We had a dispute the other day with an acquaintance - whether or not there were so-called specialties in the USSR - products that, of course, were not have names of origin, but are characteristic exclusively for our country, and in other places they are simply not taste.
He argued - no, and this cannot be. Soviet cuisine, as you know, is a kind of artificially bred fusion.
But I believe that now the cuisine of any country belongs to this category, thanks to globalization and open borders. The interpenetration of cultures was in full swing, just the merger of previously unified states in the USSR happened earlier, here and the result. The culinary culture in its original form can be preserved only in a very closed state, take, for example, Japan, which for many centuries has just been integrated into the surrounding world very tight, and then - in giant leaps rushed into the common cauldron (and now there are a lot of borrowings, and even outright food annexation of Western products - the same mayonnaise).
As for the products... Hmm ...
Here is “Vologda oil” - why isn't it a specialty? Perhaps the fact that at the time of the creation of the brand, we did not bother with the registration of the name of origin.
In addition, there were actually products that were produced only in the USSR.
Birch sap in three-liter jars, for example.
I am still wondering where it was milked out of birches on such a truly industrial scale and why it was the cheapest of all those presented in the range.
Or dry jelly - both in powder and in briquettes. Kissel is not a purely Russian dish, as some think. It is found in the cuisine of Poles, Slovaks, Morvan, especially among ritual dishes.However, on such a scale it was produced only by the industry of the USSR, which is not surprising, it was very popular.
No matter how many interviewed those who in “those” times shaved themselves abroad (and not only to the socialist countries), no one remembered any jelly, except for the production of the USSR. Here is the "bird's milk", which we consider Soviet - it was, under different names and not one hundred percent similar, but it was.
Oh, sprats! How can you forget about them, Sprats are a purely Soviet, Baltic invention. Have you ever come across sprats made in the USA or Germany? I don't.
Well, also - sprat in tomato, canned food. I may be wrong, but in general, canned food in tomato is, in my opinion, a purely Soviet invention. I mean fish. Abroad, I increasingly come across canned food in my own juice or oil, but to be honest, I have never really looked at the shelves with them, the maximum I remember is tuna and mackerel.
Mushrooms! Forest mushrooms. Not champignons or chanterelles, maximum, but all the wealth of forest mushrooms. Dried, pickled, salted in the markets, and fresh - this is a product of the territory of the USSR and now - the former Soviet republics. Abroad, they prefer civilized mushrooms... Cultural, so to speak.
Can you add something to this list?