In Russian folk cuisine, there are three main types of meat main courses:

Boiled meat in a large piece, cooked in soups and gruel, and then used as a main course or as an appetizer cold;

Dishes of offal (liver, omentum, abomasum), baked together with cereals in pots;

Dishes from a whole animal (poultry) or from part of it (legs), or from a large piece of meat (rump, rump), fried in an oven on a baking sheet, the so-called roast.

Various cutlets, meatballs, meatballs, dumplings made from ground meat, borrowed and spread only in the 19th-20th centuries, are not typical for classical Russian cuisine and therefore are not presented here.

In the past, cereals and gruels were usually used as side dishes for meat dishes on the Russian table, in which the meat was cooked, then either boiled, or rather steamed and baked, root vegetables (turnip, carrots), as well as mushrooms; to the roast, regardless of the meat used, in addition, pickles were also served - sauerkraut, pickled and sour apples, soaked lingonberries, and boils.

In modern conditions, baked vegetables for Russian meat dishes are conveniently cooked in aluminum food foil. The role of the gravy is usually played by the juice formed during frying, as well as melted sour cream and ghee, which are poured over boiled vegetables or flavored with cereals, that is, a side dish. Sauces for meat dishes, that is, gravies with flour, butter, eggs and milk, are not typical of native Russian cuisine.

JELLY

:
1 head (veal or pork), 4 legs (veal or pork), 1 carrot, 1 parsley (root), 10 black peppercorns, 5 Jamaican (allspice) peppercorns, 5 bay leaves, 1-2 onions, 1 head of garlic , for 1 kg of meat - 1 liter of water.

Singe the legs and head, clean, chop into equal pieces, add water and cook for 6 to 8 hours over very low heat, without boiling, so that the volume of water is halved. 1-1.5 hours before the end of cooking, add onions, carrots, parsley, 20 minutes - pepper, bay leaf; salt a little.
Then remove the meat, separate from the bones, cut into small pieces, transfer to a separate bowl, mix with finely chopped garlic and a small amount of ground black pepper.
Boil the broth with the remaining bones for another half hour or an hour (so that its volume does not exceed 1 liter), add salt, strain and pour the boiled prepared meat with it.
Chill for 3-4 hours.
Gelatin is not used because young meat (veal, pig, pork) contains a sufficient amount of sticky substances.
Serve the jelly with horseradish, mustard, crushed garlic and sour cream.

BOILED BEEF

Boiled beef in a large piece (1.5-2 kg) is boiled in gruel (Tikhvin, Kostroma) and less often in bone broth (bone broth is prepared in advance and then the meat is immersed in the boiling broth).
For boiled beef, the shoulder and under-thigh parts are mainly used, as well as the edging, thin edge.
The usual cooking time is 2.5 hours over moderate heat.

NANNY

:
1 lamb head, 4 lamb legs, 1 mutton abomasum, 2 glasses of buckwheat, 4 onions, 100 g of butter or sunflower oil.

1. Boil the lamb's head and legs so that the meat itself falls away from the bones. Separate the meat. Remove the brain from the head.
2. Cook steep buckwheat porridge.
3. Finely chop the lamb meat together with the onion, mix with porridge and butter.
4. Thoroughly scrape the mutton abomasum, wash, stuff with prepared minced meat (point 3), put brains in the middle of it, sew up the rennet and place in an earthenware dish (in a pot - a wide clay pot), which is tightly closed.
Put the blame in a slightly heated oven for 2-3 hours.

STUFFING BOX

:
1 lamb omentum, 1 kg of lamb liver, 1.5-2 cups of buckwheat, 3 eggs, 3 onions, 5-6 dry porcini mushrooms, 1 cup of sour cream.

Soak the liver for 2 hours in water or milk, boil, chop finely, mix with steep buckwheat porridge cooked with onions and crushed dry mushrooms and knead in sour cream into a thick mass.
Fill the gland with it, which was previously laid in a korchaga (wide clay pot) so that the edges of the gland tightly overlap this mass from above.
Close the pot.
Bake the stuffing box in the oven for 1-1.5 hours over moderate heat.

REPRESENTATION

:
1.5 kg of lamb liver, 1 lamb omentum, 4 eggs, 1-1.5 cups of milk, 1 head of garlic, 2 onions, 10 black peppercorns.

1. Rinse the raw liver, remove the films, scald with boiling water, chop finely, and then pound with finely chopped onion, garlic and pepper.
2. Beat two full eggs and two yolks, mix with milk.
3. Combine the products specified in points 1 and 2, pour into a mutton gland placed in a clay pot, close the edges of the gland on top, grease with whipped whites and bake in an oven or oven for 2-3 hours over low heat.

Roasted piglet

:
1 suckling pig (1.5 kg), 500 g of buckwheat, 50 g of butter, 2 tbsp. tablespoons of sunflower or olive oil.

Piglet preparation.
Wash a well-fed pig with cold water, hold in it for 3-4 minutes, then put it in boiling water for 2-3 minutes, pluck out the bristles carefully without damaging the skin, rub it with flour, singe it, then rip it open, gut it, wash it inside and out, after which it is desirable from the inside, cut out all the bones (ribs, ridge), with the exception of the head and legs, in no case cutting through the meat and skin.
Preparation of minced meat.
Prepare steep buckwheat porridge, but do not season with anything other than butter. Before cooking, fry the cereals with oil, scald with boiling water, separate the floating grains. Salt the prepared porridge in moderation. Add the fried and chopped pig liver to it, mix.
Stuffed piglet.
Lay the porridge along the piglet evenly throughout, so as not to distort its shape, avoiding thickening in some places, at the same time it is quite tight. Then sew the pig with a coarse thread, straighten the shape, bend the legs, put on the baking sheet sideways on birch sticks located crosswise so that the pig's skin does not touch the baking sheet. You cannot salt or season with spices.
Roasting the piglet.
Coat the pig with vegetable oil, pour melted butter on top and place in a preheated oven until browning. Then turn over and brown the other side. After that, reduce the heat and continue frying, pouring the flowing juice over the piglet every 10 minutes for 1 hour and turning it alternately: fry with the back up for 15-20 minutes.
When the pig is ready, make a deep cut along its back so that steam can escape from the pig and it does not sweat. This will leave the crust dry and crispy. Let stand for 15 minutes, cut into pieces (or leave whole), pour over the juice remaining after frying and serve with cranberry broth.

ROAST

:
2-2.5 kg of well-fed beef (thick edge), 1 carrot, 2 onions, 1 parsley or celery, 6-8 grains of black pepper, 3-4 bay leaves, 2 teaspoons of ginger, 0.5 cups of sour cream, 1 teaspoon of salt, 1-1.5 cups of kvass.

Wash the beef, clean it from films, bones, cut off fat from it, cut it into small pieces, put it in a preheated pan or baking sheet, melt, heat, fry the beef in it in a whole piece, so that it becomes covered with a crust, sprinkling with finely chopped carrots, onions, parsley and crushed spices, then place in the oven, pour a little kvass every 10 minutes, turning over all the time.
Fry for about 1-1.5 hours.
5-7 minutes before the end of frying, collect all the juice in a cup, add 0.25 cups of cold boiled water to it, refrigerate.
When the juice has cooled, remove the layer of fat from the surface, and heat the meat juice, strain, add sour cream. Serve as a sauce for a roast.
Remove the finished beef from the oven, add salt, let it cool slightly (15 minutes), then cut it across the fibers into pieces, pour over hot meat juice and serve.
The roast is not served cold and is not heated.
Garnish can be fried potatoes, boiled or stewed carrots, turnips, rutabagas, fried or stewed mushrooms.

William Pokhlebkin. The recipes for our life

In March 2000, under mysterious circumstances, the famous scientist William Pokhlebkin was killed at the door of his apartment.
Newspapers were full of scandalous headlines, but Pokhlebkin's life was no less mysterious than his tragic death.
At thirty-seven years old, William Vasilyevich became a famous historian of the twentieth century. However, he was recognized only abroad. He spoke seven languages, but was "restricted to travel abroad." At forty, Pokhlebkin was left without a penny of money and was doomed to death by starvation. At forty-five - a treasure "fell" on his head. At sixty - the whole world started talking about him as a brilliant cook, and at seventy-six - his disfigured body was found in his own apartment.
Why was the historian, culinary specialist, journalist, who devoted his whole life to his native country, not loved by the authorities?
And who could be behind his death?

The mystery of the death of the culinary specialist Pokhlebkin

Some thought he was crazy. Others argued that he was a hidden dissident who deliberately lived his life outside the state, outside the system. Still others said that he had traded his unique research talent for something stupid - writing recipes, food books, and gastronomic advice for housewives.

Those who thought so were wrong. The culinary talent and mind of William Pokhlebkin were in demand. His works have become a kind of school for tasty and healthy national food in the USSR. His recipes made it possible for thousands of ordinary Soviet people to try themselves in the art of cooking and feel the joy of creativity in their own kitchen.

Director: Vera Kilchevskaya
Scriptwriter: Alexander Krastoshevsky

William Vasilievich Pokhlebkin

Was born: August 20, 1923, Moscow
Died: March 2000, Podolsk, Moscow region

• Shakotis

Biography

Pokhlebkin William Vasilievich(August 20, 1923 - end of March 2000) - Soviet, Russian scientist, historian, geographer, journalist and writer. Author of renowned cooking books. Expert in the history of diplomacy and international relations, heraldry and ethnography.

V.V. Pokhlyobkin is widely known, in particular, for his cookbooks, fascinating and containing a lot of historical and interesting little-known information.
His books on cooking "Secrets of Good Cuisine" and "National Cuisines of Our Nations" do not contain strict recipes, but methods of preparing various dishes, including those that have long been forgotten. To some extent, these books are also historical, as they contain information about the history of various dishes and cooking in general. Among professionals, he is known as the first theoretical chef in history to give world cuisine a universal classification based on technology.
The book about tea - "Tea: Its types, properties, use" - is revered by many lovers of this drink.
The book "History of Vodka" was translated into English and is known all over the world (en: A History of Vodka).

William Pokhlebkin: top recipes of Russian cuisine

William Pokhlebkin became famous not only as a scientist and specialist in international relations, but also as a culinary researcher. William Pokhlebkin became the most famous gastronomic historian in Russia. He wrote more than one culinary book, according to his recipes for Russian cuisine, they are still learning to cook. Woman's Day collected the most famous dishes of William Pokhlebkin.

Rich cabbage soup (full): recipe

Ingredients:

750 g of beef, 500-750 g or 1 half-liter can of sauerkraut, 4-5 dry porcini mushrooms, 0.5 cups of salted mushrooms, 1 carrot, 1 large potato, 1 turnip, 2 onions, 1 root and celery, 1 root and parsley, 1 tbsp. a spoonful of dill, 3 bay leaves, 4-5 cloves of garlic, 1 tbsp. l. butter or ghee, 1 tbsp. l. cream, 100 g sour cream, 8 black peppercorns, 1 tsp. marjoram or dry angelica (dawns).

Put the beef together with the onion and half the roots (carrots, parsley, celery) in cold water and cook for 2 hours. 1-1.5 hours after the start of cooking, salt, then strain the broth, discard the roots.

Put sauerkraut in a clay pot, pour 0.5 liters of boiling water, add butter, close, put in a moderately heated oven. When the cabbage begins to soften, take it out and combine with strained broth and beef.

Put the mushrooms and the potato cut into four parts in an enamel saucepan, pour 2 glasses of cold water and put on fire. When the water boils, remove the mushrooms, cut into strips and put them in the mushroom broth to cook. After mushrooms and potatoes are ready, combine with meat broth.

Add finely chopped onion to the combined broths and cabbage, all other roots, cut into strips, and spices (except garlic and dill), salt and cook for 20 minutes. Then remove from heat, season with dill and garlic and let it brew for about 15 minutes, wrapped in something warm. Before serving, season with coarsely chopped salted mushrooms and sour cream right on the plates.

Jelly: recipe

Ingredients:

1 head (veal or pork), 4 legs (veal or pork), 1 carrot, 1 parsley (root), 5 Jamaican (allspice) peppercorns, 10 black peppercorns, 5 bay leaves, 1-2 onions, 1 head of garlic , for 1 kg of meat - 1 liter of water.

Singe the legs and head, clean, chop into equal pieces, add water and cook for 6 to 8 hours over very low heat, without boiling, so that the volume of water is halved. 1-1.5 hours before the end of cooking, add onions, carrots, parsley, 20 minutes. - pepper, bay leaf; salt a little. Then remove the meat, separate from the bones, cut into small pieces, transfer to a separate bowl, mix with finely chopped garlic and a small amount of ground black pepper. Boil the broth with the remaining bones for another half hour or hour (so that its volume does not exceed 1 liter), add salt, strain and pour the boiled prepared meat over it. Chill for 3-4 hours.

Gelatin is not used because young meat (veal, pig, pork) contains a sufficient amount of sticky substances.

Serve the jelly with horseradish, mustard, crushed garlic and sour cream.

Roast: recipe

Ingredients:

2-2.5 kg of well-fed beef (thick edge), 1 carrot, 2 onions, 1 parsley or celery, 6-8 grains of black pepper, 3-4 bay leaves, 2 tsp. ginger, 0.5 cups sour cream, 1 tsp. salt, 1-1.5 cups of kvass.

Wash the beef, clean it from films, bones, cut off fat from it, cut it into small pieces, put it in a preheated pan or baking sheet, melt, heat, fry the beef in it in a whole piece, so that it becomes covered with a crust, sprinkling with finely chopped carrots, onions, parsley and crushed spices, then place in the oven, water every 10 minutes. little by little kvass, turning over all the time. Fry for about 1-1.5 hours. For 5-7 minutes. until the end of frying, collect all the juice in a cup, add 0.25 cups of cold boiled water to it, refrigerate. When the juice has cooled, remove the layer of fat from the surface, heat the juice, strain, add sour cream. Serve as a sauce for a roast. Remove the finished beef from the oven, add salt, let it cool slightly (15 minutes), then cut it across the fibers into pieces, pour over hot meat juice and serve.

Roast is not served cold and is not reheated. Garnish can be fried potatoes, boiled or stewed carrots, turnips, rutabagas, fried or stewed mushrooms.

Pike in sour cream: recipe

Ingredients:

1-1.5 kg of pike, 1-2 tbsp. l. sunflower oil, 300-450 g sour cream, 1-2 tsp. ground black pepper, 1 lemon (juice and zest), 1 pinch of nutmeg.

Fish with a specific smell (for example, pike, some types of sea fish) require special processing and preparation methods.

Peel the pike, rub it with pepper on the outside and inside, pour it over with oil and put the whole thing in a deep frying pan on a ceramic support (you can use a saucer) and put it open in the oven for 7-10 minutes to brown the fish. Then transfer to a closer bowl, pour sour cream, half covering the pike with it, close the lid and put in the oven on low heat for 45-60 minutes. Put the finished fish on a dish, pour over the lemon juice, and heat the resulting gravy on the stove until it thickens, salt, season with grated nutmeg and zest and serve separately with the fish in a gravy boat or pour it over the fish.

Fried mushrooms: recipe

Ingredients:

4 glasses of peeled mushrooms (different), 100-150 g of sunflower oil, 2 onions, 1 tbsp. l. dill, 2 tbsp. l. parsley, 0.5 cups sour cream, 0.5 tsp. ground black pepper.

Peel the mushrooms, rinse, cut into strips, put in a preheated dry frying pan, cover and fry over medium heat until the juice released by the mushrooms boils out almost completely; then salt, add finely chopped onion, add oil, stir and continue to fry over a moderate heat until a brownish color is formed for about 20 minutes. After that, pepper, sprinkle with finely chopped dill and parsley, mix, fry for 2-3 minutes, add sour cream and bring it to a boil.

During the mushroom season, it is important to know how to cook mushrooms for future use.

Oatmeal porridge: recipe

Ingredients:

2 glasses of Hercules oatmeal, 0.75 liters of water, 0.5 liters of milk, 2 tsp. salt, 3 tbsp. l. butter.

Pour the groats with water and cook over low heat until the water boils down and thickens completely, then add hot milk in two steps and, while stirring, cook until thickened, seasoning with salt. Season the prepared porridge with oil.

Cabbage pie: recipe

Yeast puff pastry

Ingredients:

600 g flour, 1.25-1.5 cups of milk (1.25 for sweet cake), 125 g butter, 25-30 g yeast, 1-2 yolks (2 yolks for sweet cake), 1.5 tsp. l. salt.

In the case of using this dough for sweet pies, add: 1 tbsp. l. sugar 1 tsp lemon zest, star anise, cinnamon or cardamom (depending on the filling: for nut, poppy - cardamom, for apple - cinnamon, for cherry - star anise, for currant, strawberry - zest).

Knead flour, milk, yeast, yolks, salt and 25 g of butter into a dough, knead thoroughly and let rise at cool room temperature. Knead the matched dough, roll it into a layer about 1 cm thick, grease with a thin layer of oil, fold in four, then put it on for 10 minutes. into the cold. Then roll out again and grease with oil, folding the layers and repeating this operation three times, then let the dough rise in a cold place. After that, without touching, cut the dough into a pie.

Cabbage filling

You can make the filling from both fresh and stewed cabbage.

Chop fresh cabbage, salt, let stand for about 1 hour, squeeze the juice slightly, add butter and finely chopped hard eggs and use immediately for filling.

Chop fresh cabbage, put in a saucepan under the lid, simmer over low heat until soft, then add sunflower oil, increase heat, fry the cabbage lightly so that it remains light, add onion, parsley and black pepper, mix with steep chopped eggs.

Buckwheat and wheat pancakes: recipe

Homemade rusk kvass: recipe

Ingredients:

1 kg of rye crackers (best of all different - from Orlovsky, rye and Borodino bread, but not peeled), 750 g sugar, 10-15 blackcurrant leaves, 50 g raisins, 2-3 tbsp. l. liquid brewer's yeast or 25 g of baker's yeast, 2 tbsp. l. dry mint (not peppermint).

Pour crackers dried in the oven until light crust with 1 bucket of boiling water and insist for 12 hours.Separately brew mint, separately currant leaf with a liter of boiling water and insist for 5 hours. , sugar, boiled in 0.5 l of water, and yeast, stir and leave to ferment for 4 hours. Then remove the foam, strain, pour into bottles, adding a few raisins to each, and leave for 2 days to stand in the cold.

On the basis of homemade kvass, you can make the main summer soup. We recommend a quick recipe for okroshka.

Honey gingerbread (homemade)

Ingredients:

400 g wheat flour, 100 g rye flour, 2 yolks, 0.75-1 glass of milk or yogurt, 125 g sour cream, 500 g honey, 1 tbsp. a spoonful of burnt sugar, 1 tsp. cinnamon, 2 cardamom capsules, 4 clove buds, 0.5 tsp. star anise, 1 tsp lemon zest, 0.5 tsp. soda.

Boil honey in a saucepan over low heat until it is red hot, removing the foam, then add some rye flour to it and stir with the rest of the honey, cool until slightly warm and beat until white.

Wipe off the burnt milk with the yolks, add milk and knead the wheat flour on the egg-milk mixture, pre-mixing it and mixing with powdered spices.

Combine the honey-rye mixture with sour cream and the above mixture, beating them thoroughly. Place the finished dough in a greased dish (or baking sheet) with a layer of 1-2 cm and bake over low heat. Cut the finished gingerbread plate into 4x6 cm rectangles.

These gingerbread cookies are not glazed.

Cooking caramel sugar. Make a thick sugar syrup and heat it over moderate heat in a small thick-walled metal bowl, stirring all the time until it turns yellow, then reduce the heat slightly and continue stirring until a beige or light brown shade is obtained. In this case, the sugar should not burn, the smell should be specifically caramel, and not burnt. This is achieved by careful, continuous stirring and heat regulation. The resulting light brown lollipop is used for coloring and giving a "caramel" aroma to products.

William Pokhlebkin became famous not only as a scientist and specialist in international relations, but also as a culinary researcher. William Pokhlebkin became the most famous gastronomic historian in Russia. He wrote more than one culinary book, according to his recipes for Russian cuisine, they are still learning to cook. Woman's Day has collected the most famous dishes of William Pokhlebkin.

Rich cabbage soup (full): recipe

Photo by Shutterstock

Ingredients:

750 g of beef, 500-750 g or 1 half-liter can of sauerkraut, 4-5 dry porcini mushrooms, 0.5 cups of salted mushrooms, 1 carrot, 1 large potato, 1 turnip, 2 onions, 1 root and celery greens, 1 root and parsley, 1 tbsp. a spoonful of dill, 3 bay leaves, 4-5 cloves of garlic, 1 tbsp. l. butter or ghee, 1 tbsp. l. cream, 100 g sour cream, 8 black peppercorns, 1 tsp. marjoram or dry angelica (dawns).

Put the beef together with the onion and half of the roots (carrots, parsley, celery) in cold water and cook for 2 hours. 1–1.5 hours after the start of cooking, season with salt, then strain the broth, discard the roots.

Put sauerkraut in a clay pot, pour 0.5 liters of boiling water, add butter, close, put in a moderately heated oven. When the cabbage begins to soften, take it out and combine with strained broth and beef.

Put the mushrooms and the potato cut into four parts in an enamel saucepan, pour 2 glasses of cold water and put on fire. When the water boils, remove the mushrooms, cut into strips and put them in the mushroom broth to cook. After mushrooms and potatoes are ready, combine with meat broth.

Add finely chopped onion to the combined broths and cabbage, all other roots, cut into strips, and spices (except garlic and dill), salt and cook for 20 minutes. Then remove from heat, season with dill and garlic and let it brew for about 15 minutes, wrapped in something warm. Before serving, season with coarsely chopped salted mushrooms and sour cream right on the plates.

Jelly: recipe

Photo by Shutterstock

Ingredients:

1 head (veal or pork), 4 legs (veal or pork), 1 carrot, 1 parsley (root), 5 Jamaican (allspice) peppercorns, 10 black peppercorns, 5 bay leaves, 1-2 onions, 1 head of garlic , for 1 kg of meat - 1 liter of water.

Singe the legs and head, clean, chop into equal pieces, add water and cook for 6 to 8 hours over very low heat, without boiling, so that the volume of water is halved. Add onions, carrots, parsley 1–1.5 hours before the end of cooking, 20 minutes before cooking. - pepper, bay leaf; salt a little. Then remove the meat, separate from the bones, cut into small pieces, transfer to a separate bowl, mix with finely chopped garlic and a small amount of ground black pepper. Boil the broth with the remaining bones for another half hour or hour (so that its volume does not exceed 1 liter), add salt, strain and pour the boiled prepared meat over it. Chill for 3-4 hours.

Gelatin is not used because young meat (veal, pig, pork) contains a sufficient amount of sticky substances.

Serve the jelly with horseradish, mustard, crushed garlic and sour cream.

Roast: recipe

Photo by Shutterstock

Ingredients:

2-2.5 kg of well-fed beef (thick rim), 1 carrot, 2 onions, 1 parsley or celery, 6-8 grains of black pepper, 3-4 bay leaves, 2 tsp. ginger, 0.5 cups sour cream, 1 tsp. salt, 1-1.5 cups of kvass.

Wash the beef, clean it from films, bones, cut off fat from it, cut it into small pieces, put it in a preheated pan or baking sheet, melt, heat, fry the beef in it in a whole piece, so that it becomes covered with a crust, sprinkling with finely chopped carrots, onions, parsley and crushed spices, then place in the oven, water every 10 minutes. little by little kvass, turning over all the time. Fry for about 1-1.5 hours. For 5-7 minutes. until the end of frying, collect all the juice in a cup, add 0.25 cups of cold boiled water to it, refrigerate. When the juice has cooled, remove the layer of fat from the surface, heat the juice, strain, add sour cream. Serve as a sauce for a roast. Remove the finished beef from the oven, add salt, let it cool slightly (15 minutes), then cut it across the fibers into pieces, pour over hot meat juice and serve.

Roast is not served cold and is not reheated. Garnish can be fried potatoes, boiled or stewed carrots, turnips, rutabagas, fried or stewed mushrooms.

Pike in sour cream: recipe

Photo by Shutterstock

Ingredients:

1-1.5 kg of pike, 1-2 tbsp. l. sunflower oil, 300-450 g sour cream, 1-2 tsp. ground black pepper, 1 lemon (juice and zest), 1 pinch of nutmeg.

Fish with a specific smell (for example, pike, some types of sea fish) require special processing and preparation methods.

Peel the pike, rub it with pepper on the outside and inside, pour it over with oil and put the whole in a deep frying pan on a ceramic support (you can use a saucer) and put it open in the oven for 7-10 minutes to brown the fish. Then transfer to a narrower dish, pour sour cream, half covering the pike with it, close the lid and put in the oven on low heat for 45-60 minutes. Put the finished fish on a dish, pour over the lemon juice, and heat the resulting gravy on the stove until it thickens, salt, season with grated nutmeg and zest and serve separately with the fish in a gravy boat or pour it over the fish.

Fried mushrooms: recipe

Photo by Shutterstock

Ingredients:

4 glasses of peeled mushrooms (different), 100-150 g of sunflower oil, 2 onions, 1 tbsp. l. dill, 2 tbsp. l. parsley, 0.5 cups sour cream, 0.5 tsp. ground black pepper.

Peel the mushrooms, rinse, cut into strips, put in a preheated dry frying pan, cover and fry over medium heat until the juice released by the mushrooms boils out almost completely; then salt, add finely chopped onion, add oil, stir and continue to fry over a moderate heat until a brownish color is formed for about 20 minutes. After that, pepper, sprinkle with finely chopped dill and parsley, mix, fry for 2-3 minutes, add sour cream and bring it to a boil.

During the mushroom season, it is important to know how to cook mushrooms for future use.

Oatmeal porridge: recipe

Photo by Shutterstock

Ingredients:

2 glasses of Hercules oatmeal, 0.75 liters of water, 0.5 liters of milk, 2 tsp. salt, 3 tbsp. l. butter.

Pour the groats with water and cook over low heat until the water boils down and thickens completely, then add hot milk in two steps and, while stirring, cook until thickened, seasoning with salt. Season the prepared porridge with oil.

Cabbage pie: recipe

Photo by Shutterstock

Yeast puff pastry

Ingredients:

600 g flour, 1.25-1.5 cups of milk (1.25 for sweet pie), 125 g butter, 25-30 g yeast, 1-2 yolks (2 yolks for sweet pie), 1.5 tsp. l. salt.

In the case of using this dough for sweet pies, add: 1 tbsp. l. sugar 1 tsp lemon zest, star anise, cinnamon or cardamom (depending on the filling: for nut, poppy - cardamom, for apple - cinnamon, for cherry - star anise, for currant, strawberry - zest).

Knead flour, milk, yeast, yolks, salt and 25 g of butter into a dough, knead thoroughly and let rise at cool room temperature. Knead the matched dough, roll it into a layer about 1 cm thick, grease with a thin layer of oil, fold in four, then put it on for 10 minutes. into the cold. Then roll out again and grease with oil, folding the layers and repeating this operation three times, then let the dough rise in a cold place. After that, without touching, cut the dough into a pie.

Cabbage filling

You can make the filling from both fresh and stewed cabbage.

Chop fresh cabbage, salt, let stand for about 1 hour, squeeze the juice slightly, add butter and finely chopped hard eggs and use immediately for filling.

Chop fresh cabbage, put in a saucepan under the lid, simmer over low heat until soft, then add sunflower oil, increase heat, fry the cabbage lightly so that it remains light, add onion, parsley and black pepper, mix with steep chopped eggs.

Buckwheat and wheat pancakes: recipe

Photo by Shutterstock

Ingredients:

3.5 cups buckwheat flour, 1.5 cups wheat flour, 2.5 cups warm water, 2 cups boiling milk, 25 g yeast, 25 g butter, 2 eggs, 1 tsp. sugar, 1 tsp. salt, 0.5 cups melted butter.

Dissolve the yeast in water, add all the wheat flour and an equal volume of buckwheat, let it rise. Pour in the remaining buckwheat flour, let it rise again. Boil the dough with hot milk, cool, add sugar, salt, butter, let stand and then bake.

Russian cuisine has long been widely known all over the world. This is manifested both in the direct penetration into the international restaurant cuisine of primordially Russian food products (caviar, red fish, sour cream, buckwheat, rye flour, etc.) or some of the most famous dishes of the Russian national menu (jelly, cabbage soup, fish soup, pancakes, pies, etc.), and in the indirect influence of Russian culinary art on the cuisines of other nations.

Assortment of Russian cuisine at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries. became so diverse, and its influence and popularity in Europe is so great that they started talking about it by this time with the same respect as about the famous French cuisine.

Russian national cuisine has gone through an extremely long path of development, marked by several major stages, each of which left an indelible mark.

Old Russian cuisine, which developed from the 9th-10th centuries. and reached its greatest flowering in the XV-XVI centuries, although its formation covers a huge historical period, is characterized by common features, which have largely survived to this day.

At the beginning of this period, Russian bread from sour (yeast) rye dough appeared - this uncrowned king is on our table, without him the Russian menu is unthinkable even now - and all the other most important types of Russian baked goods and flour products appeared: the known cakes, bagels, juices, crumpets, pancakes, pancakes, pies, etc. These products were prepared exclusively on the basis of sour dough, which is so characteristic of Russian cuisine throughout its entire historical development. The addiction to sour, leavened foods was reflected in the creation of real Russian jelly - oatmeal, wheat and rye, which appeared long before modern ones. Mostly berry jelly.

A large place in the menu was also occupied by a variety of gruel and porridge, which were originally considered ritual, solemn food.

All this bread, flour food was diversified most often with fish, mushrooms, wild berries, vegetables, milk and very rarely - with meat.

The appearance of classic Russian drinks - all kinds of honey, kvass, sbitney - dates back to the same time.

Already in the early period of the development of Russian cuisine, a sharp division of the Russian table into lean (vegetable-fish-mushroom) and non-meat (milk-egg-meat) emerged, which had a huge impact on its further development until the end of the 19th century. The artificial creation of the line between the fast and the lenten table, the isolation of some products from others, the prevention of their mixing ultimately led to the creation of only some original dishes, and the entire menu as a whole suffered - it became more monotonous and simplified.

We can say that the lean table was more fortunate: since most days of the year - from 192 to 216 in different years - were considered fast (and these fasts were observed very strictly), it was natural to strive to expand the range of the lean table. Hence the abundance of mushroom and fish dishes in Russian cuisine, the tendency to use various vegetable raw materials - grain (porridge), vegetables, wild berries and herbs (nettle, snow, quinoa, etc.).

Moreover, such well-known from the X century. vegetables like cabbage, turnips, radishes, peas, cucumbers were cooked and eaten - whether raw, salted, steamed, boiled or baked - separately from one another. Therefore, for example, salads and especially vinaigrettes were never characteristic of Russian cuisine and appeared in Russia already in the 19th century. as borrowing from the West. But they were also initially made mainly with one vegetable, giving the appropriate name to the salad - cucumber salad, beet salad, potato salad, etc.

Each type of mushroom - milk mushrooms, mushrooms, honey agarics, white mushrooms, morels, peppers (champignons), etc. - were salted or cooked completely separately, which, by the way, is still practiced today. The same can be said about fish, which was consumed boiled, dried, salted, baked, and less often fried. In the literature we find juicy, “tasty” names for fish dishes: sigovina, taimenina, pike, halibut, catfish, salmon, sturgeon, sevryuzhina, beluzhina and others. And the ear could be perch, and ruff, and burbot, and sterlet, etc.

Thus, the number of dishes by name was enormous, but all of them differed little in content from one another. Taste variety was achieved, firstly, by the difference in heat and cold processing, as well as by the use of various oils, mainly vegetable (hemp, nut, poppy, olive and, much later, sunflower), and secondly, by the use of spices. Of the latter, onions, garlic, horseradish, dill were most often used, and in very large quantities, as well as parsley, anise, coriander, bay leaves, black pepper and cloves, which appeared in Russia already in the 10th-11th centuries. Later, in the 15th - early 16th centuries, they were supplemented with ginger, cardamom, cinnamon, calamus (ore root) and saffron.

In the initial period of the development of Russian cuisine, there was also a tendency to use hot liquid dishes, which then received the general name "Khlyobova". The most widespread are such types of bread as cabbage soup, stews based on vegetable raw materials, as well as various pastes, brews, talkers, lettuce and other varieties of flour soups.

As for meat and milk, these products were consumed relatively rarely, and their processing was not difficult. Meat, as a rule, was cooked in cabbage soup or gruel, milk was drunk raw, stewed or sour. Dairy products were used to make cottage cheese and sour cream, and the production of cream and butter remained almost unknown for a long time, at least until the 15th-16th centuries. these products appeared rarely, irregularly.

The next stage in the development of Russian cuisine is the period from the middle of the 16th century. and until the end of the 17th century. At this time, not only the further development of options for lean and light meals continues, but also the differences between the cuisines of various classes and estates are especially sharply marked.

From this time on, the cuisine of the common people began to simplify more and more, the cuisine of the boyars, nobility and especially the nobility became more and more refined. She collects, combines and generalizes the experience of previous centuries in the field of Russian cuisine, creates new, more complex versions of old dishes on the basis of it, and also for the first time borrows and openly introduces a number of foreign dishes and culinary techniques, mainly of Eastern origin, into Russian cuisine.

Particular attention is drawn to the speedy festive table of that time. Along with the usual corned beef and boiled meat, poultry (i.e., cooked on spits) and fried meat, poultry and game take pride of place on the table of the nobility. The types of meat processing are becoming more and more differentiated. So, beef is mainly used for cooking corned beef and for boiling (boiled slaughter); ham is made from pork for long-term storage, or it is used as fresh meat or dairy pig in fried and stewed form, and in Russia only meat, lean pork is valued; finally, mutton, poultry and game are used mainly for roasts and only partially (mutton) for stewing.

In the XVII century. all the main types of Russian soups were finally formed, while kals, hangover, hodgepodge, pickle soup, unknown in medieval Russia, appeared.

The lean table of the nobility is also enriched. Balyk, black caviar, which was eaten not only salted, but also boiled in vinegar or poppy milk, began to occupy a prominent place on it.

To the culinary of the 17th century. Eastern and primarily Tatar cuisine has a strong influence, which is associated with the accession in the second half of the 16th century. to the Russian state of the Astrakhan and Kazan khanates, Bashkiria and Siberia. It was during this period that dishes from unleavened dough (noodles, dumplings), such products as raisins, apricots, figs (figs), as well as lemons and tea, the use of which has since become traditional in Russia, entered Russian cuisine. Thus, the sweet table is also significantly replenished.

Next to the gingerbread, known in Russia even before the adoption of Christianity, one could see a variety of gingerbreads, sweet pies, candies, candied fruits, numerous jams, not only from berries, but also from some vegetables (carrots with honey and ginger, radish in molasses) ... In the second half of the 17th century. they began to bring cane sugar to Russia (1), from which, together with spices, they cooked candies and snacks, sweets, delicacies, fruits, etc. But all these sweet dishes were mainly the privilege of the nobility (2).

(1) The first refinery was founded by the merchant Vestov in Moscow, at the beginning of the 18th century. He was allowed to import cane raw materials duty-free. Sugar factories based on raw beetroot were created only in the late 18th - early 19th centuries. (The first plant is in the village of Alyabyevo, Tula province).

(2) Sugar and candies are already indicated on the menu of the patriarchal dinner for 1671.

At the same time, there is a desire to decorate dishes. Palaces are built from food, fantastic animals of gigantic proportions. Court dinners turn into a pompous, magnificent ritual, lasting 6-8 hours in a row - from 2 pm to 10 pm - and include almost a dozen changes, each of which consists of a whole series (sometimes two dozen) of the same name dishes, for example from a dozen varieties of fried game or salted fish, from a dozen types of pancakes or pies (3).

(3) The order of serving dishes at a rich festive table, consisting of 6-8 changes, finally took shape in the second half of the 18th century. However, one dish was served at each break. This order was maintained until the 60s and 70s of the XIX century:
1) hot (cabbage soup, stew, ear);
2) cold (okroshka, botvinya, jelly, jellied fish, corned beef);
3) roast (meat, poultry);
4) body (boiled or fried hot fish);
5) pies (savory), kulebyaka;
6) porridge (sometimes served with cabbage soup);
7) cake (sweet pies, pies);
8) snacks.

All kinds of casseroles and puddings turned out to be alien to the old Russian cuisine. The desire to cook a dish from a whole large piece, and ideally from a whole animal or plant, persisted until the 18th century. The exception, it seemed, were the fillings in pies, in whole animals and poultry, and in their parts - abomasum, omentum. However, in most cases, these were, so to speak, ready-made fillings, crushed by nature itself - grain (porridge), berries, mushrooms (they were not cut either). The fish for the filling was only plastered, but not chopped. And only much later - at the end of the 18th century. and especially in the 19th century. - already under the influence of Western European cuisine, some fillings began to be crushed on purpose.

The next stage in the development of Russian cuisine begins at the turn of the 17th and 18th centuries. and lasts a little more than a century - until the first decade of the 19th century. At this time, a radical demarcation of the cuisine of the ruling classes and the cuisine of the common people took place. If in the XVII century. the cuisine of the ruling classes still retained a national character and its difference from the folk cuisine was expressed only in the fact that in quality, abundance and range of products and dishes, it sharply surpassed the national cuisine, then in the 18th century. the cuisine of the ruling classes gradually began to lose its Russian national character.

Since the times of Peter the Great, the Russian nobility and the rest of the nobility have borrowed and introduced Western European culinary traditions. Wealthy nobles who visited Western Europe bring foreign chefs with them. At first they were mostly Dutch and German, especially Saxon and Austrian, then Swedish and mostly French. From the middle of the 18th century. foreign chefs were discharged so regularly that they soon almost completely ousted cooks and serfs from the upper nobility.

One of the new customs that appeared at this time is the use of snacks as an independent dish. German sandwiches, French and Dutch cheeses that came from the West and hitherto unknown on the Russian table were combined with old Russian dishes - cold corned beef, jelly, ham, boiled pork, as well as caviar, balyk and other salted red fish in a single serving or even in a special food intake - breakfast.

There were also new alcoholic drinks - ratafia and erofeichi. Since the 70s of the 18th century, when tea began to gain more and more importance, in the upper circles of society, sweet pies, pies and sweets stood out outside the dinner, which were combined with tea in a separate serving and timed to 5 o'clock in the evening.

Only in the first half of the 19th century, after the Patriotic War of 1812, in connection with the general rise of patriotism in the country and the struggle of Slavophil circles with foreign influence, the progressive representatives of the nobility began to revive their interest in the national Russian cuisine. However, when in 1816 the Tula landowner V. A. Levshin tried to compile the first Russian cookbook, he was forced to state that “information about Russian dishes was almost completely exterminated” and therefore “it is already impossible to present a complete description of the Russian cookery and should be content with only what else can be collected from what is left in the memory, for the history of the Russian cookery has never been devoted to description ”(4). As a result, the descriptions of Russian cuisine dishes collected by V.A.Levshin from memory were not only inaccurate in their recipes, but also in their assortment did not reflect the entire real richness of the dishes of the Russian national table.

(4) Levshin V.A.Russian cookery. M., 1816.

A number of French chefs worked in Russia during this period, radically reforming the Russian cuisine of the ruling classes. The first French chef who left a mark on the reform of Russian cuisine was Marie-Antoine Karem - one of the first and few cooks-researchers, cooks-scientists. Before coming to Russia at the invitation of Prince P.I.Bagration, Karem was the cook of the English Prince Regent (future King George IV), Duke of Württemberg, Rothschild, Talleyrand. He was keenly interested in the cuisines of various nations. During his short stay in Russia, Karem got acquainted in detail with Russian cuisine, appreciated its merits and outlined ways to free it from the superficial.

Karem's successors in Russia continued the reform he had begun. This reform affected, firstly, the order of serving dishes to the table. Adopted in the 18th century. The "French" system of serving, when all dishes were put on the table at the same time, was replaced by the old Russian way of serving, when one dish was replaced by another. At the same time, the number of changes was reduced to 4-5 and such a sequence in serving lunch was introduced, in which heavy dishes alternated with light ones and stimulating the appetite. In addition, meat or poultry cooked as a whole was no longer served on the table; they began to be cut into portions before serving. With such a system, decorating dishes as an end in itself has lost all meaning.

The reformers also advocated the replacement of dishes made from crushed and mashed products, which took a large place in the cuisine of the ruling classes in the 18th and early 19th centuries, with dishes made from natural products more characteristic of Russian cuisine. This is how all kinds of chops (lamb and pork) from a whole piece of meat with bone, natural steaks, klops, splints, entrecotes, escalopes appeared.

At the same time, the efforts of the culinary specialists were aimed at eliminating the heaviness and indigestibility of some dishes. So, in the recipes for cabbage soup, they discarded the flour puff that made them tasteless, which remained only by virtue of tradition, and not common sense, they began to widely use potatoes in side dishes, which appeared in Russia in the 70s of the 18th century.

For Russian pies, they suggested using tender puff pastry made from wheat flour instead of sour rye. They also introduced a safe method of making dough on pressed yeast, which we use today, thanks to which sour dough, which previously required 10-12 hours to prepare, began to ripen in 2 hours.

French chefs also paid attention to snacks, which became one of the specific features of the Russian table. If in the XVIII century. predominantly the German form of serving snacks - sandwiches, then in the XIX century. began to serve snacks on a special table, each type on a special dish, beautifully decorating them, and thus expanded their assortment so much, choosing among the snacks a number of old Russian not only meat and fish, but also mushroom and vegetable pickled dishes that their abundance and variety from now on did not cease to be a constant subject of surprise to foreigners.

Finally, the French school introduced a combination of products (vinaigrette, salads, side dishes) and precise dosages in recipes that were not previously adopted in Russian cuisine, and introduced Russian cuisine to unknown types of Western European kitchen technology.

At the end of the XIX century. the Russian stove and the pots and iron pots specially adapted to its thermal regime were replaced by a stove with its oven, pots, saucepans, etc. Instead of a sieve and sieve, they began to use colanders, skimmers, meat grinders, etc.

An important contribution of French chefs to the development of Russian cuisine was the fact that they trained a whole galaxy of brilliant Russian chefs. Their students were Mikhail and Gerasim Stepanovs, G. Dobrovolsky, V. Bestuzhev, I. Radetsky, P. Grigoriev, I. Antonov, 3. Eremeev, N. Khodeev, P. Vikentiev and others who supported and disseminated the best traditions of Russian cuisine to throughout the 19th century. Of these, G. Stepanov and I. Radetsky were not only outstanding practitioners, but also left behind extensive guidelines on Russian cooking.

In parallel with this process of updating the cuisine of the ruling classes, carried out, so to speak, "from above" and concentrated in the noble clubs and restaurants of St. estates up to the 70s of the XIX century. The source for this collection was folk cuisine, in the development of which a huge number of anonymous and unknown, but talented serf chefs took part.

By the last third of the XIX century. Russian cuisine of the ruling classes, thanks to the unique assortment of dishes, their exquisite and delicate taste, began to occupy, along with French cuisine, one of the leading places in Europe.

At the same time, it should be emphasized that, despite all the changes, introductions and foreign influences, its main characteristic features have been preserved and have remained inherent in it to the present day, since they have persisted in the national cuisine. These main features of Russian cuisine and the Russian national table can be defined as follows: the abundance of dishes, the variety of the snack table, the love of eating bread, pancakes, pies, cereals, the originality of the first liquid cold and hot dishes, a variety of fish and mushroom tables, the widespread use of pickles from vegetables and mushrooms, an abundance of festive and sweet table with its jams, cookies, gingerbread, Easter cakes, etc.

Some of the peculiarities of Russian cuisine should be discussed in more detail. Back at the end of the 18th century. Russian historian I. Boltin noted the characteristic features of the Russian table, including not only the well-to-do one. In the countryside, four pores of food were taken, and in the summer during working hours - five: breakfast, or interception, afternoon tea, before lunch, or exactly at noon, lunch, dinner and pauzhin.

These vyti, adopted in Central and Northern Russia, were preserved in Southern Russia, but with different names. There, at 6-7 in the morning they ate, at 11-12 they had dinner, at 14-15 they had noon, at 18-19 they had an evening out, and at 22-23 they had supper. With the development of capitalism, the working people in the cities began to eat at first three, and then only twice a day: they had breakfast at dawn, had lunch or dinner when they came home. At work, however, they only had afternoon tea, that is, they had a snack with cold food. Gradually, any complete meal, a full table with a hot brew, sometimes regardless of the time of day, came to be called lunch.

Bread played an important role at the Russian table. For cabbage soup or other first liquid dish in the village, they usually ate from a pound to a kilogram of black rye bread. White bread, wheat, was actually not widespread in Russia until the beginning of the 20th century. It was eaten occasionally and mainly by the wealthy strata of the population in the cities, and the people looked at it as festive food. Therefore, white bread, called in a number of regions of the country a bun (5), was not baked in bakeries, like black bread, but in special bakeries and was slightly sweetened. Local varieties of white bread were Moscow cakes and rolls, Smolensk pretzels, Valdai bagels, etc. Black bread differed not in the place of production, but only in the type of baking and the type of flour - baked, custard, hearth, peeled, etc.

(5) "Bulka" - from the French word boule, which means "round as a ball." Initially, white bread was baked only by French and German bakers - bakers.

The first liquid dishes, called from the end of the 18th century, remained unchanged in Russian cuisine. soups. Soups have always played a dominant role on the Russian table. No wonder the spoon was the main cutlery. She appeared with us before the plug for almost 400 years. “With a fork that is a milk yield, and with a spoon that a net,” said the proverb.

The assortment of national Russian soups - cabbage soup, paste, chowder, fish soup, pickle soup, hodgepodge, botvinia, okroshka, prison - continued to grow in the 18th-20th centuries. various types of Western European soups such as broths, mashed soups, various filling soups with meat and cereals, which took root well thanks to the love of the Russian people for hot liquid brew.

In the same way, many soups of the peoples of our country have received a place on the modern Russian table, for example, Ukrainian borscht and kulesh, Belarusian beetroot soup and soups with dumplings. Many soups, especially vegetable and vegetable-cereals, were obtained from liquefied gruel-lumps (i.e. gruel with vegetable filling) or are the fruits of restaurant cuisine. However, it is not they, despite their variety, but the old, primordially Russian soups like cabbage soup and fish soup that still define the originality of the Russian table.

To a lesser extent than soups, fish dishes have retained their original meaning on the Russian table. Some of the classic Russian fish dishes like tel have fallen out of use. Meanwhile, they are delicious, easy to prepare. They can be prepared from sea fish, which, by the way, was used in Russian cuisine in ancient times, especially in Northern Russia, in Russian Pomorie. The inhabitants of these grain-free areas in those days have long been accustomed to cod, halibut, haddock, capelin, navaga. “The lack of fish is worse than the lack of bread,” the Pomor proverb said at the time.

Known in Russian cuisine is steam, boiled, body fish, that is, made in a special way from one fillet, boneless, fried, groomed (filled with porridge or mushrooms filling), stewed, jellied, baked in scales, baked in a skillet in sour cream , salted (salted), dried and dried (sushik). In the Pechora and Perm Territories, fish, in addition, were fermented (sour fish), and in Western Siberia they ate stroganina - frozen raw fish. Only the method of smoking fish was uncommon, which developed mainly only in the last 70-80 years, that is, from the beginning of the 20th century.

The widespread use of spices in a fairly large assortment was characteristic of the old Russian cuisine. However, the decrease in the role of fish, mushroom and game dishes, as well as the introduction of a number of German dishes into the menu, has affected the reduction in the proportion of spices used in Russian cuisine.

In addition, due to their high cost, many spices, as well as vinegar and salt, date back to the 17th century. people began to use re in the process of cooking, and put it on the table and use it already during a meal, depending on everyone's desire. This custom later gave rise to the assertion that Russian cuisine allegedly did not use spices. At the same time, they referred to the well-known work of G. Kotoshikhin about Russia in the 17th century, where he wrote: "The custom of cooking without seasonings, without pepper and inbir, is lightly salted and without acetic." Meanwhile, further the same G. Kotoshikhin explained: "And how the nets begin and in which there is little vinegar and salt and pepper, and they add food to the food on the table" (6).

(6) Kotoshikhin G. About Russia during the reign of Alexei Mikhailovich. SPb. 1840.

Finally, in conclusion, it is necessary to dwell on some of the technological processes inherent in Russian cuisine.

In a large segment of the development of Russian national cuisine, the process of cooking was reduced to cooking or baking food in a Russian oven, and these operations were necessarily carried out separately. That which was intended for cooking was boiled from beginning to end, that which was intended for baking was only baked. Thus, the Russian folk cuisine did not know what a combined or even different, combined or double heat treatment was.

Heat treatment of food consisted of heating with a warm Russian oven, strong or weak, three degrees - "before the loaves", "after the loaves", "at the free spirit" - but always contactless with fire and either with a constant temperature kept at the same level, or with a falling, decreasing temperature, when the oven gradually cooled down, but never with an increase in temperature, as in the case of on-top cooking. That is why the dishes always turned out not even boiled, but rather stewed or half-stewed, half-stewed, which is why they acquired a completely special taste. It is not for nothing that many dishes of old Russian cuisine do not make the proper impression when they are cooked in different temperature conditions.

Does this mean that it is necessary to restore the Russian stove in order to get real Russian cuisine in modern conditions? Not at all. Instead, it is sufficient to simulate the thermal regime of the falling temperature created by it. Such imitation is possible in modern conditions.

However, one should not forget that the Russian stove had not only a positive, but, to a certain extent, a negative impact on Russian cuisine - it did not stimulate the development of rational technological methods.

The introduction of plate-based cooking led to the need to borrow a number of new technological methods and, along with them, dishes from Western European cuisine, as well as to reform the dishes of old Russian cuisine, their refinement and development, and adaptation to new technology. This direction turned out to be fruitful. It helped to save many dishes of Russian cuisine from oblivion.

Speaking about Russian cuisine, we have so far emphasized its features and characteristics, examined the history of its development and its content as a whole. Meanwhile, one should bear in mind the pronounced regional differences in it, explained mainly by the diversity of natural zones and the associated dissimilarity of plant and animal products, the different influence of neighboring peoples, as well as the variegated social structure of the population in the past.

That is why the cuisine of Muscovites and Pomors, Don Cossacks and Siberians is very different. While in the North they eat venison, fresh and salted sea fish, rye pies, dezhni with cottage cheese and a lot of mushrooms, in the Don they fried and stewed steppe game, eat a lot of fruits and vegetables, drink grape wine and cook pies with chicken. If the food of the Pomors resembles the Scandinavian, Finnish, Karelian and Lappish (Sami), then the cuisine of the Don Cossacks was significantly influenced by the Turkish and Nogai cuisines, and the Russian population in the Urals or Siberia follows the Tatar and Udmurt culinary traditions.

Regional features of a different plan have long been inherent in the cuisines of the old Russian regions of Central Russia. These features are due to the medieval rivalry between Novgorod and Pskov, Tver and Moscow, Vladimir and Yaroslavl, Kaluga and Smolensk, Ryazan and Nizhny Novgorod. Moreover, they manifested themselves in the field of cuisine not in major dissimilarities, such as differences in the technology of preparation or in the availability of their own dishes in each area, as was the case, for example, in Siberia and the Urals, but in the differences between the same dishes, in the differences are often even insignificant, but nevertheless quite persistent.

A striking example of this is at least such common Russian dishes as fish soup, pancakes, pies, porridge and gingerbread: they were made throughout European Russia, but each region had its own favorite types of these dishes, their own minor differences in their recipes, their own appearance , their own methods of serving to the table, etc.

We owe this, if I may say so, “small regionality” to the emergence, development and existence so far, for example, of different types of gingerbread - Tula, Vyazma, Voronezh, Gorodets, Moscow, etc.

Regional differences, both large and small, naturally enriched and diversified Russian cuisine even more. And at the same time, all of them did not change its basic character, because in each specific case, the above-mentioned general features attract attention, which together distinguish the national Russian cuisine throughout Russia from the Baltic to the Pacific Ocean.

GREAT ENCYCLOPEDIA OF CULINARY ARTS.

ALL RECIPES V.V. POKHLEBKIN

You are holding a unique book in your hands. She will become an indispensable advisor for everyone who wants to enrich their table with the most popular dishes, as well as learn how to cook not only according to familiar and boring recipes, but with knowledge of cooking and even creatively.

The author of this wonderful book, William Vasilyevich Pokhlebkin, is no longer with us - he died tragically in March 2000. The murder of the writer was a real shock for all of Russia - after all, it is difficult to find a person who would not have heard about Pokhlebkin's wonderful culinary recipes or did not use his wise advice. Now gourmets have only his cookbooks. This publication is an invaluable gift from the Master to the admirers of his talent, for it contains all his theoretical and practical culinary works.

Not everyone knows that V.V. Pokhlebkin by profession and education is an international historian, specialist in foreign policy of the countries of Central and Northern Europe. In 1949 he graduated from the Moscow State Institute of International Relations of the USSR Ministry of Foreign Affairs, in 1956-1961 he was the editor-in-chief of the international periodical "Scandinavian Collection" (Tartu, Estonia), since 1962 he collaborated with the magazine "Scandinavica" (London, Norwich), and in 1957-1967 For years he worked as a senior lecturer at MGIMO and the Higher Diplomatic School of the USSR Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the history and philological faculties of Moscow State University.

It would seem that history and cooking are incompatible things. However, a talented person is always talented in many ways, in any case, the colossal experience of Pokhlebkin as an internationalist formed the basis of his famous books on the national cuisines of the world.

Over the past three decades, V.V. Pokhlebkin remained an unsurpassed specialist in the theory, history and practice of culinary art.

The book "Secrets of Good Cooking", which opens our edition, was first published in 1979, in the "Eureka" series. This is a popular presentation of the main issues of culinary practice, where the technologies of all existing culinary processes, their significance and role in cooking are described in an accessible language for laymen. She introduces the reader to the world of cookery, popularly talking about the meaning and characteristics of the cook's craft.

The book immediately became an unusual occurrence, as readers were already disillusioned with cookbooks that include descriptions of standard boring tricks and recipes. The Secrets of Good Cooking turned the hackneyed notion of cooking as an ordinary, exclusively female occupation that does not require an exact knowledge of the theory. The book opens up a prospect for any literate person to learn how to work professionally, naturally with an interested and conscientious attitude to the work of cooking.

The book still enjoys unprecedented popularity, and not only in Russia. It has been translated into the national languages ​​of the republics, where traditionally they attached great importance to the preparation of delicious food and its quality. In 1982 it was published in Riga in Latvian, twice (1982 and 1987) in Vilnius in Lithuanian, in 1990 in Moldovan in Chisinau. And all this work has withstood thirteen editions in twenty years.

"Entertaining cooking", continuing "Secrets of good cuisine", was released a little later, in 1983. Here, special attention is paid to the more prosaic, but extremely important handicraft side of cooking. The book tells about the types of hearths (stoves, heating devices), about the effect of different types of fire on the taste of food, about kitchen utensils and tools. "Entertaining Cooking" has also been translated into Lithuanian, with a total of six editions.

The books "Spices, Flavors and Food Colors" and "All About Spices and Condiments", as the author believed, will help make our culinary world bright and colorful, full of taste and aroma. Note that the work of V.V. Pokhlebkin on spices gained international fame and was published five times in Leipzig in German.

The book "National cuisines of our peoples" has become just as popular, which includes recipes for national dishes of the peoples of Russia and the Near Abroad with an indication of the original, historically established technologies for their preparation. It gives a fairly complete picture of the culinary skills of nations, ethnic groups with their own pronounced national cuisine.

This research work has been carried out for ten years both in archives and in the field in various regions. This is probably why it aroused such a serious interest among professional chefs in many foreign countries and was highly regarded by them as a practical cookbook. On the initiative of the author's foreign colleagues, the book was translated into Finnish, English, German, Croatian, Portuguese and Hungarian.

The continuation is the book "On Foreign Cuisines", which includes the main recipes for Chinese, Scottish and Finnish cuisine. The ethnographic approach taken by the author to the culinary heritage of nations helped to restore, restore the general picture of culinary creativity, freeing it from unnecessary layers, and individual dishes from restaurant distortions allowed out of ignorance or ignorance.

No less interesting is the continuation of "My Kitchen" - "My Menu". Here V.V. Pokhlebkin shares his own cooking secrets. The book consists of a commented list of those dishes of world cuisine, which the author especially loved and prepared for himself personally only on special, solemn moments.

The collection ends with the famous "Culinary Dictionary" by Pokhlebkin, written in the late 1980s. This book is intended to answer all the pressing questions of both a professional and an amateur, including a range of international (French, Latin, Greek, German, Chinese and others) terms, concepts, dishes and methods of their preparation, which have developed over the entire thousand-year history of world culinary practice. The dictionary creates a complete understanding of the world culinary art, where the usual Russian, Ukrainian, Tatar and other national dishes occupy a quite worthy place. The Dictionary gives a brief description of all terms and products mentioned (and not mentioned) in the book and greatly facilitates the use of the publication.

Collection of works by V.V. Pokhlebkin on culinary art combines both purely practical material for the study of cooking, and a variety of information on the history of the culinary business of Russia and other countries (Finland, Scotland, Scandinavian countries, China), therefore, the publication is of interest to a wide range of readers - from experienced chefs to young housewives.

William Vasilyevich himself said that the purpose of his books was to help "acquire the skills of creating such food, such food, without which our life would be boring, joyless, uninspired and at the same time devoid of something of our own, individual." Good luck to you!

THE SECRETS OF A GOOD KITCHEN

Chapter 1. SERIOUS, EXPLAINING: TO WHOM IS THE DOOR TO COOKING CRAFT OPEN AND WHY THIS CRAFT IS A DIFFICULT, DIFFICULT ART