There are dishes that today are considered traditional Russian food. One can find it in the menu of every restaurant - like Borsch, Schi, Sorrel soup, Stolichny salad, Beef Stroganoff, Pozharsky kutlets, Stuffed Carp and many others. All of them are a must to try and most are also the everyday meals of modern Russians. Still all those foods have very different roots and go back to life and habits of different estates. Sometimes they were even the only choice available people had to stick to.
"Schi and porridge is all our food" (old Russian saying)
For many hundreds of years before the Red October 1917 and the collectivization the difference between the estates of the society was striking. There were tsars and nobility, merchants and petty bourgeoisie, and of course peasants. And the last class was the most numerous - hundreds of thousands of peasants were feeding their landowners and the State, but did merely get enough to eat themselves.
The everyday ration of a peasant would rest upon subsistence farming and things he used to grow in the fields - the farmers would hardly ever buy anything for their table. Chickens, cows and sheeps were something only few could afford to rear. Besides, women had no free time to spend in the kitchen, so the food had to be quite simple and fast, and easy to cook, without any variety.
Another important issue was the strict observance of the Orthodox Church calendar with its great number of fasts to keep - they would almost leave meat and dairy products out. Finally, the climate was never too mild - some abundance of fruits and vegetables was familiar only to the southern regions of the huge country.
Thus, peasants' lifestyle was almost vegetarian, consisting of mostly veggies and cereals. Number one product were potatoes after Peter the Great brought it from Holland in the early 1700’s, then cabbage and rye, and number one meal was Schi or sauerkraut soup. Other vegetables were beets, turnips, cucumbers, beans.
Bread was always a must on the table, but wheat was too expensive (“White wheat for white people” - that was the saying), so peasants had to make rye bread often adding some odd components like goose-foot grass.
Only on feast and meat days the peasants could prepare some feral food like blinys (pancakes), eggs and meat, add some sour cream to their soups or some milk into the porridge.
Wealthier peasants prepared jellied meat and lard, and some "pirogi" - pies, stuffed with cabbage or chicken, potatoes and berries. By the way, berries and mushrooms were also some foodstuff easy to get, so every summer and autumn all the women would go to the forests to pick the goods.
Nowadays, though the variety of food is much wider, in everyday life Russians still eat many potatoes, make sauerkraut and beet soups and respect the traditional feasts with pancakes, jellied foods, pies and pickles.
The Tsars’ dinner
The habits of the wealth were totally the opposite of the peasants'.
The peculiarity of the Russian soul is its width and hospitality, especially if you have the resources to behave that way. Therefore, the dinners of the wealth not to mention the Tsars were true feasts.
There is a Russian word "pir" that stands for a sumptuous and lavish feast with a great abundance of food and drinks and an easy atmosphere with lots of jokes and fun. The idea of such feasts was to invite all of the friends and relatives and feed them with the best of what you have. The reason to gather altogether could be some religious or calendar holidays, or personal celebration, like birth of a child.
Another tradition that gives the flavor of Russian hospitality is the custom to meet the guests with bread and salt. Bread and salt, as you remember, were the main and vital items at one's home and the willingness to share it was the best expression of hospitality.
These feasts were traditional for all estates, but as for the wealth, that's where it was a real something.
During the Tsars’ time by which we mean the period before the 18th century the feasts of the wealth and the tsar himself could last for few hours and even days, in the case of a major military victory, for example.
The tsar would sit at a separate table, while all of his guests sat at one long table all together. To get something from the tsar's table was considered as a great honor and expression of respect.
The menu can strike our imagination. First, the servants would bring tens of baked swans. Then was the time for all kinds of pies - with chicken, cheese, meat, all kinds of pancakes with different stuffings. After that, they would bring in jellies, caviars and game meat: chickens, quails, pheasants, ducks and cranes - baked, fried, even pickled. The next meal were a few soups and then meat and fish of all kinds and all possible ways of preparation. In between the courses, the tsar and his guests would drink different wines and meads of various flavors.
The final chord were sweets, fruits, sweet pies and desserts. The servants used to change their splendid dresses few times during the feast.
Major drink of all times was tea - enduring tea-drinking was an important tradition for all classes, usually it was accompanied with different sweets, pies or traditional spice-cakes, round-shaped cracknels (“sooshka”) and Russian doughnuts called “ponchik” or “pyshka”. The water was heated in a special metal container called samovar.
From the 18th century, especially in its second half, during the reign of the Romanov family, the aristocracy adopted the European manner of dinners along with European menu.
The court cooks of the Emperor and his family as well as of other noble people were often invited from France, Germany or other European countries.
That is when the feasts became more sophisticated and civilized, meals got some accurate change of courses and the royal porcelain sets consisted of numerous plates, deep dishes, saucers and jugs for all of the countless dishes.
For the last three hundred years many sauces, meat and fish meals were introduced in Russia and new dishes were invented in the mixture of European traditions and typical Russian foods - like Pike and Pozharsky cutlets, Olivier salad or Beef Stroganoff and many others.
In our next article we will have a closer look at some typical Russian foods and find out what they consist of and why they have their names.
