Russian cuisine is one of the most splendid — this fact is noted by almost all the foreigners who visited Russia and experienced at its board.
Russian Cuisine Held out Against Foreign Cooking
Russian cuisine is one of the most splendid — this fact is noted by almost all the foreigners who visited Russia and experienced at its board. Nevertheless, richness of Russian table is resulted from influence of great variety of foreign dishes. Peter I brought here beef steaks, languets, schnitzels. In the times of Ekaterina Russia faced many French cooks, they made bouillons, consommés, various sauces and hors d’oeuvres traditional food.
But still Russian cuisine held out against foreign cooking culture. On the contrary — Russian cooks began to cook many borrowed dishes their own way. This was mostly due to Russian oven with its specific structure. Russian oven heated homes, they baked bread, made beer and kvass, dried foods in it. In the old recipes special heating regimes were mentioned — hot oven, oven for bread, oven after bread, free breath. Peculiarities of Russian oven made such dishes as stewed and boiled food, puddings and breads.
Diversity and Richness of Russian Dishes
Cold starters are rather diverse, tens of dishes could be made of cabbage only. Peter I added potato to traditional vegetables. For starters they cooked various cold meats and aspics, cow-heel is the most popular among them. They also preferred boiled fish or cooked with sauces or marinade. The most notable Russian food is roe, especially caviar. They also liked mushrooms — dried, marinated and salted.
Foreigners were usually fascinated by the rich assortment of Russian first course dishes. The most honored dishes were always rich stchi, solyanka fish or meat rassolnik, and, of cause, Russian borsch. One of the oldest soups is ukha — fish soup. There are many cold soups in Russian cuisine — beet soup, botvinya, okroshka.
Russian table were always abundant with meat dishes, they cooked pork, beef, veal, mutton an others. Meat was stewed, roasted, smoked. Skewered meat were also popular, as well as cooked without heating at all. And, finally, its impossible to imagine Russian table without poultry — chicken, duck, goose! Each festive board was accompanied with game — hazel grouse, black grouse, wild duck.
Fish were inevitable part of Russian meal — from royal sturgeon and whitefish to ordinary ruffes, perches and crucian carps. Fish was stewed, cooked as a whole, stuffed. They stuffed pies with fish making famous kulyebyakas and rasstegays. More often fish were cooked freshly cought, but also it was preserved cured — smoked, salted or dried.
It is impossible to overestimate the role of porridge on Russian table. Each Russian home has buckwheat, semolina, pearl-barley in its store. These cereals are used not only for making porgies but also for cooking garnishes, stuffings, baked puddings and krupeniks.
Baked food is one of the most estimated food in Russian cuisine. Pie, for example, was a symbol of fertile field, pancake — a symbol of Sun. Pies were stuffed with various foods — meat, fish, vegetables. We already mentioned traditional Russian rasstegays with fish and kulyebyaks, the other national baked food are patties, flat breads, kalatchi, muffins (bulki). Each Easter on Russian table one could find pancakes, fritters and pancake pies.
Some words about traditional Russian drinks. The original Russian drinks are kvass and prepared honeys (sbiten), kissels and compots. In Russia they traditionally prepared beer, made vodka and home wines. But European wines were not very popular in Russia, for they were served only in noble and rich houses and people hadn’t chance and possibility to evaluate classical wines.
