they began to bake thin pancakes.

They were eaten with honey, vegetable oil, sour cream, jam. In addition, pancakes were stuffed with meat, cereals, cottage cheese, mushrooms, vegetables, berries and fruits.. Pancake pies with various fillings were made from pancakes. Although pancakes were often baked, over time they became the main festive dish for Shrovetide. Small pancakes (fritters) were prepared from sponge dough. Various fillings were added to the dough for fritters, creating a wide range of flavors for this product.

Traditional Russian bread has always been black bread made from rye flour. Bread was one of the main dishes, it was consumed a lot, especially with stews, cabbage soup, okroshka, fish soup and other first courses. Rye bread is mistakenly considered food only for the common people. In fact, black bread was served at the table in merchant, boyar, and noble houses.

White bread made from wheat flour began to be baked much later than rye. It became the food of the mostly urban nobility. Many Russian landowners preferred traditional Russian cuisine, despite the misconception that Germans and French were the cooks in the landlords' homes everywhere.

In addition to rye and wheat flour, Russian cuisine used other cereals for baking. Agriculture was the main occupation in Russia.

The respectful attitude to the hard work of the farmer is reflected in many rituals, customs and traditions of the Russian people. Guests have long been greeted with bread and salt, the bride was showered with grain at the wedding, the farewell to the deceased did not pass without a funeral kutya.

Portal Moscow-24 asked me to answer all these questions. I will give here the full version of my interview. On the Moscow site itself, for obvious reasons, it is somewhat abbreviated. So, our conversation with the correspondent Anastasia Maltseva.

- Are there any Russian products?

You will be surprised, but the answer will not be simple. Yes and no. All our product variety can be conditionally divided into three large groups. The first is natural products - everything that can be grown. This is, say, buckwheat, turnip, potatoes, lamb, pork, chicken, etc. The second group - products that have undergone preliminary processing: bacon, sauerkraut, pickles, jam. The third group is ready-made dishes that the chef serves on the table. Where can you find national cuisine here? Obviously not in the first group. There is not a single vegetable or fruit that would grow only in Russia. Even our turnips are grown in many countries.

The second group can already claim the title of national. Since here, specific technologies for their processing are added to the products that grow on the territory of Russia. Sauerkraut, cucumbers - an old Slavic tradition. The national products of this group also include, say, our sour cream and marshmallow.

And it is on the basis of products that have undergone specific processing that traditional national dishes arise. So, technology complements the art of cooking. For example, sour cabbage soup was made from sauerkraut. This dish is found only in Russian cuisine. Rassolniki, hodgepodges, okroshka are also rightly considered our national dishes.

Sour cabbage soup - what could be more rucskim? (author's photo)

- Since the conversation turned to soups, the main exciting question, of course, will be about borscht. Whose is he?

This is really the main dispute of the Slavs: "Whose borscht?". Russians, Ukrainians, Poles, Belarusians - rightly claim the championship in the invention of the famous soup. Which of the nations prepared it first? The answer is simple: nobody. Borsch was born many centuries (or maybe a millennium) ago, when there were no Russians, Ukrainians, Belarusians and Poles yet. Soup was prepared by Slavic tribes in the East European Plain. Each of today's countries can rightly claim his birthright. Another thing is that each nation has its own national versions of this dish. And our Kuban borscht is no less valuable as a historical heritage than Poltava borscht with dumplings or Polish zhurek.

- Speaking of national products, you mentioned pickled cucumbers, sauerkraut, cottage cheese. It turns out that Russian cuisine has a sour-salty taste?

Rather sour-fermented, kvass. However, when we talk about cuisine, we must not forget that these are not only tastes and dishes. In addition to purely prescription
details, there are several more important things: products, processing technologies, type and nature of food, norms and customs of serving dishes. Finally, the "table" culture.

- How can the submission method be national?

We are talking about small, sometimes elusive details that are rarely found in other countries. Well, for example, the widespread use of sour cream with soups. Or adding horseradish to hot-smoked fish, aspic, etc. Or a large list of appetizers, sometimes surprising the foreign public (who do not understand the very origin of the term “appetizer” and the functional purpose of this food at the Russian table). Caviar - traditionally on ice, herring - sliced, and salmon - on the contrary, cut into layers.

- Do we have rituals that make up the soul of folk cooking?

For many years, UNESCO has compiled a list of intangible heritage, including in the field of cuisine. It is not just about the dishes, but about the cultural practices associated with them. There is France and Turkey, Armenia and Morocco. But Russia is not on this list. The hands of our officials do not even reach the ratification of the relevant convention. But, say, our modeling of dumplings or sauerkraut could well enter there. The famous culinary specialist Ekaterina Avdeeva (her books were published in the 1840s - in this blog) describes how women in Siberia gathered in the evenings and chopped cabbage. They dressed up beautifully, sang, invited children and told them stories. The word "kapustnik" came precisely from this tradition, and not the actors of the Moscow Art Theater invented it.

- Tell us more about Moscow cuisine. What is its specificity, unlike Russian cuisine?

In the XVI-XVII centuries in Moscow, patriarchal cuisine reached its peak. But we must not forget that food in that era was of a medieval nature, focused more on satiating the stomach than enjoying tastes.

During the time of Peter I, when St. Petersburg became the capital, Moscow cuisine retained its patriarchal, antiquated character. The fashion for French cuisine came to St. Petersburg. The nobility spoke only French, ate oysters, Strasbourg pies and drank Widow Clicquot. The fashion for French cuisine came to Moscow slowly, often brought by retired officials and aristocrats who came here to live on their pensions.
In the 19th century in Moscow, in a wealthy house, food was served to guests in several stages. At first there were snacks in a separate room. There were pantry - supplies - tables with black and red caviar, salmon, baked mushrooms and different types of vodka.

This, already in the dining room, was followed by two or three cold dishes: ham, goose with cabbage, boiled pork with onions, pork head with horseradish, pike perch with galantine, pike or boiled sturgeon, a combined vinaigrette from poultry, cabbage, cucumbers. Sometimes beef jelly was served with kvass, sour cream and horseradish, or boiled pig, botvinya mostly with beluga. What is botvinya? - You can read about it.

Botvinya can be very intricate (photo by the author)

After the cold, dishes with sauces were certainly served on the table. The most commonly used were duck under mushrooms, veal liver with chopped lung, veal head with prunes and raisins, lamb with garlic, doused with red sweetish sauce; Little Russian dumplings, dumplings, brains with green peas, chicken fricassee with mushroom sauce.

The fourth course consisted of a roast: roast turkeys, ducks, geese, piglets, veal, black grouse, hazel grouse, partridge, sturgeon with smelt or lamb side with buckwheat porridge. Instead of salad, pickles, olives, olives, salted lemons and apples were served. In addition to hot dishes, they always offered kulebyaki, or juicy, or cheesecakes, or pies. And the dinner party ended with two types of cakes - as they were called then: wet (jelly, compotes) and dry (biscuits, ice cream, etc.).

- How has the patriarchal serving of food changed?

European influence gradually came to Moscow. Soups became transparent and mashed. The snack table has moved from a separate room to the main serving. The studen became jelly and galantine. The gray broth in it was made transparent, the meat and poultry were beautifully laid out on a plate, and the vegetables were elegantly cut out. Vinaigrette and mayonnaise became familiar (which then were not called sauces, but ready-made dishes of poultry, fish or meat with vegetables under the same name filling).

If you do not exchange for details, then behind the table pictures you can find patterns of a new culinary era. A little more than a quarter of a century has passed, and Moscow cuisine has become unrecognizably different. Or rather, not so: its philosophy, its culture has changed. Its language and technology has changed. Moreover, this cuisine still did not become French, retaining an elusive Russian flavor and basis. Unlike St. Petersburg, Moscow has surprisingly preserved the historical originality of its cuisine. Perhaps partly due to this, by the second half of the 19th century, through the efforts of Russian chefs, our gastronomy reached the world level. Indeed, already in the days of Molokhovets, it never occurred to anyone to blame her for backwardness. She became a full participant in the global culinary process.

- What happened to Russian cuisine during the Soviet period?

In the first post-revolutionary years, there was clearly no time for culinary delights. The task of the authorities was to feed the people. Professor M.N. Kutkina told us a curious story. Her teacher, Nikolai Kurbatov, a cook with pre-revolutionary experience in 1919, together with his colleagues, invented a new soup, which later received the name "Leningrad pickle". The former "Moscow pickle" was an elegant dish with poultry, roots, pickles, spices and a clear broth. Where to find roots in 1919? The cooks took the recipe only as a basis - they cooked the broth from the bones, added pickles and ... barley for satiety. Soup came to taste - in Soviet times it was served in every dining room.

Canned meat was also produced in pre-revolutionary Russia.
But it was in the USSR that it became a popularly loved product (photo by the author)

But already from the end of the 1920s, it became clear that serious reforms were indispensable. The country was in a difficult situation. Since 1929, food cards have already been introduced in Leningrad for all basic products. There were no such restrictions in Moscow, but life was not much better. The population was growing, and the old semi-handicraft production base simply couldn't keep up. At the suggestion of A. Mikoyan, a new food industry is being created - dozens of bakeries, meat processing plants, factories for the production of butter, fats, and canned food are being built.

There is also a reform of Soviet cuisine. And Moscow is its showcase. People are instilled with a taste for new products and dishes. We receive canned food, corn, canned peas, Artek cereals, juices, ice cream, doctor's sausage, Soviet Champagne, Crimean wines. This is how the picture of food socialist abundance is created. The picture may be decorative, but convincing for the population.

- Was there a national fast food in the Soviet Union?

Of course, there were cafes where you could quickly drink a cup of broth and eat a pie. There were pancakes and cheburechnye. But if we are talking about fast food in today's broad sense, then they could hardly be considered as competitors to it. Unlike the same McDonald's, which offers a variety of meals for breakfast, lunch and dinner, you will not eat pasties alone. In general, it seems to me that the best Soviet (and indeed, our national) fast food has always been an ordinary Soviet canteen (in its best embodiment). There has always been a fast and quality meal since the 1930s.

Anniversary cookies were invented in 1913. And in the form we know
its production resumed at the Bolshevik factory only in 1967 (photo by the author)

- What happened in the post-war years?

In the 1960s, a massive influx of national cuisines began to Moscow. Restaurants of the Soviet republics and socialist countries - "Baku", "Uzbekistan", "Prague", "Vilnius", "Sofia" are being created in the capital. This phenomenon undoubtedly enriched Moscow cuisine. But at the same time, and somewhat "led away from historical roots." Until now, shish kebab and pilaf are festive dishes for many of us, and cabbage soup and pancakes are just everyday food. Unfortunately, the subsequent development of Soviet cuisine gradually declined. In the 1970s, the deficit grew. In the 1980s, coupons appeared for many products.

- How did the collapse of the Soviet Union affect Moscow cuisine?

When the Iron Curtain collapsed in the 1990s, a very curious process began. What was the problem of Soviet cuisine? In isolation from the world. We, after all, almost did not know the new emerging products, spices, cooking techniques and technologies. That is why the 90s is a process of acquaintance with world cuisine, which, in a good way, should have been going on throughout the entire 20th century. And it’s not about the beautiful Snickers packaging that appeared then or the Polish “champagne”. Waves of a different culinary culture swept through Moscow one after another - French, Italian, Japanese, Mexican, Chinese. These new flavors are also making their way into home cooking. And traditional naval pasta is complemented by pasta with salmon, and the usual sausage, it turns out, does not contradict pates and terrines at all.

- What can you say about the current state of Moscow cuisine? How did the sanctions affect her?

Sanctions have two effects. On the one hand, this is an incentive for the development of their agricultural production. On the other hand, there is a threat of a new self-isolation, similar to the Soviet one. With another presentation of Russia as the birthplace of elephants in all areas of culture. I am categorically against this. We laugh at how foreigners sometimes imagine us - living among bears, with balalaikas and nesting dolls. But aren't we ourselves partly to blame for this? Maybe stop looking for the ideal of our society and cuisine in the early Middle Ages? It's time to move away from the house-building orders, as the ideal of national cuisine. Yes, we must look for and carefully restore old regional products and traditions. But at the same time, we are also engaged in adapting those dishes and products to today's tastes and concepts of healthy food.