Scraps from the royal table is perhaps a good phrase to briefly describe the history of many favorite and popular dishes. Pizza, paella, the famous French onion soup, spicy paprikash and sophisticated fondue - all these dishes were once the preserve of only the poor.
Could a poor fisherman have thought that someday, just a few centuries later, his food would be considered a delicacy? Probably not. Rather, he would even rejoice at the opportunity to share a meal with millions of travelers from the future. So what could he offer them?
1. French onion soup
Onion soup is a tasty, satisfying, very aromatic dish. For several centuries, soup was an integral part of the meal of the poor. Just 1 plate instantly sobers you up after a long stormy evening and gives you strength for a new working day. This property of onion soup was often used by porters and traders in Parisian markets, who began work after dark.
No matter how trivial it may sound, the history of onion soup begins with onions. This vegetable was the main ingredient in the soup that was fed to Roman soldiers. The low cost and excellent bactericidal properties of this vegetable made it indispensable for the great army. In addition, it was then believed that raw onions caused headaches, and stew was the main way to consume onions.
Onion soup began its ascent to the royal table only in the 18th century. According to legend, the inventor of the modern version of onion soup was Louis XV. Finding himself on a hunt without dinner, he either prepared soup from onions, butter and champagne himself, or ordered the cook to do it. The recipe was extremely simple: fry a lot of onions in oil, pour in champagne, bring to a boil - and eat (or drink). Be that as it may, many French are sure that this is the best thing that Louis XV did during his reign.
In the modern sense, French onion soup is a fairly thick puree soup made with beef broth, with croutons or croutons, baked in a pot under a cheese crust, sometimes with white wine, cognac or sherry. There is a light version of onion soup - with chicken broth, and a vegetarian version - with vegetable broth or even water.
2. Bigos
The main and mandatory components of bigos are cabbage and any meat. Often, to add piquancy to a dish, dried fruits and all kinds of spices are added to it - for example, cumin, black pepper, bay. When did such a simple dish become a favorite among tourists? Legend has it that the birthplace of bigos is Lithuania, and from there King Vladislav imported it to Poland.
It is known that soldiers, monks, and peasants saved themselves in harsh winters by eating hearty bigos - although it takes a long time to prepare, it is relatively simple. And all sorts of variations with the addition of various ingredients can transform bigos from an everyday dish into an original highlight of the holiday table.
There are many recipes for making bigos. As a rule, fresh white or sauerkraut, pork with a lot of lard or game, smoked sausage are used for cooking. Often the dish includes mushrooms and tomatoes. Initially, all ingredients are prepared separately: cabbage is stewed; meat, sausage and mushrooms are fried, and then everything is mixed and simmered together, adding spices, tomatoes, and herbs.
The finished dish has a thick consistency, it is slightly sour and has a characteristic smoked aroma. Of course, the taste also varies depending on what spices are added. Bigos is eaten with bread. The dish can serve as an excellent snack for vodka.
3. Gazpacho
Perhaps one of the most popular Spanish dishes outside of this wonderful country is gazpacho. This cold soup is prepared in restaurants all over the world, but few people know that gazpacho was once a traditional food for mule drivers.
According to one legend, the birthplace of gazpacho is the southern Spanish province of Andalusia. Going on a long journey, mule drivers took food with them and prepared soup from it at the halt. Peppers and cucumbers were placed in layers in an ordinary clay pot, the walls of which were greased with garlic, oil and salt, and each layer was sprinkled with bread crumbs. At the very end, a layer of breadcrumbs was poured in, and the entire contents of the pot were poured with olive oil. The filled pots were wrapped in wet clothes and exposed to the hot rays of the sun. The soup was considered ready only when the clothes wrapped around the pots were completely dry.
In the old days, only white gazpacho was prepared in Spain, which in appearance and in taste is very different from the usual cold tomato soup. Spanish cooks began to use tomatoes only after the discovery of America. If earlier, before the advent of tomatoes, gazpacho was considered a dish that was eaten only by poor people, then after the addition of tomatoes it began to be served on the table of high-ranking persons.
4. Bouillabaisse
This soup is a real stubborn man, he managed to rise from the very bottom to the most luxurious tables and restaurants in the world. But several centuries ago it was still an ordinary, but very nourishing and rich soup of Marseille fishermen. At the same time, they cooked it from the remains of their own catch. From small fish, adding tomatoes and garlic, a broth was prepared, in which pieces of larger fish were boiled. The result was a kind of stew, which was eaten with coarse black bread for breakfast, lunch and dinner.
The situation changed radically when saffron was added to the soup - this spice turned bouillabaisse into an extraordinary soup with a bright aroma. But still, traditional bouillabaisse, like most folk dishes, is not very attractive. However, it was created to satiate, not seduce. Therefore, chefs all over the world do not strive to repeat the original recipe, but prefer to be inspired by the history of the dish and create their own version.
The incredible popularity of Marseille fish soup has given rise to many variations, sometimes so inconsistent with the original that the Marseille Bouillabaisse Association had to be created. According to its regulations, this classic soup can only be prepared by a certified restaurant and only from certain 20 types of fish and seafood caught in Marseille waters. Another prerequisite is a giant cast-iron vat, in which the sea fines will simmer for about 2 hours to practically dissolve in the broth.
5. Fondue
When going to the pastures, the shepherds took with them bread, cheese and wine among their food supplies. From the dishes they always had a clay pot, in which the remains of hardened cheese along with wine were melted over the fire. The Swiss dipped pieces of bread into this warm, tasty and satisfying mass. Soon this peasant dish moved to rich houses. Of course, for high society it was prepared from the best varieties of cheese and wine, accompanied by a rich assortment of the freshest bread.
As for the name, the French came to the aid of the Swiss brothers. The name “fondue” comes from the French word fondre, which means “to melt.”
Traditional Swiss fondue usually consists of a combination of 2 cheeses - Gruyère and Emmental, which are drowned in dry white wine, sometimes with the addition of kirsch - cherry vodka. This is the most basic recipe, as each canton in Switzerland has its own "traditional" fondue recipe. For example, in Geneva it is prepared from 3 cheeses: Gruyère, Emmental and Walliser-Bergkasse. In Eastern Switzerland, a combination of Appenzeller and Vacherin with dry cider is preferred.
In Burgundy fondue, a piece of meat skewered on a special fork must be kept in hot oil until cooked, and then transferred to a serving plate and eaten using a regular fork.
In Italian cuisine there are 2 similar dishes - fonduta and bagna cauda. Fonduta is made from fontina cheese and egg yolks, while bagna cauda is a hot sauce made from butter, olive oil, garlic and anchovies, in which pieces of vegetables are dipped. Something similar to fondue also exists in Holland, the dish is called kaasdup.
One of the most famous dishes of Hungarian cuisine is the delicious, satisfying and extremely appetizing paprikash, which was served in Hungarian families for lunch or dinner. In fact, real paprikash is a gravy made from the smallest and cheapest parts of chicken - wings, necks, navels, liver, hearts. This chicken set was stewed in kefir or sour cream with the addition of paprika - a Hungarian folk seasoning (hence, by the way, the name of the dish). The dish was a real godsend for the poor, and therefore adorned the tables of poor families all week. But, as often happens with tasty and satisfying dishes, paprikash soon appeared in rich kitchens and tables. Only now it was prepared from the best parts of the chicken - breast and white meat.Now paprikash has become not just a dish, but rather a way of preparing chicken and veal. Lamb, goose, beef, duck, pork and other dark, fatty or tough meat are completely unsuitable for making paprikash. However, if a Hungarian housewife would not even think of using pork or beef for cooking, then in other countries of the world this is quite possible - this is exactly how the Hungarian recipe was adapted in national cuisines.
Paprikash is sometimes mistakenly called soup, but in fact it is meat fried and then stewed with sour cream or cream and spices.
7. Grappa
Grappa is one of the most popular alcoholic drinks, ranking alongside elite whiskey, rum or even French cognac. However, grappa used to be not even the drink of the Italian poor, because they could afford inexpensive wine. Grappa was the lot of real alcoholics. All the more interesting is the story of the rise of this Italian alcoholic drink to the top.For the first time, winemakers began producing grappa in the town of Bassano del Grappa, located very close to Mount Grappa. However, the exact place where grappa appeared is still unknown, and for many years there have been disputes about this issue between the residents of Friuli, Piedmont and Veneto. At first, grappa was made for the purpose of recycling grape waste left after making wine. Around the end of the 18th century, when Napoleon’s troops entered the territory of northern Italy, local residents had to carefully hide their reserves of grappa from the French, since the demand for this particular drink from the invader was very high.
It is unlikely that the French, spoiled by elite cognac, would drink ordinary grappa if it were not of surprisingly good quality. From low-grade moonshine, grappa has turned into a drink that has repeatedly aroused admiration among visitors to various tastings and international exhibitions.
Today, Italian grappa is bottled in beautiful glass decanters and sold in the most elite bars and restaurants in the world. Grappa occupies almost the first place in the market economy of Italy. Grappa is sold in almost all countries of the world, where it is quite popular.
8. Solyanka
Solyanka is a symbol soup, a soup-history of Russian cuisine. Tourists all over the world order Solyanka when they want to taste the Russian spirit. The name of this soup was first mentioned in Russian literature of the 15th century, and since the 18th century the dish has become widespread. In those days, solyanka had 2 names - “hodgepodge” and “hangover”.9. PizzaThe history of pizza goes back thousands of years and is almost as ancient as the entire history of mankind.For centuries, pizza has traditionally been considered the food of the poor. Commoners liked the dish due to its cheapness and satiety. The arrogant nobility contemptuously rejected pizza, although it is known that Maria Carolina, the wife of the Neapolitan king Ferdinand IV, loved it very much.The disdain for pizza persisted until the Italian ruler Umberto I and his wife Margherita tried the food of the common people. The talented pizza maker Esposito prepared 3 pizzas with different flavors for the royal couple. Accidentally or intentionally, for the filling of one of the options, products were selected whose color resembled the Italian tricolor: red tomatoes, white mozzarella and basil. It was this pizza that the royal couple really liked and got its name in honor of the queen.
There are several legends about the origin of paella. One of them says that paella appeared thanks to the servants of the Moorish kings. They collected the remains of their masters' feasts, mixed them with rice, and took them home. Until now, in Arab countries it is believed that the word “paella” comes from the Arabic word meaning “leftovers” or “leftovers”.
According to another story, paella was “invented” by love and poverty. One day, a simple fisherman was waiting for his girlfriend, who promised to come visit him. Time passed too slowly for the lover, and in order to occupy himself with something and have something to treat his beloved, the fisherman began to cook. He collected all the food that was in the house and mixed it with rice. This is how paella came about, from the Spanish para ella, which means “for her.” By the way, according to Spanish tradition, it is men who should prepare this dish.
Yet most historians agree that the word paella comes from the Catalan word for frying pan. That is, it owes its name to a shallow flat vessel with 2 handles on the sides.
You are abroad at a luxurious dinner, skillfully joke, giving the guests a radiant smile. In your hand is a crystal glass with sparkling wine, next to it is black caviar on ice, on a plate lies lobster with wine and honey sauce. You're enjoying a leisurely evening playing with claws for a few tens of dollars. Everyone laughs. You know for sure that you will have the most pleasant memories of the evening. And from the lobster with sauce, which melted so pleasantly in your mouth.
Today, lobster (another name for lobster) on the table is a prestigious attribute of an expensive dinner. But during the first British colonies of New England in the 17th century, there were so many of them that they were collected right on the shore and used as fertilizer for fields or bait for fish, disgustingly called sea cockroaches.
The now expensive lobster was once considered a poor man's food and was fed to slaves, prisoners and servants.
The latter even sued the city of Massachusetts, demanding that they be fed lobsters no more than three times a week. It is not surprising that the bad reputation stuck to crustaceans for a long time.
Only towards the middle of the 19th century did lobsters gradually surface again and begin to be in demand. This happened for three reasons. Firstly, railways were actively developing and finally connected the center with the coast. Secondly, people learned to preserve food: in 1825, a method of canning salmon, oysters and lobsters in tin cans was patented in the USA. And thirdly, domestic tourism began to develop, thanks to which Boston, whose coastal waters were home to a lot of lobsters, became popular among residents of New York and Washington. They happily ate inexpensive boiled lobsters, and then returned to their homes and missed this taste. So gradually, even before World War II, lobster became a coveted product for which people were willing to pay good money.
Continuing the marine theme, one cannot help but remember oysters. Today they are more often displayed on ice in expensive establishments, but in the 17th century they lay in piles on the carts of street vendors. New York's coastal oyster colonies used to be so extensive that it was long believed that they contained up to half of the world's oysters!
It was such a popular snack that Ellis and Liberty Islands (the latter, in fact, is where the famous statue stands) were formerly called the Oyster Islands, Little and Great. And one of the streets in Manhattan still bears the name Pearl Street (pearl translated from English as “pearl”): once upon a time it was all strewn with mollusk shells.
At that time, oysters were constantly collected, sold on the streets and in oyster bars, where they were prepared in all possible ways: fried in butter, added to stews, thrown into deep fat and in a frying pan with wine. Back in the late 19th century, 6 million oysters could be seen every day, tied to barges along the coastline. There were so many of them that even the poorest starving New Yorker could always get some bread and oysters.
It is not surprising that by the beginning of the twentieth century, shellfish colonies were depleted. Trade expanded, the local population grew, and gradually the reservoirs became so polluted that by the 1930s, local oysters could no longer be eaten. These led to rising prices and the formation of a new image of oysters: from now on this is a status product not for everyone. It’s funny that he began his journey into high society with the words of Sam in Charles Dickens’s “Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club”: “Poverty and oysters always seem to go hand in hand.”
Once upon a time, oysters also replaced meat for the French poor. But due to year-round hunting, they also began to end, and then the authorities began to impose restrictions on fishermen. By the way, in the collection of laws of the Russian Empire from 1901 there is a temporary ban on oyster fishing in Gudauta Bay on the Black Sea. Why such a ban was introduced is unknown, but perhaps it was also due to the general depletion of the shellfish population.
Naturally, any product in demand becomes scarce over time. This could lead to an increase in prices and elevate it to the rank of luxury.
This happened with black caviar, foie gras, and sushi. And this will happen many more times with other foods that people are used to eating, but which will one day become difficult to obtain.
Much more interesting are stories related to the rethinking of products or their repositioning.
Off the coast of Chile and Argentina there is a fish that no one calls anything other than “white gold”. This is one of the most premium and coveted delicacies that many restaurants hunt for. The famous Patagonian toothfish. Have you heard about this gray monster with a palisade of teeth sticking out of its crooked mouth with huge pouting lips? Even South American fishermen did not particularly favor it and more often than not simply threw it back because they did not know what to do with this fresh and oily fish.
This was the case until 1977, when American buyer Lee Lantz decided to buy toothfish at the local market and try it at home. Having fried it, he noted to himself the delicate fatty texture, which at the same time did not have any “extra” flavor. “A blank canvas on which to paint a culinary masterpiece,” Mr. Lanz might have exclaimed when he tasted Patagonian toothfish.
Only one thing stuck in his throat like a bone in his throat - the name itself. He understood that you couldn’t swim far with the “toothfish”. It was necessary to come up with a suitable name that would be bought with giblets.
This is how the famous Chilean sea bass was “invented” in distant Latin America. - one of the most beautiful representatives of the aquatic kingdom.
You've probably heard only rave reviews about it. The new name was liked first by the Americans, and then by everyone else. Sales gradually improved, and already in 1994, the US Food and Drug Administration recognized the name Lantz invented as an alternative on the market. The trick was a success, however, it turned out to be dangerous for the population of the species.
This has been done more than once in history. But perhaps the game was played best by Maine lobster fishermen: for a long time they called sea urchin caviar "whore's eggs" until they realized that the Japanese name "uni" could sell much better. It's funny that we did the same thing with sea urchins when we started calling their reproductive glands (gonads) caviar. Agree that it is much easier to sell and eat this way. At least it was - until the previous sentence.
As for rethinking, it was not only fish that was subjected to it, but also meat. For a long time, meat eaters valued only a few parts of an ox carcass: the thick end, the thin end, the rump and the tenderloin, which were supposed to be cut into steaks, fried and served on plates with a knife and fork. From these parts, for example, ribeye and filet mignon were cut - steaks that still have a pleasant high-society flavor to this day. They are incredibly popular all over the world and bring good profits to restaurateurs.
The rest, cheaper pieces, were used for minced meat or cut at random and sold that way. But to some, this situation seemed unfair. Is there really no more muscle in the whole bull that could compete with everyone's favorite premium steaks?
This question was asked in 2000 by Chris Calkins from the University of Nebraska and Dwayne Johnson from the University of Florida. With the help of the National Cattlemen's Association, they challenged the meat grading system. To do this, they tested 5,600 muscles in search of the most aromatic and tender ones. As a result, 39 candidates for the role of new steaks were identified. This is how, for example, the famous blade flat iron and denver appeared.
The new delicacies quickly became popular both among producers (now cheap pieces could not be used for minced meat, but sold more expensively in the form of steaks) and among consumers (new steaks were sold cheaper, but were in no way inferior to premium ones). The Meat Institute estimates that over 10 years, flat irons sold $80 million!
Right before our eyes, a meat revolution took place, in which alternative steaks won.
Today they can be found in shops and restaurants, and there are more and more of them: hanger, bavette, skirt, chuck-ay-roll and Vegas strip. And although these names mean nothing to most of us, they will probably gradually catch on. This is not only beneficial for producers and us, but also fits perfectly into modern trends of conscious consumption.
This story is a good example of how science can intervene in a process, rethink it and change human behavior. In this case, food. Someone might argue that science has nothing to do with it, this is pure marketing, which simply took a hitherto unpopular product and changed its positioning. Marketing is indeed very important, and a prime example of this is the story of snail caviar.
What do you imagine when you see the phrase “pearls of Aphrodite”? Whatever you picture in your head right now, it’s unlikely that grape snails and locksmiths appear in it. However, it was a French mechanic who once decided to try grape snail caviar, which he found in the basement of an old restaurant. Before him, of course, they did this too, but he went further and organized his own snail farm, where, together with his wife, he began collecting these transparent balls “with a taste of autumn and forest.”
Snails spawn only twice a year, literally a teaspoon at a time. Then the breeders sort it, selecting only round, even balls, and soak it in a saline solution. After this, the eggs acquire a beautiful matte white color, hence the name “Aphrodite’s pearls” or “escargot pearls” (escargot is a delicious French snail dish).
In terms of flavor, snail caviar is said to be as similar as possible to black caviar. It is also expensive: 500 grams cost $1,000.
Moreover, each manufacturer says that the process of growing and caring for snails is very labor-intensive. Literally everyone complains that snails need to create special conditions: maintain a certain temperature, humidity, light and feeding regime. It's as if cows or pigs require less care.
By the way, snails are hermaphrodites, which means that any individual can lay eggs. They also take up little space, and you can already make a good business on one square meter. But it is necessary to complain about hard work, otherwise everyone will start growing caviar, and soon the price for it will be no more expensive than chicken eggs. In the meantime, the product is new, appears infrequently in restaurants and is considered a gastronomic delight, we can enjoy it for the price of a whole cow.
Novelty and rarity are the main factors that directly affect the price of a product, and it is they that elevate it and make it prestigious in the eyes of consumers. Sometimes it’s a tribute to fashion, and sometimes it’s a real demand for a rare ingredient.
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Fondue, onion soup and pizza have been the food of the poor for centuries, and today these and some other dishes have become part of European cuisine, for which millions of tourists go on gastronomic or sightseeing tours.
Almost all popular today European dishes were once the lot of poor fishermen, shepherds or peasants.
Onion soup from France
Onion soup has the unique property of sobering up and energizing you for a long working day. That is why traders and cargoes of Parisian markets especially loved this simple dish. The inexpensive main ingredient of the soup, beef broth and bread croutons - that's all that poor French could afford in the 18th century. However, this soup also has another version of its origin: it is believed that King Louis XV, getting hungry while hunting, made a soup from onions and champagne fried in oil.
Spanish cuisine symbol
A traditional Valencian dish that first won the hearts of the Spaniards, and then gourmets around the world. It is believed that the real dish is prepared over a street fire or at home, which is why the Spaniards do not recognize the restaurant version. We owe the appearance of paella to the servants of the Moorish kings, who collected the master's scraps and mixed them with rice. According to another version, paella was invented by a young fisherman who was waiting for his beloved and, in order to treat her, prepared a dish from the products that were found in his house. The second version is also supported by the fact that paella should be prepared exclusively by men.
Polish bigos
Meat and cabbage - the secret to the success of Polish dishes of European cuisine bigos, which was brought by King Vladislav from Lithuania. To add piquancy to the dish, spices, herbs and dried fruits are added to it. Today it is prepared in every family and is very popular with tourists, but several centuries ago such simple and satisfying food was enjoyed by peasants, monks and soldiers. Depending on the region of Poland and family traditions, the recipe for the stew differs, but it always includes smoked sausage, lard or game, pork, sauerkraut and white cabbage.
French soup
A simple hearty dish of Marseilles fishermen, which was prepared from the remains of the catch. Everything went into the pan: small fish, ridges, the remains of large fish, garlic and tomatoes. White fish was boiled in the resulting broth and then eaten with bouillabaisse with black bread, enjoying its rich taste. This dish was introduced to luxury restaurants in combination with saffron, turning a simple fisherman's stew into an extraordinary soup with an amazing aroma.
Food of Spanish muleteers
Cold tomato soup, which has long gone beyond the boundaries of its native Spanish cuisine. However, its history goes back to the province of Andalusia even before the appearance of tomatoes in Europe. Then the drovers used peppers, cucumbers, crackers and olive oil. They rubbed the walls of clay pots with garlic, then layered vegetables, sprinkled them with bread crumbs and poured oil over everything. The pots were exposed to the sun, wrapped in wet clothes, and the soup was considered ready when the clothes were dry. Today gazpacho is a fairly popular dish in European cuisine.
Appetizing meat in Hungarian style
Paprikash- a hearty and tasty stew that ordinary Hungarians ate for dinner or lunch for a long time. This stew of meat and vegetables is made from inexpensive parts of chicken - liver, neck, wings, navels and hearts - which have been simmered in sour cream or kefir along with the Hungarians' favorite seasoning, paprika. Modern restaurant paprikash is prepared from white meat and breast, sometimes veal is added to it.
The invention of the Swiss shepherds
Back in the 14th century, Swiss shepherds invented a dish that the whole world today calls fondue. Taking cheese, wine and bread to the pasture, they melted hard or spoiled cheese in wine and dipped it in bread. Initially a peasant dish, it quickly migrated to the tables of wealthy gentlemen, who replaced inexpensive cheeses with the best ones, and stale bread with crispy fresh ones. Modern Swiss cuisine requires the use of two types of cheese - Emmental and Gruyere, believing that only they can highlight the taste of wine, creating an extraordinary bouquet.
While traveling, you can discover the gastronomic map of the world. The cuisine of each country is unique, therefore, when ordering beach, health or sightseeing tours to Thailand, China, Egypt or Israel in the corresponding section of Onlinetours otdyh.onlinetours.ru/israel, it is worth paying special attention to traditional dishes for the chosen region.
If we talk about European cuisine, then this is the very case when servile reverence for everything Western played a cruel joke on us. I remember from childhood how carefully my mother chose products in the store and what she cooked with them. Even despite the notorious shortage, the entire necessary set was always available. I remember my mother’s rich borscht and aromatic fish soup. In the summer - grandma's boletus mushroom with the thickest sour cream. Entrecotes, beef meatballs and oven-baked chicken with potatoes. Of course, caviar and raw smoked sausage were eaten exclusively on holidays, but only now I understand that there was no need for this - everyday parental food was natural, healthy and wholesome.
And then the nineties struck. A caste of nouveau riche appeared, who did not know what to spend on the easy money that had suddenly fallen on them. Gatherings in restaurants became one of the hallmarks of that time. And, of course, I wanted to find something “like that” on the menu. Importers and restaurateurs hastened to satisfy these needs. I directly remember how, in one of the establishments on Nevsky, a helpful waiter tried to sell me frog legs. Then I became disdainful and didn’t eat, and for good reason. For the poorest French, driven to despair, ate frogs after the famous 100-year war with Britain. There was a terrible famine and we had to eat these amphibians. The story is roughly the same with snails - they originally served as food for Italian peasants. And then the same story usually follows about all these pseudo-delicacies: when the corrupted nobility no longer knew what to order for her next feast, a cunning cook served a peasant dish and the nobleman unexpectedly liked it, who began to treat all his friends to it... well and so on. It’s the same with pizza, which has always been food for the poor - all the leftover food was piled onto the flatbread. Margarita, the wife of the ruler of that time, “saw” in this dish a delicacy. The Spaniards also mocked the kitchen, don’t worry, mom. The subject of enthusiastic tongue clicking in restaurants, the famous paella is also a beggarly dish. The rice was mixed with whatever was left over from the previous meal, or was easily caught in the environment. And these include mussels and oysters, which served as a substitute for meat for the Mediterranean poor. Gazpacho is also a Spanish invention. The shepherds quenched their hunger with this simple dish - green peppers and cucumbers were placed in layers on top of each other in a pot, all this was sprinkled with bread crumbs and flavored with oil, pepper and garlic for taste. I just googled it, and the average serving of this miserable stew in Moscow restaurants is 391 rubles.
And finally, a few words about pork. Indeed, in the USSR this meat was not consumed as widely as it is now. If you pay attention to the assortment of the same American fast food, it will also contain beef and chicken. For pork is meat for the poor. It came to us from tight-fisted Germany and Poland and Ukraine. A pig grows much faster than a cow and eats anything, including its own excrement and its own cubs. In addition, these animals have an extremely strong immune system (they can eat anything without getting caught) and it is often not clear from their appearance that the pig is seriously ill with something. And now all this splendor comes to our table. I highly recommend not to use it! However, like snails and frogs. Leave them to the European beggars, don't waste your money on these "delicacies".
But if you think about it, many national dishes of European countries in the past were food for poor people and the poor.
Italian pizza
There are versions that the predecessor of pizza was focaccio - the bread of the Italian poor. Flat, with easy to prepare dough. It was sprinkled with various herbs and everything that was in the house - onions and garlic, olives, cheese, seafood. In the 17th century, special people appeared in Italy, “pizzaiolo,” who prepared pizza for Italian peasants. They also threw whatever was at hand onto a cheap flatbread. But not all beggars could afford such a dish, so they borrowed pizza and paid for it throughout the week.
Spanish paella
National Spanish (Valencian) dish of rice, tinted with saffron, with the addition of olive oil. In addition, seafood, vegetables, chicken, sausage, etc. can be added to paella. There is a popular hypothesis that the word paella comes from the Arabic word “baqiyah” - leftovers, because among Arab sailors it was customary to combine the remains of a previous meal, which , according to the hypothesis, led to the creation of paella.
We ate this, by no means cheap, Spanish “plover” in Madrid:
Back then, sea reptiles were the lot of the poor, who could not afford real meat. Nowadays, big-eyed and slimy creatures have become expensive delicacies :)
By the way, who knows what kind of mini-crayfish with long claws these are?
French frog legs
An exquisite French delicacy, also popular in Southeast Asia. Frog legs are one of the most famous French delicacies. Alexandre Dumas was the first to mention frog legs as a culinary ingredient in his Culinary Dictionary. But they appeared in the French diet much earlier. As the story goes, during the Hundred Years' War with England (which lasted from 1337 to 1453), there was famine in France; people did not know what to eat. And in order not to die of hunger, the inhabitants of the country began to look for any food, even what was considered impossible just yesterday. This is how the famous frog legs, snails and onion soup appeared in French cuisine.
Swiss fondue
A national Swiss dish prepared from cheese and wine in a special heat-resistant container over an open fire. Fondue is usually made from a mixture of Swiss Gruyère and Friborg Vacherin cheeses. Fondue is usually seasoned with garlic, nutmeg, kirsch mixed with strong alcohol. Pieces of bread, potatoes or other products (gherkins, olives, etc.) placed on special long forks are dipped into the resulting mass.
It is believed that fondue was invented by Swiss shepherds back in the 14th century. They melted cheese and wine to keep them warm in the winter cold. According to another version, zealous Swiss housewives simply collected half-eaten pieces of cheese into a common cauldron and then melted them. Actually, the history of the appearance of the now glamorous blue cheese is a bit reminiscent of the history of fondue. They say that one French shepherd forgot his cheese and bread in a limestone cave, and when he returned there a month later, he found them covered with a bluish moldy coating. Apparently, the hunger was too strong to allow them to throw away even a spoiled product. The cheese with bluish streaks of mold was eaten, but the shepherd was very pleased with its taste, salty and spicy.
Norwegian herring
Herring has long been the staple food of the Norwegian population, with the poor eating it four times a day for every meal.
And in general, if you read the history of national cuisines, then almost everywhere it has its roots in peasant houses. Well, gourmet dishes don’t take root among people :)
What else can you add? If you know something, write in the comments and then I’ll add it to the post.
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