If you are interested in history, then let's go back together a couple of centuries ago and see what was served on the table for the royal persons of Russia.
Catherine II - the Great
Came to Russia-mother Katenka, still a young girl. Therefore, she acquired all her culinary preferences in our country.
And the peculiarities of Russian food: a lot, hearty and rich - is inherent not only in peasant cuisine, but also in the royal one. The queen liked it, from which she put on a lot of weight with age.
Yes, all rich people loved to enjoy expensive dishes prepared by French chefs and from overseas products. Including royal persons.
But this happened at lunches and dinners, of national importance or on holidays - Christmas, Easter, etc.
By the way, Empress Catherine in her everyday life really loved simple Russian food. On her table there was always sauerkraut, pickled cucumbers and boiled beef, which was stuffed with bacon and marinated for 2-3 days in advance.
Then, in the same marinade, they simmered in the oven for about three hours and served whole or cut into slices with boiled potatoes and turnips.
She did not eat any quails, truffles or sterlets in lingonberry sauce every day.
Catherine was rather indifferent to alcohol. Only occasionally did I allow myself a glass of Rhine wine or Madeira. Usually I drank currant juice or plain water at lunch.
In the mornings, Catherine was served "kofia" generously flavored with cream. To it - biscuits, desserts and ordinary rusks from wheat bread. Yes, she loved sweets, no doubt.
So for the 75th anniversary of St. Petersburg, Catherine II was presented with a giant - three meters in diameter, gingerbread, baked in Tula. It showed a detailed map of the capital. Needless to say, the queen was delighted.
Nicholas I
This ruler amazed with his culinary simplicity, which was noted by many of his contemporaries.
Thus, the French artist O. Bernet, who accompanied the Tsar on his travels across Russia, wrote: “The Emperor is a great teetotaler; he only eats cabbage soup with lard, meat, some game and fish, and pickles. Drinks one water. "
Maid of honor Frederike later recalled that the tsar ate "remarkably little, mostly vegetables, he drank nothing except water, except sometimes a glass of wine."
And everyone agreed on one thing, that Nikolai especially loved to feast on "pickles". According to the statements of 1840, the emperor was given 5 pickled cucumbers every day. Even though the doctors didn’t tell him to “indulge” in such a snack.
In the weekly menu of Emperor Nicholas I, there was necessarily a dietary "German" soup made from mashed potatoes, which he was prescribed by the physician M.M. Mand - the first who introduced medical fasting into medical practice for "the highest persons".
And Nikolai regularly asked the cook to cook him a simple buckwheat porridge in a pot.
By the way, the history of the appearance of "Pozharsky cutlets" is connected with the era of Nicholas I.
Nicholas I traveled a lot, and, stopping for the occasion in a tavern, the emperor highly appreciated this dish, which made it all-Russian and European-wide fame.
Since 1826, everyone who, passing through Torzhok, mentions the Pozharsky hotel and amazing chicken cutlets.
But the best advertisement for the cutlets was made by the great poet Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin in his lines:
"Dine at your leisure
At Pozharsky's in Torzhok.
Taste fried cutlets
And go light. "
And already in 1853 in the "Almanac of Gastronomes" Ignatiy Radetzky for the first time appeared a recipe for fish cutlets with mushrooms and a recipe for consomme soup with fire cutlets.
This is the culinary history of the tsarist cuisine of the Russian Empire.
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