Demyan and his family enjoy eating together and Rosa is able to provide everyone with plentiful and tasty meals,
largely as a result of her kitchen garden, the chickens and pigs and the river which Medved loves to play in. But their food experience would not have been enjoyed by many of their city-dwelling neighbours. When we think of shopping for food in the Soviet Union we associate it with long queues and empty shops. There is a reason why everyone carried an ‘avoska’ (a just-in-case bag). A string bag into which you would place anything you happened to come across - some duck eggs, a chicken or maybe a bar of chocolate.
My memories of dining in the Soviet Union in the early 1980s are not ones of fine, or even fun, dining. What I do remember are large, soulless dining rooms (usually empty), menus which offered much but very rarely delivered anything, unsmiling waiters and food which was usually a non-descript shade of brown or grey. The borscht was always thin, as was the chicken and the Russian salads seemed to consist solely of peas and mayonnaise, sprinkled with dill. Always dill! My personal favourite was a tureen of chicken soup for our table to share. On closer inspection however the soup was actually chicken carcass with chicken wire for texture. At least there was always vodka to blur the edges. Always followed either by a chunk of hearty black bread or the sniffing of something woollen - apparently the lanolin reduces the effects of the alcohol!
Many years later, my wife and I went on holiday to Odessa, Ukraine. The hotel we stayed in turned out to double as a sanitorium. We particularly enjoyed watching the parade of attractive Ukrainian ladies leave the pool-side only to return an hour or so later to resume sun-bathing duties with a plaster across their nose, clearly having enjoyed some rapid cosmetic surgery. But I digress! Things had clearly changed in the kitchen in the thirty years since I had last visited.
Breakfast was a vast display of hot and cold dishes familiar to anyone who has ever eaten in a European hotel. Eggs, sausage, cold meats, cheese, fruit - it was all there in vast quantities. But as well as breakfast, you could have enjoyed a full evening meal if you were so inclined. Many of our fellow guests took great delight in piling up their plates, placing them on their tables untouched before heading back for more. Maybe this was a habit that had developed in the years of communist hardship?
Dining in the evening had changed as well. The dining room was still large, and very often very empty. The service was still brusque; it was not unusual for the main course to be served as we were still enjoying our starter.The menu did not always have everything that it promised, but what it did offer was always well cooked, fresh and flavoursome. Chicken, steaks, pork, fish. A far cry from chicken wire soup. And napoleon cake! Vanilla custard sandwiched between layers of crunchy pastry. Delicious, and a firm favourite in most Soviet households for the last century, celebrating the Russian defeat of Napoleon in 1812. And not forgetting sweet cherry vareniki with sour cream. There was still vodka of course, but there was also cheap local beer and fine sun-drenched Ukrainian white wine to enjoy as well.
So if, like me, you are interested in finding out more about the dishes and tastes of the Soviet Union I can recommend 2 excellent reads: CCCP Cook Book by Olga and Pavel Syutkin (True Stories of Soviet Cuisine and Mastering the Art of Soviet Cooking by Anya Von Bremzen.
Please share any of your recipes, tales or similar books.
Thanks for reading. Until next time.
Neil
PS The perch stew enjoyed by Demyan is entirely my own invention and it tastes fantastic!
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