Nightmare, horror reigned on Soviet festive tables, and in general they were the embodiment of the dullness and decay of socialist life, in reality, each fish tail was harvested exclusively with battle. So says the author of the publication on Meduza, restaurateur Ivan Shishkin.
Quite an old publication, and, I think, many have already gone through it, but a smart feed threw it to me only now - many years later. I can’t ignore it.
If only simply because, on the one hand, I do not really like the traditions of home gatherings with a table bursting with dishes that will remain undernourished, and, on the other hand, annoy "show-offs", namely "show-off" only can explain the passion for pouring slops on culinary traditions USSR.
If you read such authors, you want to sob over the fate of the poor citizens, forced day after day starve, if only on the festive table it turned out that now with such contempt describe... restaurateurs.
Take Olivier, for example. I don't like this salad, I don't really like dishes richly seasoned with mayonnaise, but ...
Ladies and gentlemen, let us remember that "the very real" Olivier ", about which they talk, rolling their eyes with a breath, was available only to a select few - to those who could pay for either a trip to the restaurant of the French maestro, or the work of him or his cooks at home.
Official and service people, teachers, doctors, clerks, merchants (I'm not talking about peasants), in general, for all those who did not belong to the elite of Russian society, salad with crayfish tails and other delights is not shone. Even on holidays. And the option that got up on the Soviet festive table, the citizens of the Russian Empire, that itself, in which rivers of milk flowed between the jelly banks, would seem very tasty (and, most importantly - hearty).
And the herring under the fur coat - too.
Terrible mayonnaise calories? Undoubtedly, the industrial grade mayonnaise sauce is terrible. But here is quinoa with nettles, or the absence of sauces in the menu as a class (which, by the way, was observed among a huge part of the population of the Russian Empire, that is, among peasants), is it better?
You can sigh as much as you like about how wonderful, say, Mediterranean cuisine (Italian and others like it), but sorry if there is no coast, and the climatic conditions are such that tomatoes and peppers in the beds do not ripen, then what then? In general, the culinary traditions of any country primarily depend on what products are always available ...
Oh, sprats! By the way, the author also walked through them.
I don't know if we can say that they are better than surstremming, for example, or hakarla? Both are now served as specialties and delicacies. Let's admit that sprats are one thing, surstreming is another, and everyone has the right to make their own choice, but it doesn't do honor to water someone else's choice, does it?
Or jellied meat.
I can remind (offhand) another culinary fetish created due to the fact that it was necessary to dispose of junk pieces of meat and bones: demiglas sauce. Do you know what the difference is? The fact that demiglas is now served in a restaurant as a delicacy ...
I have only one conclusion - those who sell "overseas" have to find fault with their own. Otherwise, there will be no profit. And Soviet feasts... yes, Soviet cuisine is far from sophisticated (like the smithy of most countries in the world, what we are presented as sophistication most often is the fruit of the work of marketers). In the USSR, the task was to feed. And feed everyone. And not selectively, as it was in the Russian Empire. Well, or as some are now suggesting ...
Something like that…