Every time someone writes about the "poverty" and "squalor" of Soviet culinary traditions, I want to ask the author: and with what, excuse me, they are compared?
Let me remind you: the culinary traditions of the country are not only those dishes, the bark is served on the table to His Imperial Majesty and his entourage. This, you know, is not even only what eats the nobility, merchants, officials.
Considering each step of these estates, we will get a very different picture of "food traditions" here. For one simple reason: all this mess with "culinary traditions" was most influenced in those days not even by the availability of this or that product in the public domain, but... the state of the wallet.
At the same time, I want to note: according to data from 1853, the most numerous class in Russia was the peasantry: almost 48.9 million people, or 82% of the total population, belonged to it. There were 4.3 million urban residents, or 7% of the country's population, the military (3.7 million or 6.3%), and other persons, nobles, clergy - a little more than a percent in each category.
The peasant's diet consisted of sour rye bread, porridge - buckwheat, oatmeal, barley and spelled, boiled or fried potatoes, soups (meat cabbage soup is rare, more often - lean, sometimes - ear, sometimes - milk or chicken noodles), meat was rarely consumed - according to holidays. By the way, about fish soup and fish - what they catch here is what they eat, there was no supply of fish to villages and villages... And not everywhere was fishing allowed, like hunting.
All kinds of salads, like sauces, did not know the peasant life. As well as gourmet meals. The food was simple, somewhere - not to fat, maybe I live, somewhere they baked pies more often ...
Treats, jams, smoked sausages, gourmet fish, biscuits and other confectionery delights, yes, even fruits other than those that grow nearby (most often - apples, and even then not in huge quantities)
And this, let me remind you, is for more than eighty percent of the population.
And how is the “poverty” of Soviet cuisine expressed?
1. In the absence of supposedly "traditional" products - sturgeon, hazel grouse, capers and other delicacies.
2. In the absence of imported products, most often belonging to the categories of exotic or delicacies
3. A lot of canned foods - from tomato paste instead of fresh tomatoes to (horror!) Industrial mayonnaise.
As proof, most often they cite a description of the assortment of the Eliseev merchants' store (I remind you that the commoners had nothing to do in that store, not like the peasantry).
And if you are not biased to judge, then just as before the Revolution, hazel grouses and other delicacies were inaccessible to the majority of the population, and after.
However, thanks to the development of the food industry in Central Asia, they learned that there is ocean fish, even in canned food, but in areas of risky farming began to use tomato for cooking (this is rude to make it clear that even canned food - and those needed).
However, it is even clearer: 80 percent of the population of the Russian Empire did not try anything other than the "real" Olivier, but even his Soviet version was not available to them.
As for the delicacies... They were consumed by ten percent of the population, so they remained with ten percent. (distributors, food sets, etc.), the social stratum that had the opportunity to use. And that's all ...
Therefore, when talking about culinary traditions, their impoverishment (or vice versa, enrichment), it is worth mentioning the traditions of which social group in question. Most of the population, or a smaller, so-called "elite".