— Sbiten —
Sbiten or vzvar was often called “Slavic mulled wine” by overseas merchants who came to Russian soil. Although this drink or dessert didn’t have much in common with hot wine. It was most often prepared using honey and various herbs. The result was a thick, sweet mass that could be drunk, diluted to a liquid state, or eaten as jam. Sometimes mash was added to sbiten, then it actually became alcohol and acquired additional warming qualities. This product was served to the table in clay sbitnitsa.
— Gray cabbage soup —
This dish would be easy to prepare today, if not for the lost most important ingredient - crumble. According to the ancient recipes that have come down to us, it turns out that this is cabbage fermented for several days, crushed to an extreme degree, with unknown spices and herbs. It was she who gave the gray cabbage soup a unique taste and spiciness. Crumbs for gray cabbage soup were prepared in barrels and kept in the cellar. All winter this way one could enjoy the main Russian food.
— Roasted swan —
Who today would eat swans, those graceful birds with a romantic reputation? It’s hard to imagine, and yet the lack of tradition of cooking this game is only due to the fact that the recipe has been lost. Without the special marinades that the cooks of ancient Russian princes used when frying a swan, it is impossible to make this meat tasty and soft. This delicacy, along with curdled milk and vinegar, was served to the table of the Russian nobility until the 18th century, and then the art of preparing it sank into oblivion.
— Tavranchuk —
One of the most mysterious dishes of Old Russian cuisine, which was included in both the monastic and secular menus. Moreover, it could be prepared from fish, meat, and even mushrooms. The main thing is to take a large clay frying pan for this task and put it in the oven so that the food simmers. Pickled cucumbers, turnips and celery were added to tavranchuk. If the main ingredient was fish, it was considered lean.
— Pigus —
This sour soup with cucumbers was a serious competitor to cabbage soup in Rus'. At the same time, the recipe for pigus, even a very approximate one, is not mentioned anywhere. This name has come to us from Dahl’s dictionary and Turgenev’s works, in which he mentioned this stew along with other ancient dishes - salamantes, kokurki and jelly.
- Steamed turnips -
The queen of Russian cuisine was the turnip, and numerous dishes made from it replaced meat, fish and cereals in ancient cookbooks. Now neither restaurants nor home kitchens know what to do with this vegetable so that it does not frighten away with its strange smell and incomprehensible consistency. And before, this was really the easiest way to eat - cut the turnips into strips, put them, salt them, in a clay pot and put them in the oven. The vitamin-rich dish is ready in just a few tens of minutes.
- Jelly made from cherries -
A kind of ancient Russian pudding with the addition of wine was used by our ancestors for quite a long time. But gradually the set of spices and herbs that should be added to this dish was lost, and the cooking methods were forgotten. Today you can find recipes according to which jellied meat is prepared from pitted cherries, simmered for several hours, cooled and served as a dessert. But all these are not original methods, and we will never know the taste of real cherry jellied meat.
— Jur —
But this recipe was no longer used, perhaps because the smell and taste were too specific. Its base - oatmeal - during processing gave rise to a dough and began to smell something like yeast. Healers called this dish longevity soup, because in terms of the amount of vitamins and useful things it left far behind all competitors. Meat or dairy products were often added to the oat base, so this soup was also nutritious.
Our cuisine is considered one of the most satisfying, tasty and rich in the world. Our ancestors knew a lot about food and loved a good table. People gathered to see him five to six times a day. Everything depended on the time of year, the length of daylight hours and economic needs. And it was called - interception, afternoon tea, lunch, lunch, dinner and lunch. It is interesting that this tradition was sacredly observed until the abolition of serfdom. With the advent of capitalism, the number of daily meals was reduced first to three times, and then to two.
Main ingredients of Russian cuisine
Russian folk dishes were not prepared from slaughter obtained by women. Also, living creatures that feed on carrion, that is, crayfish, were not suitable for food.
After Peter’s reforms and the emergence of a “window to Europe,” wine and sugar began to be imported to Russia. A trade route from China and India to Europe was built through the country. This is how we got tea, coffee, spices, etc.
Along with them came new traditions, but Russian folk dishes, photographs of which are presented in the article, are still loved and in demand. If you cook them in the oven or slow cooker, they will be a little similar to the authentic versions.
Despite the fact that many modern products were unknown in Rus' for a long time: potatoes, tomatoes, corn, rice, foreigners noted that the Russian table is the richest in the world, even among the common people. Dishes of Russian cuisine do not require special knowledge or exotic ingredients, but to prepare a truly delicious dish, a lot of experience is required. The main products in Rus' were turnips, cabbage, radishes, cucumbers, fruits, berries, mushrooms, fish and sometimes meat. The abundance of cereals - rye, wheat, oats, millet, peas, lentils - made it possible to prepare many types of breads, pancakes, cereals, kvass, beer and vodka.
Russia is a multinational state where each nation, having its own “specialty” dishes, borrowed recipes and culinary tricks from its neighbors, passing on its secrets to them. Each region and region of Russia boasts unique dishes. Russian cuisine has always been open to foreign borrowings, which did not spoil it at all, but rather beautified it. From the Scythians and Greeks, the Russians learned to prepare yeast dough; through Byzantium they learned about rice, buckwheat and numerous spices; tea came to us from China; from the Urals - dumplings; Bulgaria shared with us sweet peppers, eggplants and zucchini; Western Slavs contributed to Russian cuisine in the form of borscht, cabbage rolls, and dumplings. In the 16th-18th centuries, Russian cuisine absorbed all the best that existed in the cuisines of European countries: salads and green vegetables, smoked meats, chocolate, ice cream, wines and liqueurs, sugar and coffee.
According to some information, potatoes appeared in Rus' thanks to Peter I, and he contributed to the spread of this plant in the central regions of Russia. But there is an opinion that Russian potato varieties could not have appeared from Europe, because they belong to northern plants, and European varieties are closer to southern plants. In Siberia, the Urals, in the Arkhangelsk, Novgorod and Pskov regions, potatoes may have appeared earlier than in the southern regions.
The design of the Russian stove determined the method of cooking. Since the dishes were heated not from below, but from the sides, their side surfaces had to have a maximum area for heating the entire contents. Hence the rounded shape of pots and cast iron pots and the abundance of stewed, boiled, simmered and baked dishes in ancient Russian cuisine. Under Peter I, stoves and utensils adapted for frying and cooking over an open fire began to appear in Russian kitchens: pots, baking trays, skimmers. French chefs introduced exquisite dishes and sauces into the diet of the nobility, and the custom of frying meat came from Holland. Aristocrats of the 18th and 19th centuries invited European chefs who made a huge contribution to the development of Russian cuisine. Some dishes that are considered Russian actually appeared thanks to French and Austrian chefs: Beef Stroganoff, chicken Kiev and charlotte. Russian cuisine did not succumb to foreign influence, but adapted dishes to Russian realities.
Orthodoxy had a strong influence on all aspects of Russian life, not excluding traditional Russian cuisine. Frequent strict fasts (up to 220 days a year), during which Orthodox Christians could eat only plant foods and sometimes fish, contributed to the emergence of many Lenten (vegetarian and even vegan) soups, appetizers, main courses and desserts. Most Lenten Russian dishes have no analogues in other cuisines of the world, for example, the simplest dish tyurya made from salt water with bread and onions. Lenten dishes are rich in vitamins and microelements, but do not contain fat, which allows you to cleanse the body and give it strength for hard peasant work.
The design of the Russian stove made it possible to cook without oil and fat, so during Lent, Orthodox Christians could prepare delicious steamed, boiled or stewed vegetables, mushrooms, jelly, pancakes, Lenten breads and porridges. The variety of grains and methods of processing them made it possible to prepare several types of porridges.
During non-strict fasts, the Russian table was replete with all kinds of fish dishes. It was baked, stuffed with mushrooms and porridge, dried and boiled. The caviar was salted and boiled in vinegar.
In Rus', porridge was eaten as an independent dish and as a side dish for fish and meat. Initially, porridges had a sacred meaning and were an important part of many rituals. A large amount of porridge was prepared during collective work, especially during the harvest, when it was necessary to quickly feed a whole team. On the Don, the word “porridge” was used to describe an artel or people working together. The best porridges were considered to be the hard, crumbly ones. Liquid porridges were considered the lowest grade. Real crumbly porridge is very easy to cook in the oven. If you steam porridge cooked on the stove in the oven, you will get a similar result.
Among Lenten Russian desserts there is an interesting dish - malt made from sprouted rye grain. This liquid dish is pink in color with a honey aroma, rich in vitamins. Malt was eaten during winter fasts. The sweet taste of this dish is achieved by carefully maintaining the temperature balance, which is important for the fermentation of malt. Kulaga, a sweet dish made from malt flour and potatoes, was prepared in a similar way. The sweet taste of kulaga is due to glucose formed during the fermentation of starch. Oatmeal - a thick, salty, lean dish made from fried oatmeal - was eaten at any time of the year.
In the 19th century, a Russian meal consisted of several courses; later, at dinner parties, all dishes began to be put on the table at once, in accordance with French custom. The first course of the meal was appetizers of cabbage, potatoes, fish or meat. Russian cuisine has almost no salad recipes, except for vinaigrette, which is called “Russian salad”. Black caviar has always been an affordable product in Rus', especially in the south and the Volga region. Appetizers from the century before last can compete with modern main courses in nutritional value.
The second course was hot meat or vegetable soups. The word soup comes from French, and in ancient times liquid dishes in Rus' were called stew. In Russia, great importance was attached to soups, and every housewife knew many recipes for soups for all occasions. In the summer we usually ate cold soups: okroshka and botvinya with kvass, beetroot soups, light vegetable soups. If there was no fasting, noodles were prepared with meat, mushrooms or milk. Shchi, borscht, solyanka, rassolniki and ukha made the table varied and did not require expensive ingredients.
Classic Russian okroshka is made from two vegetables. One vegetable necessarily has a neutral taste (boiled potatoes, rutabaga, carrots, fresh cucumbers), while the other has a pronounced taste and smell (parsley, celery, tarragon). Neutral-tasting fish, beef or chicken are added to okroshka. The obligatory elements of okroshka are boiled eggs and sour cream. Mustard, black pepper or pickles are used as seasonings.
Shchi is one of the oldest dishes of Russian cuisine. Cabbage soup is remarkable because it knows no class boundaries. Although rich and poor use different ingredients to prepare cabbage soup, the basic principle remains the same. The specific taste of cabbage soup was obtained only in a Russian oven, where the cabbage soup was infused for several hours after it was ready. The required components of cabbage soup are cabbage and an acidic element (sour cream, sorrel, apples, brine). Carrots or parsley root, herbs (green onions, celery, dill, garlic, pepper), meat and sometimes mushrooms are added to cabbage soup. Sour cabbage soup is made from sauerkraut; gray cabbage soup - from the outer green cabbage leaves; green cabbage soup - from sorrel.
Ukha was originally called meat broth. Only in the 17th century did this word acquire its modern meaning - fish broth or soup. The ear uses a minimum of vegetables. Classic ukha is a strong broth served with fish pies. For fish soup, small-sized fresh river fish is best suited. Each type of fish in Russian cuisine was prepared separately, without mixing with others, in order to enjoy the pure taste. Therefore, Russian cookbooks describe fish soup from each type of fish separately.
The third course of the classic Russian meal is meat and fish dishes and porridge. Often large pieces of meat were boiled in soup or porridge and served as a separate dish. In ancient Russian cuisine, chopping meat is not encouraged; it is cooked and served as a whole piece. An example of this custom is roasting a whole bird, suckling pig or ham. The only exception to the rule is jellied meat or jelly. Porridge and boiled vegetables served as a side dish for meat dishes. Sometimes soaked sour apples, cranberries and sauerkraut were served. Meat gravies are uncharacteristic of traditional Russian cuisine. Cutlets became a property of Russian cuisine only in the 18th and 19th centuries. Pelmeni became popular only in the 19th century, but they fit so harmoniously into the structure of Russian cuisine that there is no doubt about their origin.
Desserts complete the Russian meal. In Russian cuisine there are many flour dishes: pies, pancakes, gingerbreads, Easter cakes, cheesecakes, cheesecakes, kulebyaki, pies. Ancient Russian drinks (sbiten, kvass) are original and are not found in the traditions of other peoples, although mead and beer are known wherever there is honey and hops.
Russian cuisine recipes
Lenten borscht
Ingredients:
1 head of onion,
1 beet,
1 carrot,
2 tbsp. l. vegetable oil,
1 jar of tomato paste,
5 medium potatoes,
1 Jerusalem artichoke,
1 head of cabbage or kohlrabi,
dill inflorescences,
Bay leaf,
garlic,
salt.
Preparation:
Fry the onions, add beets and grated carrots and simmer until half cooked, add tomato paste. Place potatoes and Jerusalem artichokes in boiling water, add salt and cook for 10 minutes. Add cabbage or kohlrabi and cook for another 10 minutes. Add the stewed vegetables, dill inflorescences, cook for another 5 minutes, add bay leaf and crushed garlic and remove from heat. Sprinkle the borscht in a plate with dill.
Stuffed cabbage rolls
Ingredients:
1 head of cabbage,
800 ml meat broth,
0.5 cups sour cream,
200 g minced meat,
1 onion,
2-3 tbsp. lard,
0.5 cups ground crackers,
0.5 cups boiled rice,
1 tbsp. flour,
2 yolks,
pepper, salt to taste.
Preparation:
Pass the lard and onion through a meat grinder, add minced meat, flour, crackers, rice, yolks, pepper and salt and mix. Soften a head of cabbage over steam, separate the leaves and wrap a spoonful of minced meat in them. Place the cabbage rolls in a pan with broth, bring to a boil, add sour cream and simmer for 20-25 minutes. You can also cook cabbage rolls in a double boiler.
Bishop's ear
Ingredients:
200 g sturgeon,
150 g potatoes,
1 onion,
1 parsley root,
400 ml chicken broth,
20 ml dry white wine,
green onions, dill, black pepper, bay leaf to taste.
Preparation:
Place chopped vegetables into the boiling broth and cook until half cooked, then add the fish and cook until done. Add spices and wine before serving.
Crucian carp in sour cream
Ingredients:
crucian carp,
flour,
vegetable oil,
sour cream,
salt,
pepper.
Preparation:
Gut the crucian carp, cut large ones into pieces, sprinkle with salt and pepper and leave for several hours. Roll in flour and fry in melted butter. When one side is fried, pour in sour cream and bring to readiness. Serve with buckwheat porridge.
Larks
Rolls in the shape of larks were baked on Candlemas (February 15) in honor of the imminent arrival of spring.
Ingredients:
1 kg flour,
30 g yeast,
130 g butter,
1 glass of milk,
0.5 cups sugar,
1 egg
50 g raisins,
salt.
Preparation:
Dissolve yeast in milk, add flour, melted butter and sugar. Knead the dough until it stops sticking to your hands. Leave the dough in a warm place for 1-2 hours until it doubles in volume. Roll out the dough into a rope, cut into small pieces and fold them into a knot. Shape the ends of the knots in the form of a lark's head and tail, stick raisins in place of the eyes, and make cuts on the tail. Brush the larks with the egg beaten with sugar and bake for 15-20 minutes.
Quick pancakes
Ingredients:
1 tbsp. oils
200 g sifted flour,
100 g milk,
1 egg
1 yolk,
salt and sugar to taste.
Preparation:
Mix all ingredients and leave for 30-40 minutes. After pouring the pancake batter into the pan, decorate the other side with dill and turn over. Serve pancakes with honey, sour cream or jam.
Easter
Ingredients:
1 kg of high fat cottage cheese,
150 g butter,
3-4 eggs,
3 tbsp. sour cream,
1 glass of syrup from any jam,
100 g raisins,
sugar and vanilla to taste.
Preparation:
Rub the cottage cheese through a sieve. Grind the eggs with a little sugar and mix with the cottage cheese. Add softened butter, sour cream and raisins and stir. Pour in the syrup, stirring continuously. Place gauze at the bottom of the pan or mold, place the mass on it and press down with heavy pressure. Leave in the refrigerator for 10-12 hours, then remove the Easter from the edges of the gauze and decorate with candied fruits and nuts.
Olga Borodina
So that it flows down your mustache and gets into your mouth
Russian cuisine has a very rich and, if I may say so, intricate history. She constantly assimilated recipes from different peoples, often altered them in her own way, “peeped” on something and took notes.
In 1816, the Tula landowner Levshin decided to compile the first (this was in the 19th century!) cookbook with Russian dishes. Then he complained, the poor fellow, that due to numerous borrowings, the information was “completely destroyed”: “it is now impossible to imagine a complete description of the Russian cookery and should be content only with what can still be collected from what remains in memory, for the history of the Russian cookery has never been devoted to description "
However, thanks to numerous studies of European chefs, who were “registered” according to fashion to rich houses, it was possible to piece together the history of the original Russian cuisine and even bring back some old traditions that have survived to this day.
Where is the cabbage soup, look for us here
Contrary to general opinion, our national soup is not borscht at all, but cabbage soup. Cabbage soup is the head of the whole meal, they said in the old days. At first it was a stew, most often made from fish or on bread, seasoned with cabbage and herbs.
Real cabbage soup has two main components: 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 houses, soup could only consist of this. But classic cabbage soup added meat (mushrooms or fish), roots (carrots, parsley), and spicy seasoning (onions, garlic, celery).
First, boil the broth with roots and onions, then add vegetables and sour dressing. By the way, the sauerkraut was cooked separately from the meat broth and only then added. Spices should be added at the end of cooking.
In some areas, the cabbage soup was seasoned with flour - for greater density. Then they abandoned it, considering that it worsened the aroma and taste of the soup. And they began to put potatoes in the dish.
After cooking, the cabbage soup must “float” under the lid. Sometimes they were placed in a warm oven for several hours, or even a whole day. Hence the name cabbage soup - daily allowance.
One brush - fish soup pot
Ukha is not a “duty” of fishermen’s wives, but another traditional Russian soup. After all, cabbage soup was first prepared in fish broth. There are apparently no recipes for this soup. We suggest trying “royal fish soup” made from sturgeon.
Real fish soup is prepared in a cast iron bowl. Better, of course, in the oven and on birch wood. Well, of course, it would also be nice to have recently caught sturgeon, but here it depends on your luck.
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 new can I tell you about pancakes? This dish appeared in our country back in the 9th century. And it has become so popular that there are now more than a hundred varieties of it. However, in Rus', pancakes were most often prepared with buckwheat flour. For example, here is a popular old recipe from Kulikovo Field - buckwheat. The recipe is not from warriors, of course, but from residents of nearby villages.
Prepare 4 cups of buckwheat flour, 20 grams of yeast, 4.5 cups of milk, salt to taste. We dilute the 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, add two glasses of flour, constantly stirring the dough. Place 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 was ready again, the pancakes were baked in a cast iron frying pan with hemp oil.
Drink kvass, dispel the melancholy
Kvass was one of the main drinks of the Russian table. After all, tea, when it appeared, was initially too expensive for the common man. 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. Mix rye flour (2-3 tablespoons) and water until thick sour cream, add two tablespoons (per half-liter jar) of honey and a few raisins for quick fermentation. Add warm water to the rye starter and leave it in a warm place for a couple of days. Then the starter 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, drain the liquid and get “young kvass”. Honey is added to it to taste, and it is sent to a cold cellar for a couple of days.
And the remaining grounds after draining the young kvass are diluted again with water, we add flour and honey and we already get mature kvass. Each time the starter becomes more vigorous, and the kvass cooks faster.
Sbiten-sbitenek drinks dandy
Mentions of this drink can be found in chronicles of the 12th century. Sbiten is a drink made from water, honey and spices. Again, until the tea table became commonplace in our country, sbiten was one of the most popular drinks. It's a pity he's almost forgotten. Let's try to cook "Moscow sbiten" - it's not that 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 clove buds, 5 tablespoons of dry mint, 3 star anise, 10 black peppercorns, 7 pieces of cardamom.
You need to dissolve molasses and honey in boiling water. Boil for 15 minutes, add spices and boil for another ten minutes. We filter. Ready!
Eat the prison, Yasha!
A very simple Lenten dish. Essentially, tyurya is salted cold water with pieces of bread and chopped onions. Finely chopped vegetables and roots (turnips, for example), herbs and herbs, and yogurt were added to it. Let us remember that it was prison that Tolstoy’s hero Konstantin Levin ate with pleasure in the middle of the summer mowing. We also hope that summer will soon return to normal, and in the midst of your dacha worries 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, quickly bring to a boil, immediately remove from heat and cool to room temperature. Add remaining ingredients before serving.
Viburnum berry beckoned us
Pies are still one of the favorite Russian dishes. But you probably haven’t heard about Kalinnik yet. And in the old days, this was a very common recipe.
There was a special attitude towards viburnum in general. This is a symbol of girlish tenderness; the viburnum bush attracts wealth to the house. Bunches of these berries were used to decorate wedding loaves and towels.
For viburnum you will need rye flour, viburnum, yeast, sugar and salt.
300 grams of berries are dried and ground into powder. Brew with 200 grams of boiling water to make a puree. Rye flour is added to it, kneading the dough (about 500 grams of flour). Form a flat cake and bake. Traditionally, the pie should be unleavened. But you can add a little sugar.
You can’t feed a Russian man without porridge
It is not clear why, but we have degraded porridge to “tasteless and healthy” food. In fact, we just don’t know how to cook it! But without her, my dear, the festive table in the old days could not be complete. Even a peace treaty could not come into force until the opponents had eaten the porridge.
There were a variety of porridges - buckwheat, millet, spelled (wheat), oats... Barley porridge was the favorite of Peter I. It is also mentioned several dozen times in the Bible.
It was cooked in a clay pot in the oven. For a liter of milk you need two glasses of barley and salt. Bring the milk to a boil, add salt, add the cereal and cook until it thickens. And then we send it to simmer in the oven. Read “into the oven.” And do it.
Turnips are meat, cut and eat
Until the 18th century, turnips were the main ingredient in Russian cuisine. They didn’t even know about any potatoes back then. Turnips were boiled, steamed, baked, and added to soups and pies.
In modern terms, steaming turnips is the same as steaming them. The root vegetable needs to be peeled, cut into slices, put in a pot, pour in a little water and put in the oven to simmer at medium temperature (about 120 degrees) for 2 hours.
Steamed turnips were eaten with butter and salt. Or with honey.
Nice words, but not all gingerbread
Gingerbread was known in Rus' even before the adoption of Christianity. There is no such variety of recipes for this dessert in any other country.
We got hold of an old recipe for real Tula gingerbread. However, it does not have exact proportions. So you have to do it by eye.
Add liquid honey and eggs to soft butter and beat well. Knead the dough, adding flour, water and soda.
For the filling, apples and sugar are boiled. It should turn out to be a thick jam.
Roll out two layers of dough. The chilled filling is placed between them. The gingerbread goes into the oven to bake.
Finally, you can add a glaze of beaten egg white and sugar.
Old Russian cuisine
Dating back 500 years of development, Old Russian cuisine is characterized by extreme constancy in the composition of dishes and their taste range based on strict (scholastic) canons of cooking. The cuisine of this period was recorded in the first half of the 16th century, at the time of its culminating development, in a written monument of 1547 (“Domostroy”) by the advisor to Tsar Ivan IV the Terrible, Sylvester, who compiled a list of contemporary dishes, culinary products and drinks. The refectory books of the largest Russian monasteries, preserved from the end of the 16th century, complement our information about the repertoire of ancient Russian cuisine.
It was based on bread, flour products and grain dishes. Already in the 9th century, that sour rye black bread with leavened dough appeared, which became the national Russian bread and the love for which the overwhelming majority of the people had a decisive influence on the position of the Russian church hierarchy in disputes about the Eucharist at the Ecumenical Councils in the middle of the 11th century (where the Russians the bishops rejected unleavened bread!) and the subsequent economic and political orientation of Rus' towards Byzantium, and not towards the Latin West.
All ancient flour products were created exclusively on the basis of sour rye dough, under the influence of fungal cultures. This is how flour jelly was created - rye, oat, pea, as well as pancakes and rye pies. Russian methods of sourdough, the use of dough from imported (and then local) wheat flour and its combination with rye later, in the 14th-15th centuries, new varieties of Russian national bread products: pancakes, shangi, pyshki (fried in oil), bagels, bagels (made from choux pastry), as well as kalachi - the main national Russian white baked bread.
Particularly developed were pies, i.e. products in a dough shell, with a wide variety of fillings - from fish, meat, poultry and game, mushrooms, cottage cheese, vegetables, berries, fruits, from various grains in combination with fish, meat and mushrooms .
The grain itself served as the basis for creating dishes from it - porridge. Porridges - spelled, buckwheat, rye, the so-called “green” (from young, unripe rye), barley (barley) - were made in three types depending on the ratio of grain and water: steep, slurry and gruel (semi-liquid). They were prepared with the addition of the same various products that were used in pies fillings. In the 10th-14th centuries, porridge acquired the significance of a mass ritual dish, which began and ended any major event marked by the participation of significant masses of people, be it a princely wedding, the beginning or completion of the construction of a church, fortress, or other socially significant event.
The habit of combining a predominantly flour base with meat, fish and vegetable products in a single culinary product or dish was the reason that at the end of the period of Old Russian cuisine (in the 16th and early 17th centuries), it organically included such “oriental” dishes as noodles (dairy , meat, chicken, mushroom) and dumplings, borrowed respectively from the Tatars (Turks) and Permians (Kama Finno-Ugric), but which became Russian dishes both in the eyes of foreigners and the Russian people themselves, and even gave rise to a purely Russian variety - kundyumy (fried dumplings with mushrooms).
During the medieval period, the majority of Russian national drinks also emerged: honey (around 880-890), prepared using a method close to the production of grape wines, and yielding a product close to cognac (aging from 5 to 35 years); drunken birch tree (921 year) - a product of fermentation of birch sap; hop honey (920-930) - with hops added to honey, in addition to berry juices; boiled honey - a product similar in technology to beer (996); kvass, strong drink (XI century); beer (circa 1284).
In the 40-70s of the 15th century. (no earlier than 1448 and no later than 1474) Russian vodka appeared in Russia. The early national technological differences in its production affected the higher quality of Russian vodka compared to the later vodka - Polish and Cherkassy (Ukrainian) vodka. Russian (Moscow) vodka was produced from rye grain by “sitting” rather than distillation, that is, through pipeless slow evaporation and condensation within the same container.
The spread of vodka began only from the end of the 15th - beginning of the 16th centuries, when it became the subject of a state monopoly; From Russia, vodka spread to Sweden at the beginning of the 16th century (1505). In 1533 in Moscow, on Balchug opposite the Kremlin, the first public “restaurant” opened - the Tsar’s tavern. At the end of the 15th century. (in the 70-80s) the first professional chefs appeared - not only for the tsar, but also for princes and boyars. Separately from cooks, the profession of bakers is established, and there are three categories: Greeks - for stretched and unleavened dough, Russians - for rye and sour dough, Tatars - for wheat pastry.
Already in the early Middle Ages, a clear, or rather sharp, division of the Russian table into lean (vegetable-fish-mushroom) and fast (milk-egg-meat) developed, which had a huge impact on the entire further development of Russian cuisine until the end of the 19th century . This influence was not all positive and fruitful. Drawing a sharp line between the fast and fast table, fencing them off from each other with a “Chinese wall”, isolating some products from others, strictly preventing their mixing or combination - all this only partially led to the creation of some original dishes, but on the whole could not but cause the well-known monotony of the menu.
The Lenten table was the most fortunate from this artificial isolation. The fact that most days of the year - from 192 to 216 in different years - were considered fast, and fasts were observed very strictly, contributed to the natural expansion of the Lenten table. Hence the abundance of mushroom and fish dishes in Russian cuisine, all possible use of various plant materials - grains, vegetables, wild berries and herbs (nettle, snot, quinoa, etc.).
At first, attempts to diversify the Lenten table were expressed in the fact that each type of vegetable, mushroom or fish was prepared separately, independently. Cabbage, turnips, radishes, peas, cucumbers - vegetables known since the 9th century - if they were not eaten raw, then they were salted, steamed, boiled or baked, and separately from one another. Therefore, dishes such as salads have never been typical of Russian cuisine; they appeared in Russia already in the 19th century. as one of the borrowings from the West. But even then, they were initially made mainly with one vegetable, which is why they were called “cucumber salad”, “beet salad”, “potato salad”, etc. Mushroom and fish dishes were subject to even greater division. Each type of mushroom - milk mushrooms, mushrooms, honey mushrooms, white mushrooms, morels, boletus, russula, champignons, etc. - was salted or cooked completely separately from the others, which, by the way, is still practiced today. The situation was exactly the same with fish, which was consumed only boiled, dried, salted, baked, and only later, in the 19th century, fried. Each fish dish was prepared in a special way for a particular fish.
Therefore, fish soup was made from each fish separately and was called accordingly - perch, ruff, burbot (mnevo), sterlet, etc., and not just fish soup, like other peoples. Thus, the number of dishes in the 15th century was huge in name, but in content they differed little from one another. The taste diversity of homogeneous dishes was achieved, on the one hand, by differences in heat treatment, on the other hand, by the use of various oils, mainly vegetable (hemp, nut, poppy, wood, i.e. olive, and much later - sunflower), as well as the use of spices . Of the latter, onions and garlic were most often used, and in very large quantities, parsley, anise, coriander, bay leaves, black pepper and cloves, which appeared in Rus' already in the 10th-11th centuries, and in the 15th - early 16th centuries this set was supplemented ginger, cinnamon, cardamom, calamus and saffron.
Finally, during the medieval period of the development of Russian cuisine, a tendency to consume liquid hot dishes, which received the common name “khlebova,” was also revealed. The most widespread types of bread are those based on vegetable raw materials, as well as various types of flour soups.
As for milk and meat, these products were consumed relatively rarely until the 17th century, and their processing was not difficult. Meat (usually beef, less often pork and lamb) was cooked in cabbage soup or gruel and was almost never fried until the 16th century. A strict ban was imposed on the consumption of many types of meat - especially hare and veal. It remains a historical fact that in 1606 the boyars managed to incite a crowd against False Dmitry I, prompting them to break into the Kremlin only with the message that the tsar was not real, because he eats veal. This was the most convincing argument. They drank milk raw, stewed or sour; Cottage cheese and sour cream were made from sour milk, and the production of cream and butter remained almost unknown until the 19th century.
Honey and berries in ancient Russian cuisine were not only sweets in themselves, but also the basis on which syrups and preserves were created. And being mixed with flour and butter, with flour and eggs, honey and berries became the basis of the Russian national sweet product - gingerbread. Therefore, until the 14th century, gingerbreads were only made with honey or honey-berries, most often honey-raspberry or honey-strawberry. In the 14th-15th centuries, another Russian national sweet product appeared - levishniki, prepared from carefully mashed lingonberries, blueberries, cherries or strawberries, dried in a thin layer in the sun. Until the 20th century, the national Russian delicacy included nuts, first hazelnuts and walnuts (Volosh), and later, from the 17th century, pine nuts, and sunflower seeds.
. V.V. Pokhlebkin. 2005.
See what “Old Russian cuisine” is in other dictionaries:
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