Traditional Russian cuisine, in St. Petersburg, one of the largest museu ms in the world, founded in 1764 by Catherine the Great. The present-day Hermitage has several departments - prehistoric culture, the Antique World, Oriental cultures, history of Russian culture (including the palace interior and the 1812 Gallery), numismatics, West European art, displaying the world-famous works of Leonardo da Vinci, Rafael, Titian, Giorgione, Velazques, Murillo, Rubens, Van Dyke, Hals, Gainsborough, Poussin, Watteau, Monet, Renoir, Cezanne, Picasso, Matisse, and many others, and sculptures by Michelangelo, Rodin, etc. an important part of Russian national culture, arouses a keen interest both in Russia itself and around the world. For the centuries-old history of our country the Russian people have invented numerous culinary recipes. For many centuries Russian cuisine has been wrongly neglected – European gourmets considered it barbarian and coarse. Despite of the absence of general world recognition Russian cuisine went on developing and transferring the experience of other cultures that resulted in its enrichment with new dishes and recipes. The interest to our culinary culture arose only in the XIX century. In no time (just a few decades), Russian cuisine gained its popularity with the Europeans and then in the world. Since that time, it has gained the reputation of being one of the most delicious and varied. It must be mentioned that the originally, Old Russian cuisine was not remarkable for its diversity. For many centuries authentic Russian cuisine consisted of simple and monotonous dishes. Regardless of the great variety of dish names the dishes differed from each other only with one or two ingredients, for example they used different kinds of oil or different spices. Orthodoxy with its severe and frequent fasts exerted a major influence upon the formation of the Russian cuisine – for a long time a Lenten board (consisting of vegetables, fish, and mushrooms) and a frugal board (consisting of meat) was split. Separation of products on the one hand resulted in menu simplification and on the other hand it inspired the invention of many original dishes that nowadays are considered a visit card of Russian cuisine.

You may say that the Lenten board outdid the other as 192 to 216 days per year (it depended on the year) were considered days of religious fasts. That is why dishes made of mushrooms, fish, grain, vegetables, berries, and herbs prevailed in the Russian national cuisine. They ate vegetables (cabbage, turnips, black radishes, peas, and cucumbers) fresh, boiled, steamed, or baked. As for fish it could be steamed, boiled, fried, or stuffed either with porridge or with mushrooms, stewed, aspic, roasted in its scales or without, salted, smoked, dried, even soured, and frozen. As for caviar, they ate not only salted but also caviar boiled in vinegar or poppy milk. The variety of porridges was based on the diversity of grain-crops growing in Russia. It is well-known that every sort of grain-crop can provide for many sorts of cereals depending on the procedure of grain processing (they used it either as a whole grain or crushed it into small pieces implementing different technologies). Many Russian Lenten dishes do not have analogous ones in foreign cuisines for example sauerkraut, pickles, and dried white fungi.

The frugal board was much less diversified; they consumed meat and milk very seldom. Meat was mostly cooked in soups and porridges; milk was used for making clabber and sour cream. One of the most favourite milk products was curds that had been called «cheese» before. In Russia some dishes made of curds were called cheesy meals. They used special technology to produce curds in Russia. This technology provided for keeping curds for a long time, especially for a lengthy time of fast when people accumulated a lot of spare milk in their homes. In order to keep curds fresh, people used to preserve them in a special way: to press and stew them in an oven several times. After this processing curds became absolutely dry and could be kept fresh for many months. The necessity to preserve plain food led to the invention of «Russian butter» (a sort of melted down butter that has the property of remaining fresh for a long time). Many authentic Russian dishes are present on our tables even today. Soups always predominated over the Russian board. It is worth mentioning that the word «soup» was borrowed from another language at the end of the XVIII century when other West European dishes such as bullion, soup-purйe, etc. appeared and started being assimilated into the Russian cuisine. Before that time all liquid dishes were called «khlebova». All khlebovas could be divided into schi (soups made of cabbage or other herbs), kallya (soups made of salted cucumbers), ukha (fish soups), solyanka (spicy soups with herbs), borsch (beetroot soups), and pokhlyebka. The most popular, of course, was schi, of which there are about 60 types made of meat, fish, jowl, mushrooms, lazy schi, thin schi, daily schi, green schi, sour schi, schi with nettle, etc. There were many legends about Russian addiction to schi. It is said that if you were going to take up a long journey in winter you would freeze schi which gave it a certain and better piquancy. According to some French witnesses, when Russian troops entered Paris in 1812, Russian soldiers missed their salty soup so much that they even had to marinate vine leaves and make schi from them. Soup has managed to keep its significance even today. Regardless of the type of board – either an abundant one or a simple one - they will always supply you with soup.

The second place, on the basis of its importance among Russian dishes is occupied by kasha (porridge). Originally porridge was a ritual festive dish that was mainly consumed during holidays and feasts. In the XII century the word «kasha» was synonymous to the word «feast». So, porridge had gradually lost its ritual sense and turned into the main meal of the day for the Russians that lasted for a long time. This fact has found its reflection in the everyday language of Russians. For example one of the meanings of the word «kasha» is the meaning «a group of people». In regards to this the Russian expression «byt v odnoy kashe» meant «to work, to live or to study in one and the same group of people». In contemporary Russian language the expression «odnokashnik» still exists and means «a class-mate, a school-mate, or a group-mate». Kasha has obtained its recognition not only on the public board but also even on the tsar’s board. Peter the Great, for example, liked fine-ground barley porridge so much that he announced it to be «the favourite Romanovs’ one». In order to ennoble the favourite tsar’s fine-ground barley porridge, in the XIX century it was re-named as pearl-barley porridge, which causes associations with pears. Tsar Nicholas II has also demonstrated the remarkable and praiseworthy succession of generations and closeness to common people – they served fine-ground barley porridge to the guests who were present at the gala dinner devoted to his crowning in 1883.

One of the oldest Russian dishes is blini (pancakes). Nobody knows when blini appeared on the Russian table but it is a well-known fact that pagan Slavonic tribes used blini as a ritual dish. Various superstitions and traditions are connected with blini in Russian culture. For example blini was an obligatory dish during funeral repast, or they treated a woman in childbirth during her labors with blini. One of the traditions kept till today and connected with blini is a Pancake Week that is an ancient pagan holiday. Pancakes are cooked for the period of the whole week before Lent in every home, they eat them with different stuffing, caviar, sour cream, and with fish, meat, and mushrooms.

Another very famous Russian dish is brown bread. It is not as popular in any other country as it is in Russia and it is impossible to imagine any meal without brown bread. Brown rye bread appeared in Russia in the IX century and it immediately became a most favorable dish. They ate brown bread either in a noble palace or in a peasant’s log hut. As for white wheat bread, they started to bake it much later and it was not so widely spread until the beginning of the XX century. White bread (in some regions it is called a small loaf) was considered a part of a holiday dinner. White bread was baked not in a bakery, which was the case with brown bread, but in special confectioners where they deliberately sweetened it. Further, Russian white bread is produced in a variety ways (on a regional basis) such as Moscovsky rolls and padlock-shaped white loafs, Smolensky knot-shaped biscuits, Valdaysky ring-shaped rolls, etc.

Another meal dainty, which was known in Russia before the adoption of Christianity and survives, to this day though in a modified form, is called priyaniki (spice-cakes). In the beginning they cooked this dish of rye flour with honey and berry juice. That is why they were called «honey bread». They are the simplest and probably the tastiest cakes as they consist of almost 50% honey. Although later on they started adding more and more spices to it such as cinnamon, glove, cardamom, dried wild orange or lemon peel, Jamaica pepper, nutmeg, mint, anise, ginger, etc. These spices became the peculiarity of the dough for spice-cakes. Due to some changes in the recipe itself, the dainty has also changed its name. And of course, speaking about Russian meals, we can’t forget to mention pies – one of the most famous and favorite dishes in the Russian cuisine. It is one of the genuine national products that originated in antiquity and survived up to now avoiding any impact of foreign cultures. Since ancient times pies have been cooked during different holidays. As proof of this a Russian word «pirog» (a pie) was derived from the word «pir» (a feast). At the same time every holiday has been celebrated with a certain type of pie that has resulted in the great variety of different shapes, stuffings, and kinds of pies. You can hardly imagine a sort of pie that is not baked in Russia – they bake pies with meat, fish, herring, soft roe, eggs, curds, mushrooms, porridge, turnip, onion, and cabbage. A pie can be served as a dessert if some sort of fruit or berries such as apples, blueberries, great bilberries, raspberries, guilder-rose berries, cranberries, cherries, plums, or bird cherries is used as a stuffing. Even now pies and patties remain one of the most favorite Russian dishes that you can eat either in a restaurant or at your friends’ place.

Unfortunately, not all Russian dishes had so fortunate a destiny. Alas, many of original Russian dishes lost their significance for Russian men nowadays and many recipes no longer exist. For example, a former variety of fish dishes was considerably minimized, and that is why many Russian classical fish dishes such as «telnoye» disappeared. Of course, this fact is relevant to the loss of Russian tradition as well as to the decline in fish resources in Russia. Some vegetables are no longer in use due to the fact that other new species and vegetables have been imported to Russia and have taken root in Russia. For instance, before the potato took its place on the Russian table, turnips, which are justly considered to be an ancestor of all Russian vegetative crops, had had great significance in Russian cuisine. This vegetable has an excellent preservation property so people could eat it all year round. In villages a dried turnip was a sort of a delicacy that tasted like dried fruit. Besides that Russian ancestors (in contrast to contemporary people) used the leafy tops (especially beet tops) for salads and soups as well as edible roots.

The Russian culinary tradition has suffered great loss due to the absence of cookbooks. A first prototype of a cookbook appeared in 1547. However there was only a list of Russian dishes instead of their recipes and explanatory remarks on how to cook them. The consequence of such light-mindedness is that many linguists of our day (experts in Russian language) rack their minds trying to figure out and decode the names of some dishes. Probably some dishes and their recipes are likely to remain a mystery to us. Later on their successors – cooks working in later times – were also not much better in terms of having a vision for the future. The first cook books in Russia started appearing in the XVIII century when the passion for French cuisine reached its zenith. The recipes for Russian dishes were introduced into these books only as a remark or a supplement because they considered Russian cuisine as plebeian at that time. In addition to this the writers of culinary books did not introduced Russian recipes on purpose as they were absolutely sure that «any Russian peasant woman knows how to cook it». It resulted in an irreparable error. When in the XIX century cooks tried to resuscitate the Russian culinary tradition they failed as the recipes of many Russian dishes had been lost and there was nobody to ask. Tula landlord, Mr. V.A. Levshin, compiled the first Russian book of recipes entitled «Russian Cooking», in 1816. The author of the book wrote many descriptions by heart and that is why «Russian Cooking» does not reflect the richness of the Russian board.

It should be noticed that the passion for European cuisine mentioned here had its positive influence on the Russian culinary tradition. Until the XVIII century Russian cooking skill, in the sense of the skill to combine different ingredients and to reveal and accentuate their tastes, was developed on a very low level. The way of cooking in Russian ovens on the one hand gave certain piquancy to Russian dishes but on the other hand it limited the number of thermal food processing technologies. They did not mix different products, they did not grind them; even fish or meat were not processed into a minced stuffing and were used as a whole layer. In addition to this Russian cuisine was subject to church tradition, so every day had to provide its own board in compliance with the church calendar. Even wealthy people had to observe this peculiar gastronomical calendar that, of course, did not contribute to the development of any cooks’ culinary creativity and skills.

However, from the XVII century Russian cuisine started acquiring some European features. Since the time of Peter the Great, Russian nobility borrowed and introduced some foreign traditions. Traveling around Europe rich grandees employed foreign cooks and brought them to Russia – Dutch and German cooks at first and then French. French culinary schools made Russian cuisine acquainted with such processes as the combination of different products, grinding of ingredients, using exact dosage in accordance with a recipe, which had not been customary in Russia before. The French made the Russians acquainted with some new kitchen appliances widely used in West Europe. A great number of popular dishes, which had been borrowed from European culinary culture, took their place on the Russian board, for example cutlets, sausage, omelets, salads, mousse, fruit compote, etc. In the beginning, foreign dishes were simply borrowed from foreign cultures. Later on they started developing new dishes on the basis of Russian recipes with French editing. After the Patriotic War of 1812 under the ascent of Russian patriotism, Russian culture flourished. Russian cuisine was going through its heyday too. At that time Russian cuisine eventually got its recognition in the world. By the mid of the XIX century Russia had had quite a diversified and extravagant culinary repertoire fixed in numerous cookery books. Just in the XIX century, Russian cuisine was enriched with many dishes that crowned the daily meal or a holiday dinner of a contemporary Russian man. Some of these dishes have even gained their acknowledgement in western countries though some gourmets are not even suspect of the Russian origin of these dishes. The reason for this is that many dishes originating in Russia were given French names or the names of the French cooks who invented them. So many Russian dishes with foreign names appear on our tables, for example beefsteak, languets, escalope, and beef stroganoff.

At the same time salads became wide spread and one of the most favorite dishes on the Russian board. The idea itself had been borrowed from the French culinary tradition but Russian creativity introduced many new salads as well. One such Russian innovation was vinaigrette that is known in the world as a Russian salad. Genuine Russian products such as sauerkraut and pickled cucumbers, which are used to make vinaigrette, add zest to this salad. A specific taste of this salad is reflected in its name «vinaigrette», so the Latin word «vinos» means sour. Another very famous salad originating in Russia is called «Olivier». A French cook, Lucien Olivier who ran «Hermitage» tavern in Moscow, invented it. Nowadays you can see «Olivier» salad either on the menu lists of a restaurant or on the dinner tables of Russian families. However, the salad invented by the French man has very little in common with its contemporary analogue. According to the old genuine recipe of the cook, which was partially lost after his death, the salad «Olivier» that was served in the «Hermitage» tavern was cooked from hazel grouse, crayfish, veal tongue, pressed caviar, pickled cucumbers, and many other delicacies. The French did not invent all Russian dishes. French chefs brought up a whole string of bright Russian cooks who made their considerable contribution to the development of Russian and World cuisine. Some dishes invented by Russian cooks got their Russian names for example pozharskiye cutlets, which were highly admired by Pushkin. The begetter of these chicken cutlets rolled in dried bread crust is Darya Pozharskaya, the wife of a tavern owner in Torzhok. They tell the story that Alexander I suddenly dropped in at the tavern in Torzhok after his carriage broke down. They decided to have their meal in the best tavern of the city, Pozharskiy’s place, where they served veal cutlets. So they ordered the cutlets. But unfortunately the tavern ran out of veal so Darya had to prepare chicken cutlets. The tsar liked the cutlets very much and very soon they became a most famous Russian dish.

Other very popular Russian cutlets are called kievskiye. They also have a very interesting history. The first time kievskiye cutlets were served; they were made of a whole piece of chicken brisket with some melted butter inside. They were served in the beginning of the XX century in the Merchant Club Restaurant situated on Nevsky Prospect. At that time they had been called «novo-mikhailovskiye» cutlets due to the fact that the restaurant was not far from the Mikhailovsky Palace. Time was merciless to the Merchant Club and its restaurant but it had mercy on the dish. The dish was consigned to oblivion for a long time but in 1947 it was served for dinner to a small group of Ukrainian diplomats, who had just arrived from Paris where they signed a Peace Treaty with Germany. During the dinner these cutlets got their new baptism and revival. This dish became a regular on the menus of all restaurants included in the «Intourist» chain for many years resulting in the fact that the whole world knows «novo-mikhailovskiye» cutlets as «kievskiye» cutlets. The Soviet epoch made Russian cuisine enrich with the traditions of other nationalities of the former USSR. So Ukrainian borsch, Siberian pelmeni, Kazakh manty, Uzbec plov, and Caucasian shashlyk can be added to the Russian menu. All these dishes made Russian cuisine one of the multifarious cuisines in the world. The main advantage of Russian cuisine is its variety and readiness to borrow and creatively process different culinary traditions.