Many experts involved in the study of life in Old Russia, its features and culinary dishes, speak out negatively against the forcible introduction of the custom of tea drinking into the Russian national cuisine, instead of hearty and tasty food. Because it is unlikely that a simple tea party can replace a hearty lunch. Because the Russian people, by virtue of their customs, the Orthodox faith, constantly have to fast. And regular "tea drinking" is unlikely to bring special benefit body.

In addition, there is an opinion that in order for food to bring as much benefit to the body as possible, a person needs to eat what grows in the climatic zone of his residence. It would also not be superfluous to add how the reforms of Peter the Great influenced the original Russian cuisine. Because Russian cuisine not so much gained after that as lost after many borrowings from Western European cuisine.

But, of course, this issue is controversial, so here we can cite the stories of some well-known experts in the field of Russian culture. After a digression into history, many readers will remain unconvinced, but on the whole they will be enriched with data on the lost values ​​​​of our people, especially in the field of nutrition, especially since culinary science is dwindling.

For example, the writer Chivilikhin writes in his notes that in ancient times the Vyatichi, Drevlyans, Radimichi, northerners and other Proto-Russian peoples ate almost the same food as we do now - meat, poultry and fish, vegetables, fruits and berries, eggs , cottage cheese and porridge. Then oil was added to this food, seasoned with anise, dill, vinegar. Bread was consumed in the form of carpets, rolls, loaves, pies. They didn’t know tea and vodka then, but they brewed intoxicated honey, beer and kvass.

Of course, the writer Chivilikhin is right about something. They drank honey, and it flowed down their mustaches. But at the same time, we should not forget that in our country the Christian Orthodox Church calls to keep, if not strict, then semi-strict fast almost all year round. And not all products from the above list could be eaten.
If we talk about the original Russian cuisine, then its first mention dates back to the 11th century. Later records can be found in various chronicles, lives. And it is here that a complete picture of what was included in the daily diet of a simple Russian peasant is given. And since the 15th century, we can already talk about Russian cuisine, with established traditions and original dishes.

Let us recall such well-known sayings as: "Eat half full, but drink half drunk - you will live a full century" or "Shti and porridge - our food ...".

That is, even church dogmas did not in the least harm either the conscience or the Russian stomach. Therefore, it must be said that since ancient times, Russia has been grain, fish, mushroom, berry ...

From generation to generation, our people ate porridge, grain dishes. “Porridge is our mother, and rye bread is our father!” Grain formed the basis of Russian cuisine. Each family put in large quantities rye, unleavened and sour dough. From it they prepared carols, juicy, kneaded noodles, bread. And when in the 10th century appeared Wheat flour, there is already just expanse - kalachi, pancakes, pies, loaves, pancakes ...

In addition, various rye, oat and wheat kissels were cooked from grain crops. Who today can boast of knowing the recipe for oatmeal jelly?
A good help to the table were various vegetables from the garden, for example, turnips. It was eaten in any form - even raw, even steamed, even baked. The same can be said about peas. Carrots were not grown then, but radish, especially black radish, was widely used. Cabbage was used as fresh, and in sauerkraut.

Initially, the brew or bread was always fish. It was later that dishes such as mash, talkers, cabbage soup, borscht and botvini appeared. And in the 19th century, such a thing as soup already appeared. But even without this, there was something to choose from food at the table. In general, in Russia they valued a good eater, because as a person eats, such is he at work.

To roughly imagine what we are talking about, we read Domostroy: “... at home and flour and all kinds of pies, and all kinds of pancakes, and sotsni, and pipes, and all sorts of cereals and pea noodles, and squash peas, and zobonets, and kundumtsy, and boiled and juice food: pies with pancakes and mushrooms, and with saffron milk mushrooms, and with mushrooms, and with poppy seeds, and with porridge, and with turnips, and with cabbage, and with what God sent; or nuts in juice, and Korowai people…”. In addition, lingonberry water and cherries in molasses, raspberry juice and other sweets were always on the table. Apples, pears, boiled kvass and molasses, prepared marshmallows and levoshniks. We would like to take a look at such a meal, at least once to try!

The main secret of our cuisine was the Russian oven. It was in it that all cooked dishes acquired a unique taste and aroma. This was also facilitated by cast-iron pots with thick walls. After all, what is cooking in a Russian oven? This is not boiling or frying, but the gradual languishing of a brew or bread. When there is a uniform heating of the dishes from all sides. And this primarily contributed to the preservation of all taste, nutritional and aromatic properties.

Yes, and the bread in the Russian oven was distinguished by a crispy crust and uniform baking, a good rise in the dough. Is it possible to compare bread baked in a Russian oven with what we find on the shelves of our stores? After all, this can hardly be called Bread!

In general, the Russian stove was a kind of symbol of our country. On it, children were conceived, and gave birth, and slept, and were also treated. They ate on the stove and died on it. The whole life of a Russian person, the whole meaning revolved around the Russian stove.
Well, in the end, let's face the truth: a simple person did not eat chic in Russia, they never ate their fill in the village. But this is not because the traditional Russian cuisine was poor, but because it was hard for a peasant to live in Russia. Big family, many mouths - how to feed everyone? Therefore, not out of greed, they ate poorly, but because of poverty. The farmer had nothing, he saved on everything, saving an extra penny.

However, all the same, we can safely say that there is nothing better than real Russian food - simple, but satisfying, tasty and nutritious.

No related links found



The proposed article and video material, without any doubt, will be received with interest by our associates. Extremely curious facts are revealed to us in the process of getting to know the nutritional habits of the ancient Slavs. By no means denying the usefulness of vegetarianism and Ayurvedic cuisine, however, we are forced to admit that the food of our ancestors was much more diverse. In places where, due to natural conditions, it was difficult to grow grain or keep pets, the Slavs were forced to eat what a successful hunt or fishing would send them. And yet bread, milk, kvass and porridge are our strength. It's hard not to agree.

(youtube)195ExmzrJB8(/youtube)

FOOD OF THE EASTERN SLAVES

The traditional food of the East Slavic peoples has not been studied enough. The economic activity of the population was studied much more intensively. The methods of processing products and preparing various dishes from them, that is, methods folk cuisine attracted much less attention. Meanwhile, it is in the various details of the folk cuisine, in the daily diet and nutrition, in the festive and ritual food, that the characteristic features of the traditional everyday way of life of the ethnic group are manifested with particular brightness.

In the 19th - early 20th centuries, information about the food of Russians, Ukrainians and Belarusians was published mainly in local publications. They characterized the nutrition of the population in one county, province or in separate settlements and were written by doctors, statisticians, military personnel, etc. This determined a different approach to the phenomena under consideration. Thus, in medical articles, the goal was to find out the causes of common diseases and, in this regard, attention was paid mainly to malnutrition. The composition and quality of products were taken into account in statistical and topographical descriptions. Finally, some works vividly depicted the richness and diversity of the population's culinary skills.

In general, we can say that in those days there was a collection work, and there was no unity in understanding the subject of research and methodology. Therefore, such publications are fragmentary. Researchers usually stated the predominance of plant products, largely attributing it to the restrictions imposed by the Christian religion, which established fast days when it was forbidden to eat meat and drink milk. There were more than two hundred such days in a year, which in itself established certain proportions in the diet. Reporting sample menu residents of a particular locality, many authors have listed the most popular dishes that are eaten in fasting and in the meat-eater. Basically, the nutritional conditions of the peasantry were displayed, which in most works was considered as a whole, without taking into account its social stratification.

Bread, dough products, cereals, stews

The leading branch of the economy of the Eastern Slavs was grain farming, so flour and cereal products formed the basis of nutrition. Bread was especially important. Due to its high calorie content, good taste, it has been and is an invariable component of the diet of all segments of the population. The expression: "Bread and salt" - served as one of the forms of greeting, meaning the wish for well-being. Especially honored guests and young spouses were greeted with bread and salt on the wedding day, they went to visit the woman in labor with bread. Guests were treated to bread products and brought as a gift to the owners when they went to visit. Going on a long journey, first of all, they stocked up on bread. None of the other types of food can be compared with it for the variety of both methods of preparation and finished products.

Bread differs in the types of flour, its quality, the methods of setting the dough and its recipe, the nature of baking, and the shape. Rye bread "black" - has played a major role in Russia since ancient times. Its predominant consumption in the northern and middle zone of the settlement of the Eastern Slavs (non-chernozem lands) was explained by the zonal features of agriculture: the predominance of rye crops over wheat crops. The expansion of wheat crops observed during the 19th century in the southern part of the chernozem steppes contributed to the fact that by the beginning of the 20th century, wheat - "white" - bread became the main one in the south and southeast. In some places (Altai, Minusinsk Territories), rye bread was no longer consumed at all, and in some areas rye-wheat - "gray" - bread was baked.

However, the rural population did not have enough of their own reserves of rye and wheat, so flour of other grain crops was also used. They baked the so-called chaff (in Belarus) - bread from wholemeal rye flour, to which barley, buckwheat or oatmeal flour was added to half. Depending on the type of flour used, bread was called grechanik (with buckwheat flour), yachnik (with barley flour), millet (with millet). In the Carpathians and in the Urals, where there were poor grain harvests, oatmeal was also used.

In lean years or in the spring, when stocks were running out, various impurities from dried and crushed plants were added to the flour. So, in Belarus and in the Carpathians, in case of crop shortages, bread with the addition of grated potatoes was very common (Belarusians call it bulby bread, Hutsuls - riplyanik, Lemkos - banduryannik). In general, a lot of such impurities were then known: among cultivated plants, it is most often potatoes, then carrots, beets, bran; from wild - crushed bark of pine and oak, acorns, wild buckwheat, quinoa, fern, etc.

Depending on the quality of the flour, sieve breads were distinguished - from flour sifted through a sieve (with a frequent mesh), sieve breads - from flour sifted through a sieve (with a rare mesh), and fur (or chaff) - from wholemeal flour.

The Eastern Slavs, like other Slavic peoples, baked bread from "sour" dough. The oldest methods of baking bread from unleavened dough in the form of cakes were preserved in the people's memory, but were usually used on a case-by-case basis. As the main and everyday unleavened bread was distributed only in the Carpathians: the boilies baked it from oat flour(Oshchipok), Lemkos and Hutsuls - from corn (among the Lemkos it was called adzimok, oschinok, among the Hutsuls - small, cake). They baked it just before eating, kneading the dough in a wooden trough, often without salt.

The preparation of sour bread required a longer processing of products. The flour taken for baking was carefully sifted into a special wooden trough (selnitsa, nochva, nochva, netska). Then the dough was kneaded in wooden (hollowed out or cooperage), and in Ukraine in some places also in clay kneaders (northern Russian kvashnya, southern Russian dezha, Ukrainian dizha, white dzyazha) and at the same time fermented. Yeast, special mixtures with hops, kvass or beer grounds, and most often leftover dough from previous baking were used as a starter. In the southern Russian villages, scalded bread was also prepared, for which the flour was brewed with boiling water before fermentation. The well-kneaded dough was placed in a warm place where it suited. In order for the bread to be lush, zealous housewives "tamped" them and let them come up a second time.

The finished dough was cut into rounded loaves (in the form of tall thick cakes) and baked in a hut oven on a cleanly swept hearth (hearth bread). Bread was sometimes placed on cabbage leaves, and in some areas in the 20th century tin rounded cylindrical or oblong rectangular shapes (tinned bread) were used.

Usually bread was baked once a week, but in areas with stable high yields (south of Western Siberia), daily baking became customary.

In cities at the end of the 19th century, bread was usually bought ready-made. It was baked in bakeries and sold in bakeries. In bakeries, a wide variety of products were made from rich (with the addition of butter and eggs) wheat dough, which differed both in the recipe of the dough and in shape. These were various rounded and oblong rolls and buns, pretzels (in the shape of a figure eight), kalachi (round or curly), etc. From wheat dough, rolled into a ring, boiled in water and then baked, bagels, bagels and dryers (dried and small in size) were made. All these products were very popular. They were sold in bakeries and shops, sold at bazaars and fairs, in taverns and tea houses. They are widely included in the life of the urban commoner and, together with tea for many, were a daily breakfast. These products were brought to the village as gifts.

In the countryside, small cookies were baked in a frying pan from sour dough left when cutting bread (the Belarusians called them skavarodniki, the Ukrainians called pampushki) in the form of flat cakes or rings, which were usually served for breakfast (in the north and in Siberia they were called soft, soft breakfast).

From pieces of bread, various bread leftovers, crusts and crackers, they prepared tyurya, or murtsovka, which on fast days was the main food of the poorest sections of the population of the city and village (with the exception of Transcarpathia, where it was almost unknown). Tyurya was pieces of bread crumbled in salted water, kvass, spring Birch juice, whey, milk, and in Belarus they used a decoction of potatoes for this (the dish was called kapluk). As food for children, prison also entered the life of the wealthy segments of the population: pieces of white bread or buns were soaked in milk or cream with sugar and served as a sweet.

On holidays, pies (pie) were baked from sour wheat or rye dough. In areas with unstable grain harvests (Belarus, the Carpathians, Russian non-chernozem provinces), bread baked from flour of a higher quality was also considered pies, for northern Russians and Belarusians - wheat, for southern Russians and in the Carpathians - even rye, but from sifted flour . For Russians in other areas and Ukrainians, pies with filling are more typical, which were widely used vegetables, berries, mushrooms, fish, eggs, meat, cottage cheese, cereals, and so on. It is interesting to note that the areas of the most common types of fillings for pies have developed. So, the Russians of the northern provinces and Siberia loved pies with wild berries (blueberries, cloudberries, bird cherry) and especially with fish; in the southern strip of Russia and Ukraine - with garden berries. Small cakes were very popular, on which they put a filling of cottage cheese (cheesecakes) or another kind of dough (shanegi, common in the European North, in the Urals and Siberia), as well as without filling at all, smeared with sour cream on top (pampushkas of Ukrainians and Belarusians ), sprinkled with salt, cumin, poppy seeds, crushed hemp seeds (lacunas, juices of Belarusians), with mushrooms, with porridge. Pies baked from sour dough in the Carpathians were called baked pies and were rarely cooked. More common there were pies made from unleavened dough - knishi stuffed with boiled potatoes, sauerkraut, sometimes cottage cheese and usually had a triangular shape.

Ritual cookies were baked from sour dough, specially designed for annual and family holidays. Each of them was designed in a certain way. So, on Holy Week, for Maundy Thursday, they prepared cookies in the form of animal figures (Russian roes, cows), which were given to livestock, by March 9 ("forty martyrs"), in commemoration of the arrival of birds, larks were baked from dough, on Ascension - ladders (oblong a pie with transverse crossbars), for Epiphany - crosses, for Easter Easter cakes (high lush rich bread in cylindrical shapes). In these cookies, ancient religious and magical ideas were reflected in a materialized form, for example: a ladder symbolized the ascension and was baked both on the corresponding holiday and on the days of commemoration of the dead.

Large ritual cakes for the wedding were baked from the best varieties of flour. In the Russian North, in the Volga region, the Urals and Siberia, such pies were called kurniks, they were stuffed with chicken, lamb, and beef. In the southern Russian provinces (on the Don, Kuban), as well as in Ukraine and Belarus, high lush bread was baked for a wedding - a loaf. It was decorated with cones baked from dough, animal figurines, as well as flowers or tree branches.

Pancakes (Russian pancake, white pancake, Ukrainian pancake) were an ancient ritual dish. They were baked from sour dough of any kind of flour (buckwheat, millet, oatmeal, barley, sometimes pea), and in the 20th century mainly from wheat; they ate with butter and lard, with sour cream and liquid cottage cheese, sometimes with honey, with salted fish and sturgeon caviar. For Russians and Belarusians, pancakes have long been an obligatory dish during funeral rites. Until now, Russians eat them in large quantities and with a variety of seasonings in the spring, on the holidays of seeing off winter. Significantly less used pancakes from sour dough among Ukrainians (mlintsi). They were baked in the central Ukrainian provinces, usually from buckwheat flour (Grechaniki). More often, pancakes were prepared from unleavened dough, known to all East Slavic peoples (Russian blintsy, Ukrainian and Bel. nalisniki).

At the end of the 19th - beginning of the 20th century, in the cities of central Russia, gingerbread, known since the 17th century, which were distributed throughout Russia as a festive treat, sometimes served as ritual cookies. They were baked from round dough with abundant spices, on molasses with honey or on pure honey, sprinkled with raisins on top, decorated with embossed patterns (gingerbread patterns were cut out on pear or linden boards). Gingerbread was brought as a gift to relatives and distributed to the poor on the day of commemoration of the dead. They have long been a favorite hotel at all wedding and pre-wedding parties, and in the cities they replaced a kurnik and a loaf.

Many different dishes were prepared from unleavened dough. Cakes are known to all agricultural peoples. Russians, Ukrainians, Belarusians baked them from flour of any kind, usually as a substitute for bread when there was a lack of it. In some areas of Belarus, flat cakes (lapuny), smeared with cottage cheese, crushed poppy seeds or hemp, were sent to relatives during family holidays.

Dishes made from dough cooked in boiling water, milk, broth are very common not only among the Eastern Slavs, but also among many peoples of Western Europe, as well as the peoples of the East. Of these, the most famous is noodle soup (Russian noodles, Ukrainian lokshina, white noodles). A tough dough for noodles was kneaded on eggs, thinly rolled out, cut into small narrow strips, dried and then boiled in broth or milk. Less complicated cooking had other soups, prepared with boiled dough, selected with a spoon (Ukrainian dumplings, Russian dumplings) or torn off (torn). They ate boiled pieces of dough without broth, pouring them with sour cream (Ukrainian dumplings) or "milk" from poppy and hemp (white kama).

Dishes made from unleavened dough in the form of small pies with filling boiled in water were very popular: dumplings and dumplings.

Dumplings were a favorite national food of Ukrainians, they were also prepared by Belarusians and Russians in the southern provinces. The dough for dumplings was thinly rolled out, cut into circles and stuffed with cottage cheese, shredded cabbage, and in summer time- berries, especially cherries. After boiling, dumplings were taken out and eaten with sour cream or butter. Ukrainians also made dumplings from yeast dough, stuffed with plums or syrah (cottage cheese).

Dumplings were a favorite dish among the Russians of the Urals and Siberia. The dough for them was rolled out not with a sheet, but with a thin sausage; they cut it, kneaded each small piece into a cake; stuffed with minced meat and folded into a half ring. Boiled dumplings were taken out of the broth, if with spicy seasoning: vinegar, pepper, mustard. There is an opinion that dumplings were adopted by Russians from the peoples of the Urals (the Komi-Permyak word "pelnyan" means "bread ear"). In Siberia, in winter, dumplings were prepared in large quantities, frozen, put in bags and used as needed.

Russians, Ukrainians and Belarusians who lived in Central Asia adopted from the local peoples a dish similar to dumplings - manti. They were made larger, stuffed with minced meat with large quantity onions and steamed on special grills.

Dough products boiled in boiling fat, among the Eastern Slavs, as well as among many other peoples of Eurasia, were dishes of the festive table. Their forms were very varied. Most often, the dough was cut into narrow strips (Russian brushwood, shavings), in Ukraine they rolled round nuts (peas), they were served at a wedding, in Siberia they used various tin forms (they were dipped in dough, and then in boiling fat). In cast-iron molds with drawings, the dough was dried and waffles were made, which were considered a delicacy.

In Ukraine, dough in the form of balls was boiled in boiling honey (cones). Brewing in honey, as you know, is very common among the Caucasian peoples.

Among the everyday dishes were easy to prepare, but extremely high-calorie dishes from custard or steamed flour. Russians and Ukrainians everywhere used salamata (Ukrainian salamakha), which was made from fried flour, brewed with boiling water and steamed in an oven. The finished salamata was poured over with fat (animal or vegetable). Kulaga (kvasha) was prepared from sweetish malt flour with the addition of viburnum berries in the north and Siberia, and fruits in the south. This sweet dish was served as a treat, usually during Lent. The Ukrainians prepared kash from a mixture of millet, buckwheat and rye flour; from buckwheat, strongly boiled flour, they made cakes that were eaten with fresh milk. Ukrainians and Belarusians prepared grout in the form of flour crumbs brewed with boiling water (Russian grout, Ukrainian grout, white zatsirka). Liquid dishes made from boiled flour (bautukha, kalatukha, zatsirka) were especially common among Belarusians. They are still boiled now, but already in milk. Similar dishes are known in Poland (zacirca).

Russians, Ukrainians and Belarusians used oatmeal to make oatmeal (also called milta by Belarusians), which some researchers consider an ancient Slavic dish. For this, oats were steamed, then dried and crushed into flour. When eating, it was diluted with salted or sweetened water, kvass, milk, or added to liquid dishes. In the North and in the Urals, oatmeal was one of the ubiquitous dishes; Ukrainians prepared it less often than others. Oatmeal was very common in central Europe and in Asia, but it is almost unknown to the southern Slavs.

Kissels were cooked from fermented flour (most often oatmeal, as well as rye and pea flour) (white zhur, Ukrainian kisil). Flour for this was poured with boiling water, defended for several days, changing the water ("fermented"), and then filtered and boiled. Russians and Belarusians ate these thick jelly with the addition of cow or vegetable oil, and Ukrainians also with full honey and milk. Kissels were an ancient ritual dish, they were served at all family holidays (homelands, weddings), as well as at commemorations.

No less than flour, cereal dishes were also common, and especially cereals. In the Russian North, in the Urals, in Siberia and in the Ukrainian Carpathians, oatmeal and barley groats were mainly used, in the south - millet, on the border with Moldova - corn. Greek was very much loved by the East Slavic peoples, which is not very common in other countries. Rice groats was available to the rural population of the southern strip of Siberia and Central Asia, where it was purchased from the local indigenous population. In the European part of the country, only the privileged strata of the urban population had the opportunity to buy rice. In the Amur region, they used budu - Manchurian millet.

Kashi was boiled in water and milk, steamed in the oven. From time immemorial, they have been ritual food, they were fed to the young at the wedding, they were served at christenings, cooked boiled kutya (sometimes with honey or raisins).

From ancient times, porridges were eaten with liquid hot dishes (shchi, borscht), in the south-west of Ukraine, kulesha was served with liquid dishes - corn porridge, which replaced bread. Widespread among Ukrainians and Russians in the southern regions, kulesh (Ukrainian kulish) was a liquid millet porridge boiled with lard (in the 20th century also with potatoes and onions). Russians in the northern provinces of Siberia and the Urals prepared thick, so-called "thick" cabbage soup, boiling barley groats with flour dressing. In the 20th century, potatoes began to be added. Ukrainian groups in the Carpathians made "rye borscht". To do this, the flour was poured with water and fermented, and then boiled. Since that time, this borscht has been eaten with separately boiled potatoes. Belarusians also prepared a hot dish of cereals (krupnik).

Liquid hot dishes (Russian stews, Ukrainian yushki) were also cooked from vegetables. However, cereals or a dressing made from flour loosened in water were often added to them. Gradually, these dishes became predominant. From legumes, peas were used for stew, and in the south, beans and lentils.

Shchi (“Schi and porridge is our food”) was the most popular dish among Russians in the middle and southern strip of the country. For their preparation, sour or fresh cabbage was used, root vegetables were added to it and seasoned with flour dressing. A similar dish among Belarusians was called cabbage.

In Ukraine and in the southern Russian and Belarusian provinces, a favorite hot dish was borsch, which was made from beets, sometimes with the addition of other vegetables. It was boiled on beet kvass (the beets were poured with water and kept for a day - kvass) or on bread kvass (syrovets). Ukrainians put a lot in borscht different vegetables in addition to beets: cabbage, potatoes, onions, dill, parsley, beans, seasoned with flour or cereal grout, lard or vegetable oil. In the Kuban, plums were also added to borscht.

In the spring, from young beets and their tops, in many places they prepared botvinya (white. batsvinne) - a stew, to which they added various greens that had grown by this time.

In fast days, hot dishes were cooked on meat broth or seasoned with sour cream, whitened with milk. On Lent 6, they cooked them with mushrooms, fish (in summer - fish soup from fresh fish, in winter - stew with smelt - small dried fish, Ukrainians - with ram - dried fish). Lenten hot dishes were seasoned with vegetable oil.

Vegetables

The use of vegetables differed depending on the possibilities of their cultivation: the food of the inhabitants of the northern provinces was poor in them; the further south, the more various vegetables were used. In the northernmost zone of vegetable growing, only onions, garlic and horseradish were grown. Simple dishes were prepared from onions: they ate it green and onion, cut it, crushed it with salt and ate it with bread, sometimes washing it down with kvass. In poor families, this was a common breakfast. Onions and garlic were added in abundance when boiling and stewing vegetable and meat dishes as a seasoning. The East Slavic peoples generally valued hot and spicy seasonings very much, but they used them in relatively small quantities, while more in the southern provinces. Horseradish, vinegar (in the north), mustard (in the south), and in some places also pepper were served at the table in wealthy houses. Imported spices (saffron, ginger, cinnamon, cardamom, nutmeg) and almonds were more familiar to the townspeople, and the wealthy added them to the festive table, and the rest - on special days, such as Easter.

Radishes, swedes, turnips, cabbages, potatoes, carrots, and cucumbers grew in the non-chernozem zone.

For a long time, vegetables (except potatoes, which spread late) were cooked from vegetables: vegetables were heated in an oven in a sealed container until soft.

The radish kept well throughout the winter. It was finely cut (sliced) or grated (trikha) and eaten with vegetable oil, sour cream, kvass.

Rutabaga was eaten boiled, finely chopped and seasoned with milk. Belarusians cooked stew from rutabagas and carrots.

Turnip until the 19th century occupied a leading place in a number of vegetable crops. It was eaten raw, steamed in the oven, dried for future use. In the northern provinces, turnips sometimes acted as a substitute for bread. Its value has fallen due to the spread of potatoes. In the second half of the 19th century, it was already known everywhere and won general recognition.

Potatoes were boiled, fried, baked, eaten whole, chopped, mashed, with the addition of meat, butter, dairy products, seasoned with sour and salty vegetables. However, eating it was not the same everywhere: the Old Believers treated it with prejudice as an innovation, called it a "devil's apple"; the Russian old-timers of Siberia also ate little of it. But among the Belarusians, it acquired the greatest importance, they prepared a large number of dishes from it, baked cakes, pancakes (dzeruny), added it to bread, cooked soup, made potato porridge (kamy, potato porridge). This brings Belarusians closer to their western neighbors: Poles, Germans, Czechs, Slovaks.

For all walks of life, potatoes have become necessary product, but its importance was especially great among low-income workers and peasants, where in the years of grain shortages it became almost the only food. The resulting monotony in nutrition adversely affected the health of poor families, and especially children.

Cabbage was no less important in nutrition. In autumn and early winter, it was consumed fresh, the rest of the time - pickled (sour, salty). For sauerkraut, cabbage was chopped in wooden troughs with special cuts. Women from several families usually united for this work (gathered for a kakustka) and prepared several barrels for each household. Sometimes small whole heads of cabbage were laid among the chopped cabbage (they were considered a delicacy), apples, carrots were added, which improved the taste. Sauerkraut, chopped or shredded (very finely chopped), was on the table every day in winter. It was seasoned with vegetable oil or kvass and eaten with bread. Also, cucumbers were eaten fresh in summer and autumn, and salted in barrels for the winter. In autumn, as a delicacy, slightly salted, delicate in taste lightly salted cucumbers were served to the table.

Everywhere in Russia, red or table beet was grown, and in the black earth zone of the European part, white sugar beet was also grown. Boiled red beets were eaten (especially in the south), borscht and botvinia were cooked with it. Both types were used to make kvass: they were fermented, and sugar was also simmered in an oven.

Of great importance in nutrition, especially in the black earth belt, was pumpkin (Ukrainian, Bel. Garbuz). The pumpkin was fried, baked, porridge was cooked with it. The seeds were dried and "husked" in their free time, from which they received edible oil or crushed and ate with bread, pancakes, cakes. In the southern part of this zone, tomatoes (tomatoes), marrows, eggplants, parsnips, and peppers are widespread.

Vegetables were used as a side dish for other dishes and as an independent dish. They were stewed by cutting, each type separately or in a mixture. In the summer, okroshka (mainly from potatoes, onions, cucumbers) was prepared with vegetables on kvass, with the addition of eggs, fish, and meat. Soups made from vegetables were common among Belarusians (rutabaga hernia, pumpkin garbuzyanka, carrots from carrots, etc.).

Fruits, wild fruits and plants

In Ukraine, in the Volga region, Central Asia, and the Amur region, gourds grew - melons and watermelons. They were eaten fresh, watermelons, in addition, salted, melons dried.

In the European part of the country, almost everywhere, with the exception of the cold regions of the North, gardens were planted and apple trees, pears, cherries, plums, cherries and various berry bushes were grown. Rowan and bird cherry trees were also planted in some places. The most common were apple and cherry trees. Some ancient folk varieties ("Vladimirskaya cherry", "Nezhinskaya mountain ash"), as well as those bred by Tambov breeders in the 19th century (apple trees "Antonovskaya", "Semirenko", etc.) were especially popular.

The fruits were eaten fresh, they were used to make jam, jelly, compotes were prepared from various fresh and dry fruits. Marshmallow was prepared for future use from dried fruit and berry puree and candied fruit from fruits boiled in sugar syrup. Pears were fermented in barrels for the winter, apples were soaked, pouring sweet must.

Everywhere they collected wild fruits (apples and pears for drying and pickling) and berries: currants, cranberries, raspberries, blueberries, lingonberries, in the North - cloudberries (they ate fresh and harvested for the winter), in Siberia - bird cherry (dried and ground into flour, which was baked into pies or, boiled with boiling water, eaten with pancakes, pancakes).

Wild plants have been known to people since ancient times, and among many peoples they are still held in high esteem. In Russian national cuisine wild green products also occupied a worthy place. The folk calendar even set aside a special day "Moor's green cabbage soup" - May 16, when cabbage soup, borscht, botvini, balands made from the leaves of young nettles, lungwort, and quinoa appeared on the table in abundance. The collected leaves were boiled in water, rubbed through a sieve and poured with kvass.

In lean years, the quinoa was threshed, ground and, mixed with rye flour, baked bread. They also collected the brood buds of the spring chistyak, which the wind and rain sometimes demolished and accumulated in large numbers on bends in the lowlands. The peasants called these kidneys "heavenly wheat", "millet" and used them for food. The tubers of the chistyak, washed by rain from the ground, were also eaten; they taste a bit like potatoes.

Fragrant cumin stalks were also eaten in spring, which were called "meadow apples" in peasant everyday life.

In case of crop shortages in the past, they ate grass-giant angelica, and in the North, angelica replaced vegetables for a whole summer.

Horsetail has long been held in high esteem on the peasant spring table, in the Smolensk and Kaluga provinces it was called motley. In early spring, it was a delicacy of village children, and then no less a delicacy were young strong green willow fruits, called "bumps" by the peasants; after that, sorrel and oxalis (“hare cabbage”), wild strawberries, raspberries, wild currants and other gifts of wild nature, still used by the people, ripened. Once upon a time, pies with nightshade ("late") were a considerable delicacy for peasant children. Ripe late fruit was even traded on market days, although it could not compete with raspberries, blackcurrants, and blackberries.

In Siberia and the European North, wild berries - blueberries, strawberries ("depth" - in Altai), raspberries, black and red currants, and bayarka were a great help in food and delicacy. viburnum, bird cherry, blueberry ("shiksha") - gonobobel and marsh - cloudberries, cranberries, lingonberries. In Altai, berries were boiled with honey and eaten on fast days as a special dish, and also used as a filling in pies, shangi. Kissel was prepared from viburnum. Boyarka, raspberries, bird cherry and viburnum were dried, scattering on ovens or in ovens on baking sheets, on cabbage leaves, and often on dryers in the yard, on which grain is dried in summer. In winter, dried raspberries were used for colds, and viburnum and boyarka were steamed in pots in the oven and eaten with bread. Dry bird cherry berries were ground into flour, diluted with water, put in the oven overnight so that it would “pick up”, and eaten with bread.

In Siberia, in the zone of forests, the collected berries of lingonberries and cranberries were often stored in the forest (fresh) in large birch bark chumans lowered into dug closed pits. Some peasants had up to 80 such pits, and berries were taken from them in winter as needed.

In many places, nuts were collected and stored for the winter (hazel in the forest belt, pine nuts in the Siberian taiga), which were a favorite treat at all evenings and gatherings. Pine nuts began to be harvested from the end of August and they often went skiing for them in winter. They were not only a delicacy ("Siberian conversation"); oil was squeezed out of the peeled nuts, and the cake was used to whiten tea and, like butter, it was eaten with bread.

Chewing of larch resin (serki) was widespread in Siberia. It was usually prepared by old people who knew how to find suitable trees for this.

Fireweed (popular name Ivan-tea) has long been known as " Koporye tea"- from the village of Koporye, from where for many years hundreds of pounds of tea were exported, made from young leaves of fireweed steamed and dried in the free spirit of the Russian oven. In brewing, fireweed tea is indistinguishable from natural varieties of tea in color. the resulting flour was baked into cakes or added to bread, which made it sweetish. Hence the folk nicknames for this plant are "bread box" and "miller". Young May leaves of fireweed ("cockerel apples") were used for salad, and fireweed honey. the sweetest.

Everywhere they drank an infusion of St. John's wort, and in the European North. Altai and Transbaikalia - oregano herbs, or "white scrolls", "shulpy" (rotted birch wood) and bergenia leaves. For tea, they used brown leathery last year's leaves of bergenia, which had already lost their bitterness. In addition, in Transbaikalia they drank brewed chaga as tea. In Altai, the population ate wild-growing slizun onions and garnetted sweet onions, as well as mountain garlic.

Widely used wild-growing garlic - wild garlic ("flask") in fresh and salty form. Ramson - one of the first spring plants in Siberia - is widely used by the people to this day. In the Far North of Siberia, the roots of the macarium plant - "snake root" were eaten as an antiscorbutic agent.

The use of sunflowers to produce oil testifies to the people's ingenuity. Until the second half of the 18th century, it was only an exotic golden flower, when the serf of Count Sheremetyev, Danila Bokarev, was the first to obtain oil from sunflower seeds. On his initiative, a handicraft butter churn was built in the suburb of Alekseev-ka, Voronezh province. And in three years Alekseevka has become the center of the Russian oil industry.

Mushrooms have been a great help in writing since ancient times. But according to established habits in different places, their use was different. In the central provinces of the European part of Russia, the collection of various types of mushrooms and the use of fresh ones was more widespread. In Siberia, more milk mushrooms and saffron mushrooms were harvested for winter and spring use in salted form. In Ukraine, mushrooms were less respected, while in Belarus and the European North they were widely consumed fresh, salted and dried. White mushrooms are considered the best, followed by black mushrooms: birch and boletus mushrooms, called "babki" in Siberia, then red ones: aspen mushrooms, oilers, mushrooms, milk mushrooms and others. Apparently, in the mushroom regions, the noticed proverbs were born: "If it's mushroom, it's bread"; "They take every mushroom in their hands, but not every mushroom is put in the back." In places, picking mushrooms was of commercial importance - they were sold fresh and dried.

The drinks

Birch, maple, pine sap was collected in the forest strip and used as a refreshing drink. From plant products obtained by fermentation various drinks. Sour-tasting kvass was especially popular, the methods of preparation of which are very diverse. Ukrainians and Russians from the southern provinces drank beet kvass. In Ukraine and Belarus, kvass was obtained from apples and pears, which were soaked for a long time, and the infusion was fermented with yeast and hops. Bread kvass had the most pleasant sweetish taste. Ukrainians used it as a liquid for borscht, and among Russians and Belarusians it was a favorite everyday drink. Kvass was made from rye malt, bran or crackers, which were brewed with boiling water, steamed in the oven, fermented, allowed to brew and filtered. Bread kvass, which has a pleasant aroma and light "playfulness", quenched thirst well and satiated. During fasts, kvass with bread was the main food of the poor.

By the holidays, beer was brewed from oats, more often from barley with the addition of germinated malt grains. This intoxicating drink was widespread among Western Slavs, Balts, and Scandinavians. For Russians, beer was a ritual drink in the old days. It was prepared together and drunk on holidays and solemn days. Joint brewing of beer (by families, villages, church parishes) was especially common in the northern Russian provinces. They cooked in special log cabins (breweries or breweries). in large artel boilers. In the 19th century, “brothers” were arranged for church holidays. which manifested the custom of ancient joint drinking from a common larger bowl, usually hollowed out of wood, which was called a brother. Home production of beer lasted the longest in the North and Siberia, industrial production was established in the cities.

Another drink, widespread not only among the Eastern Slavs, but also in many countries of Western Europe, was honey. Bee honey was diluted with water, boiled, hops were added and insisted (sometimes with plant leaves), which caused fermentation and alcohol was formed. However, by the beginning of the 20th century, intoxicated mead had already become a rarity, in some places (in Siberia, Ukraine) the preparation of light beer - mead was preserved, and in the cities they sold a hot honey drink with sbiten spices.

As an intoxicating drink, samosidka vodka was used, which was made at home or distilled in factories from wheat, and also from potatoes in the 19th century. It appeared in Russia in the 16th century, and soon the sale of vodka became a state monopoly. By infusing vodka or alcohol (higher strength) on herbs, they received tinctures ("St. "robin", etc.). On the Don and Kuban, grapes were grown, from which various wines were prepared; but this was not widely used due to unfavorable climatic conditions. Nobles, merchants and philistines who imitated them in everyday life considered it necessary to serve foreign wines and liqueurs to the table on solemn occasions.

In the 19th century, tea imported from other countries, primarily from China, was included in everyday drinks. Wealthy citizens preferred Indian and especially flower tea ( best grade, obtained from the buds of a tea bush), which gave a pale yellow, very fragrant infusion. More accessible was long leaf (black) and cheap, so-called branded, or brick (compressed in the form of tiles - bricks) tea of ​​the lowest grade. When brewing, the villagers added dried flowers, leaves and small shoots of some plants, which were used from time immemorial as aromatic or healing decoctions(mint leaves, currants, raspberries, carrots, linden flowers, roses, apple trees, etc.).

Tea was especially loved in Siberia, where it was served with almost every meal. Here, next to the Chinese and Mongols, who have known this drink since ancient times, tea spread earlier than in the European part of the country. Among Russians, tea has become such a favorite and popular drink that it has caused new national ways of preparing it, like no other borrowed dish. So, water was boiled in samovars. They were developed on the basis of ancient vessels with a heating device in the form of a hollow pipe in the center, where embers were laid. These devices were used to keep hot drinks (sbitennik) and dishes. In the samovar, the heat of hot coals brought the water to a boil and did not let it cool for a long time. The samovar in the house has become a symbol of prestige and prosperity. Tea was brewed in small faience or porcelain teapots, which were placed on the samovar to keep warm. In the cities in the 19th century, many public tea houses were opened, where huge samovars were constantly boiling, containing several buckets of water. Carriages were served on the table. The pair consisted of a small teapot with tea leaves set on a small samovar or teapot with boiling water. In cities, water for tea was also boiled in large tin teapots. Among Ukrainians and Belarusians, teapots were more common than samovars. Rural residents often brewed tea in cast iron, in a Russian oven, where it was steamed.

Tea was usually drunk with bread products. Prosperous families served him confectionery, cream (tea "in English"). Among the people, the addition of milk and cream to tea became widespread in areas where there were contacts with the Turkic and Mongolian peoples. So, in the Urals. In the Lower Volga region, in the North Caucasus and in Southern Siberia, they drank tea "Kalmyk", "Mongolian", "Tatar", adding milk, flour, butter to the boiling broth.

Coffee, cocoa and chocolate (imported, as well as tea) were familiar mainly to the townspeople. Cocoa and chocolate, boiled in milk, were a delicacy and were used mainly in the diet of children of the townspeople. In rural areas, the difference in children's food consisted mainly in the fact that babies were given more dairy, as well as soft or crushed food, and they were limited in the use of fat and hot spices. Prosperous and mostly urban families prepared special meals for the little ones (various cereals with milk, especially semolina, omelettes, meatballs). In all families, they tried to allocate more sweets, delicacies, and fruits to the share of children.

Vegetable oils

Since ancient times, some oil-bearing plants have been used to produce vegetable oils, which were also called "lean", since they could be consumed during fasts. In their distribution, zoning was observed, which was explained by natural conditions. In the northern and central provinces, they used mainly linseed oil, south of Moscow - hemp. Along with it, from the middle of the 19th century, oil was pressed from sunflower seeds in the black earth zone. From here, sunflower oil was exported to the central provinces. Petersburg, Moscow. It received universal recognition and gradually replaced other varieties. Mustard, poppy, pumpkin oils were mined in small quantities in the black earth zone of the European part of the country, which were used as aromatic flavors and as a delicacy seasoning for flour dishes. Olive oil, produced in Transcaucasia, was little known to the rural population, it was used only by wealthy townspeople, mainly for salads.

Vegetable oil was cheaper than animal fats and therefore more accessible. Soups, flour dishes (kissels, messes, grouts, salamatu, etc.), porridges were seasoned with them, onions and potatoes were poured over them, cakes were dipped in it, and dough products were cooked in it.

Seeds of some oilseeds were crushed in a mortar until a fat emulsion (hemp, pumpkin, poppy milk) was obtained, which was spread on bread and eaten with cakes. Such use of seeds is also known to the peoples of the Baltic and Ural regions.

Milk and dairy products

The East Slavic peoples used mainly cow's milk, and Ukrainians, Russians of the southern provinces and the Urals - also sheep's; in some farms where goats were kept, also goat. They drank fresh milk (steam - immediately from under the cow and chilled, boiled and baked), ate sour milk (yogurt, sour milk) with bread and potatoes. In the North and Siberia, milk was frozen, cut into thin shavings and eaten with cakes. Frozen milk was stored in the winter, taken on the road, melted as needed.

They drank more milk in the summer. Soups were "whitened" with it, fried eggs were fried with it, milk porridge was cooked, it was added to porridges boiled in water. Baked milk was fermented with sour cream and received varenets. In the southern Russian provinces, they made kaymak (the word is borrowed from the Turkic languages), which was cream with froths removed from baked milk (it was melted several times to obtain as many froths as possible). However, sour milk was more commonly consumed. For fermentation raw milk put in a warm place and add sour cream or other acidic foods (yogurt, bread) to it.

Curd and cheese were made from sour milk. To obtain cottage cheese (in many places also called cheese for a long time), sour milk was drained and the whey was allowed to drain. For longer storage, it was pressed in a wooden vise and dried. If with bread, milk, sour cream. Russians in the Urals and Siberia rolled cakes from cottage cheese, like the local peoples, dried them in the sun. Cottage cheese was used to prepare a ritual dish - cheese Easter.

Cheeses were cooked at home only in some districts of central Russia, in the Kuban and Ukraine. For curdling milk, sourdoughs were used (in particular, the stomach of a young calf or lamb). In Ukraine, cheese was made from sheep's milk. Incomparably greater importance was industrial cheese making. Cheeses were eaten mainly by city dwellers.

Cream (the upper fat layer formed during milk settling) and sour cream (sour cream) were almost never used as a separate dish in peasant families. They were used as a condiment.

With the spread of separators, the development of commercial butter and cheese making, peasants who donated milk to factories either did not leave it to their families at all, or were content with what was taken. In the environment of the prosperous urban and rural bourgeoisie and the nobility, on the contrary, the use of concentrated dairy products has spread: butter, cheese, cream. The latter were used as baby food, they were served with tea and coffee. Ice cream was prepared on cream (with the addition of eggs and sugar), it was sold on the streets of cities and large villages.

Butter was churned from sour cream, cream and whole milk. The most common was the preparation of butter from sour cream by melting it in a Russian oven. At the same time, an oily mass was separated, which was cooled and knocked down with wooden whorls, spatulas, spoons, and hands. The finished oil was washed in cold water. The resulting so-called butter could not be stored for a long time. It was eaten little, mainly by wealthy citizens, and in a less well-to-do environment, it was given little by little to children. The peasants, on the other hand, usually melted butter in an oven and washed it in cold water, melted it again in an oven and filtered it. Its preparation is typical for all Eastern Slavs and is also known to some of the neighboring peoples, who borrowed it from the Russians (hence its common name Russian butter).

Meat and fish

Traditional meat food was poor among the Eastern Slavs. This was partly due to the fact that in tsarist Russia animal husbandry was one of the most backward branches of agriculture. Although cattle, pigs and sheep were bred everywhere, there were certain zones of animal husbandry and the predominant consumption of certain meat products. So, in the southern Russian provinces, in Ukraine and Belarus, they ate mainly pork. Preference for it is also characteristic of the Western Slavs. Beef was eaten everywhere, but very limitedly, it played a somewhat larger role in the northern provinces. In mountainous areas (the Urals, the Carpathians, the Caucasus), in Siberia and Central Asia, lamb was preferred.

In the southern part of Siberia and Central Asia at the end of the 19th century, pig breeding and, accordingly, pork consumption increased significantly, which was associated with the resettlement of people from the southern Russian provinces and Ukraine. Beyond the Urals, more cattle were bred and the population was better provided with meat food, however, seasonality was also acutely manifested here. This was due to the established deadlines for slaughtering livestock in cold weather (November-December) and the fact. that fresh meat can't stand long storage. It entered the market at low prices, and at that time the poorest residents of the cities were better supplied with meat products. In the rest of the year, the rural population used them more.

Poultry: chickens, ducks and geese - were bred everywhere (especially chickens), eaten mainly in autumn and winter, slaughtering the bird as needed. Poultry dishes were considered festive, and chicken meat and eggs were used, for example, to make a wedding cake. Fried eggs were prepared from eggs (the eggs were released into a frying pan, keeping the yolks whole), scrambled eggs with milk (milk was added to the pounded eggs) and drachen (grain flour, sugar were added to the pounded eggs and baked), which they ate. drinking milk. Eggs were also eaten boiled, baked and less often raw.

They tried to prepare the meat for the future, for which it was salted (put in barrels and poured with brine), smoked and dried. In winter, the carcasses were frozen. This method of storage most of all corresponded to the climate of Siberia, where it was constantly practiced. In the warm season, they ate mainly corned beef (salted meat).

Mostly boiled meat was eaten. They cooked it in cabbage soup. borscht, noodles, but they also ate as a separate dish, and in rural areas usually without side dishes, and in cities - with vegetables and cereals. Roast meat was a festive dish, it was prepared with the addition of various seasonings. Whole carcasses of milk pigs were fried (sometimes baked in dough), poultry; according to tradition, a roasted goose (Christmas goose) was prepared for Christmas, a pig or a ham was baked in the oven. Stews with the addition of cereals or vegetables were common; especially loved hodgepodge (pieces of meat stewed with sauerkraut). In Ukraine and Kuban, meat was abundantly mixed with lard during stewing.

The traditional dish of the Eastern Slavs, served on all family and many other holidays, was aspic (Russian studen, jelly, white sciudzen, Ukrainian jelly). For its preparation, bones with meat, legs and head, containing many sticky substances, were strongly boiled. Boiled meat was chosen, laid out in bowls, poured with broth and put in a cold place, where jelly was formed - gelatinous jelly. The jelly was eaten with the addition of hot spices: horseradish, mustard, pepper, sometimes kvass was served with it. The head was cooked separately as a ritual dish (for Christmas, weddings). The insides were also eaten. Offal was considered the most suitable for pickle - a hot dish cooked with the addition of chopped pickles.

In Ukraine, in Belarus, and in some places in the southern Russian provinces they made sausage (ukr. kovbasa, white. kaubasa). at the same time, lard and various spices were added to the meat. Sausages were also prepared from chopped liver, blood, mixing them with flour or cereals. All this was stuffed with cleaned and washed intestines of animals. Sausages were smoked or baked in ovens and filled with fat. Ukrainians, Belarusians, occasionally Russians also smoked pork hams.

Animal fat was considered the most valuable product. The internal fat was melted, poured into bowls, cooled and stored until consumed. The outer fat of pork carcasses was salted, cut into pieces, and stuffed into intestines or packed in boxes, barrels.

Salo was used for frying, soups and cereals were seasoned with it. pieces lard fried in a frying pan and, together with roasts (greaves), served with potatoes, cereals. Ukrainians, Belarusians, Russians of the southern provinces used crushed bacon (sometimes with garlic) to season cabbage soup and borscht. In winter they liked to eat frozen lard with hot potatoes. However, lard was a favorite, but not everyday food. As the most high-calorie product, they tried to save it for the holidays, during hard field work, on the road.

Meat and lard of domestic animals were in short supply for the majority of the population. This deficit was partially made up for by hunting products.

Hunting was especially developed in the forest areas of Siberia and the European North. In the central regions, hunting has long been the privilege of feudal lords. They used carcasses of birds (partridges, geese and ducks, swans, hazel grouses, quails, etc.), bear meat, hare, meat of wild boars, elk, deer, etc. But in accordance with the ancient Slavic religious prohibitions, the Old Believers, especially conservative in regarding food, they did not eat hare, bear meat, meat of some birds (pigeons, swans). Among the nobility, game was considered a particularly valuable dish, and for the local nobility it was a matter of pride to serve game from their possessions and hunted with their own hands to the table.

Meat, lard, milk were considered "fast food", which the Christian religion forbade to consume during weekly and annual fasts. This rule was very strictly adhered to by the majority of the population in the European part of the country, various Old Believer groups, and the Cossacks. The peasant masses in the North, in Siberia and Central Asia, where the influence of the official church was not so strong, did not always and everywhere observe it. The advanced layers of the Russian intelligentsia also refused to observe fasts.

Fish was no less important, and at times even more important than meat, since it was considered a "semi-lenten" food, it was not eaten only on the days of the most strict fast. In northern Pomorie, where cultivated plants grew poorly, fish was the main daily food.

Fresh fish was boiled and fried in oil, sometimes it was poured with sour cream and eggs. A favorite dish was fish soup, served as a first course. Especially tasty is the ear, in which several different types of fish were boiled in succession, and the last of them, the best, was served with yushka (broth) to the table.

In the European North, in the Urals and Siberia, fish was baked in dough (fish pie) and eaten with a lower crust of the pie soaked in fat. Belarusians baked fish on coals, in the oven, having cleaned it of scales, in other areas they baked in scales.

Harvesting fish for the future, it was salted, dried, dried, fermented, frozen.

Salted fish in barrels. Herring was in great demand. It was sold in all cities, and was brought to villages remote from water bodies as gifts. Herring was the most accessible fish food for the urban poor, and in families where it was a luxury, herring pickle was bought and consumed with bread and potatoes. Of the dried fish, vobla (Ukrainian ram) was especially loved, which often replaced meat for the urban poor. Small fish, especially smelt, were dried; in winter, cabbage soup and stews were cooked with it.

In the northern coastal strip of the country, fish was fermented in barrels, for which it was poured with weak brine and kept warm. The fermentation process that developed at the same time softened the meat and bones, giving the fish a specific spicy taste. It was seasoned with onions and sour milk ate with bread. In the Primorsky region of Eastern Siberia, fish for fermentation was put into earthen pits, where it was fermented. This ancient method of preservation was preserved until the end of the 19th century among the Russians, as well as among the neighboring peoples of the North, where the food of the population is depleted in vitamins.

In winter, the fish was frozen and stored in this form. Russians in Eastern Siberia, like the local population, ate stroganina - finely chopped frozen fish.

In areas rich in sturgeon and salmon species, they harvested caviar, which was very valued on the world market - black (sturgeon) and red (salmon), keeping it in strong brine. Such caviar was a delicacy and was consumed mainly by wealthy citizens; it was available to the rural population only where it was mined. Caviar was eaten with bread, pancakes, and red caviar, in addition, was baked in pies, adding chopped onions. Near the seas and large reservoirs, caviar of any other fish was used, which, like sturgeon and salmon, was a high-calorie product and an important source of vitamins. Therefore, they ate a lot of salted caviar, and in the north of Siberia they made cakes, pancakes, pancakes from frozen and mint caviar.

Meals

Russians, Ukrainians and Belarusians ate three to four times a day. Breakfast (Russian breakfast, morning, Ukrainian snidanok, sshdannya, Bel. snyadannya) was early, usually at sunrise (5-6 o’clock in the morning) and quite dense (they ate a lot of bread with tea or milk, fresh or salted vegetables and etc.). Lunch (Ukrainian ooid, Bel. abyad, breakfast) was arranged in the first half of the day (10 - 12 o'clock). It was the most plentiful meal. They served two or three dishes, and always among the first - liquid: hot in winter, and sometimes cold in summer.

In the summer time in the afternoon (4-5 hours) there was an afternoon snack (Russian afternoon snack, city of auzina, Ukrainian noon, noon, Bel. paludzin, pydvyachorak), which consisted of tea, milk, light snacks. They had supper in the evening, at sunset (Russian dinner, Ukrainian supper, Bel. vyachera), with something left over from dinner or with tea, milk, and a light snack.

On holidays, they tried to prepare food as plentiful as possible. The table was especially richly decorated for Easter, for Christmas, when after a long fast it was allowed to eat meat food. Several dishes were served for Christmas dinner. Here is a description of such a dinner among Ukrainian peasants: “First of all, they eat lean pies, drink a glass of vodka, then serve yesterday’s cabbage and peas. are baked the day before), and heated sausage. Next comes the cabbage with pork. First, they eat the cabbage itself, while the meat is served separately on a wooden plate. The owner cuts the meat himself, adds salt, takes the first piece for himself, and then the rest are taken, in order of seniority. After the cabbage they serve lokshina (noodles), and again, they first eat noodles, and then goose meat, which the owner also cuts.

No less plentiful was the Paschal meal "breaking the fast". They loved not only to eat heartily themselves, but also to feed the guest who came to the house to their fill.

Hospitality - the ability to generously receive guests - was considered a great advantage of the owner. The guests were served the best dishes that were in the house (the Russians had a saying: "What is in the oven - everything is on the table with swords", similar ones were common among Belarusians and Ukrainians). The feasts in the merchant and noble-landlord environment were especially abundant, where each owner sought to outdo the others with a variety of dishes and drinks. At the heart of the meal of the wealthy layers were also dishes of folk cuisine.

The writing of the Slavs was formed quite late, in connection with this, there is practically no evidence that they ate in Ancient Russia. However, thanks to the discovery of a number of archaeological sources, it became known that Russian cuisine was distinguished by the constancy of ingredients in dishes and palatability. They note that there were always cereal porridges, rye and oatmeal bread on the table.

What did they eat in Russia in ancient times?

Meat and flour products were the main components of the diet of the princes in the period Kievan Rus. In the southern part, bread made from wheat was preferred, but in the northern part, rye was popular. In times of famine, dry leaves, various herbs and crow's feet were added to the flour. AT holidays in monasteries rich bread was presented, which was baked with poppy seeds and honey. They were also addicted to meat dishes, preferring pork, beef, lamb, chickens, pigeons, ducks and geese. During the period of campaigns, soldiers ate horse meat or the meat of wild animals, among which hares, deer, wild boars, sometimes bears, hazel grouses, and partridges can be distinguished.

After the adoption of Christianity, the church began to adhere to the old canons, which forbade the consumption of meat from wild animals, namely hares and bears, as they believed that they were “unclean”. According to the Old Testament, meat with blood was forbidden, as well as the use of birds that were killed in snares. However, the foundations built up over the years were not easy to get rid of. At times Muscovite Rus a gradual transition to the observance of church prescriptions was carried out.

What did they eat in Russia before the appearance of potatoes? The church favorably treated the use of fish. Friday and Wednesday were considered fast days, and three periods were allocated for spiritual cleansing and Great Lent. Naturally, fish was also consumed before the Baptism of Vladimir, as well as caviar, despite the fact that the first information about it appeared only in the twelfth century. The entire list of edible supplies was supplemented by dairy products, eggs and vegetables. In addition to animal oil, the diet included vegetable oil, which was extracted from flax seeds and hemp. Olive oil was supplied from abroad.

Very little information has been preserved about what the cuisine was like at that time. Meat was often boiled or roasted on a spit, and vegetables were consumed raw or boiled. Some sources indicate that stew was also present in the diet. Pies have become the most original and delicious invention of distant ancestors, the tradition of making which has come down unchanged to our times. The most common dishes that people ate in Russia in ancient times before the appearance of potatoes were oatmeal and millet porridge. In the household of the princes, the main cook (the elder of the cooks) controlled the staff of kitchen workers, so they were all trained. Given that some of them had foreign roots, such as Hungarian or Turkish, it is not surprising that Russian cuisine recipes contained foreign elements.

What did they drink in ancient Russia?

Already in those days, the Russian people did not refuse to drink. Also in " Tales of Bygone Years"The main reason why Vladimir abandoned Islam was sobriety. For a modern person, Russian booze is immediately associated with vodka, only in the days of Kievan Rus they did not manufacture alcohol. Among the drinks of the ancestors, one can single out kvass, a non-alcoholic or slightly intoxicating drink that was made from rye bread. Its prototype was beer.

Honey was very famous in the times of Kievan Rus, so both ordinary people and monks were engaged in its manufacture. From the annals, it became known not only what people ate on the lands of Russia in ancient times, but also what they washed it down with. Prince Vladimir asked to make three hundred cauldrons of honey on the eve of the opening of the church in Vasilevo. And in 1146, Izyaslav II found 500 barrels of honey and about 80 barrels of wine from his enemy Svyatoslav in the cellars. There were such varieties of honey: dry, sweet and with pepper. The ancestors did not disdain wine, which was imported from Greece, and the monasteries and princes imported it for the celebration of the liturgy.

Table setting was carried out according to certain rules. The princes used silver and gold utensils when they waged wars or invited foreign guests. Gold and silver spoons were in use, which can be confirmed in The Tale of Bygone Years. Forks were not used. Each cut meat or bread with his own knife. Bowls were usually used for drinks. Ordinary people used wooden, pewter utensils and goblets, wooden spoons.

Gastronomic passions originate Since those times, little has changed, and we can say with confidence that they ate in ancient Russia, and today in every family on the table.

Food of the ancient Slavs: video

PD 1(17) Secrets of dietetics

Nutrition of primitive man

dietitian, GBUZ of the city of Moscow "Psychiatric hospital No. 13 of the Department of Health of the city of Moscow"

The dietology of ancient man is intuition. It was this feeling that guided our ancestors, helped them choose the right food (meat, fresh and frozen blood of animals, fermented foods, etc.), and learn new ways of cooking.

In turn, the expansion of the diet, the introduction of such products as animal meat, obtaining the necessary amount of animal proteins, fats and carbohydrates, vitamins and microelements with food contributed to the socio-cultural and intellectual development of mankind.

The upper limit of the described period, which marks the beginning of a new time in the history of mankind, is considered to be the beginning of the retreat of the glacier, which occurred 12-19 thousand years ago. According to archaeological periodization, this is the time of the Upper Paleolithic (colloquially, the Stone Age), according to geological periodization, the final period of the Würm, or Vistula, glaciation (in Eastern Europe, the term “Valdai glaciation” is also used for it) of the Quaternary period of the Cenozoic era.

The social function of food

What did Stone Age people eat, what did their food consist of, how did they prepare and store it? Unfortunately, researchers of ancient times paid little attention to such important issues. However, these areas are seen as extremely important.

The social function of food seems to be the key to understanding the process of formation of ancient societies, in which many traditions and rituals of a much later time, up to the present, are rooted. It is extremely difficult to understand them without referring to the origins. The history of nutrition shows that food and the traditions associated with it contributed to the establishment of social relations to no less extent than their work activities.

Directions that reveal the topic of food consumption by an ancient person can be divided into three groups. The first, the simplest, is related to what primitive people ate. The second and third are more complex: how ancient people prepared and preserved food. These three areas will be discussed below.

WHAT DO THE PRIMARY PEOPLE EAT?

Diet evolution

For a long enough period, ancient man ate fruits, leaves and grains. Confirmation of his vegetarianism is found in the remains of the teeth of ancient people and in some indirect evidence, for example, about the absence of large groups of ancient people necessary for hunting animals.

Then climate change led to a reduction in plant foods, and man was forced to eat meat, which in the Paleolithic era formed the basis of his diet. And finally, climate change after the retreat of the last glacier led to the fact that the human diet was significantly diversified - meat and plant foods were supplemented with seafood and fish.

We propose to consider the key points in the formation of the diet of an ancient person from the moment when plant food was not enough for him.

HUNT FOR THE MAMMOTH

Most often, people followed the laws of logic and practice - they got food and ate what was found and was nearby, close to the habitat - "housing". It is known that ancient people tried to settle near places convenient for finding food, for example, near water bodies where herds of animals gathered. It is believed that mammoths were one of the most important food sources of ancient man. Mammoth in terms of nutrition attracted people with a mass of meat and fat, the latter, most likely, was indispensable for ancient man. Since the beginning of the melting of the glacier, which finally receded in the 10th millennium BC, partial changes have occurred in the meat diet of ancient man. The climate becomes milder, and where the glacier has receded, new forests and lush vegetation appear. The animal world is also changing. Large animals of previous eras are disappearing - mammoths, woolly rhinos, some species of musk ox, saber-toothed felines, cave bears and other large animals. For your information, Russian scientists currently do not give up hope of cloning an ancient representative of the elephant family. The project "Mammoth Revival" was created - this is a joint brainchild of the Yakutsk Research Institute of Applied Ecology of the North of the North-Eastern Federal University and the Korean Foundation for Biotechnological Technologies Soom Biotech.

Switching to meat

Thanks to the “instinct of perfection inherent in human nature”, a person began to produce tools and switched to a meat diet, notes the French philosopher, lawyer, politician Jean Antelme Brillat-Savarin in 1825 in his treatise “Physiology of Taste”. The transition to meat food was a natural process, since “a person has a too small stomach for plant foods to provide enough nutrients”, proteins, fats, in fact, energy for life.

A special role in the formation of social behavior in human culture was assigned to meat, since meat has retained a special place in nutrition since ancient times.

A lot of meat

Of course, the ancient man consumed meat and, apparently, a lot. Evidence of this is a significant accumulation of animal bones throughout the habitat of ancient man. Moreover, this is not a random collection of bones, since researchers find traces of stone tools on the bones; these bones were carefully processed, removing meat, and often crushed - the intramedullary marrow, apparently, was very popular with our ancestors.

Hunting was sometimes supplemented by the gathering of berries, plant roots, bird eggs, but it did not play a significant role. These data indicate that the assumption of an exclusively meat diet of ancient people has quite real grounds and that such food may be quite sufficient. If numerous peoples of the North could and can survive at the present time only on meat food, then this means that ancient man could survive only on meat food.

For people of the late Paleolithic era, wild animal meat was the basis of the food system and existence. All these animals - wild bulls, bears, elks, deer, wild boars, goats and others - for many nations today are the basis of everyday nutrition.

An important role in the diet of ancient people was played by the blood of animals, which they consumed both as fresh and as part of more complex dishes. Modern scientists have confirmed that, with an exclusively meat diet, it is an invaluable supplier of vitamins and minerals.

Animal fat, subcutaneous and visceral, was especially valued, playing a significant role in the diet of ancient people. For example, in the conditions of the Far North, fat was indispensable and often was the only source of various substances necessary for the body.

Plant foods in the diet

Researchers of primitive society now have no doubt that food of plant origin and the method of obtaining it - gathering, as well as meat food and the method of obtaining it - hunting, occupied a special place in the life of ancient man.

There is indirect evidence of this: the presence of plant food residues on the teeth of fossil skulls, the medically proven human need for the intake of a number of substances contained primarily in plant foods. Moreover, in order to move to agriculture in the future, a person had to have an established taste for food of plant origin.

Vegetable food was indispensable for primitive man. Ancient physicians and philosophers wrote many works on certain types of plant foods. Based on written evidence from a later era and the surviving practice of eating certain types of wild plants, we can say that plant foods were varied.

For example, ancient authors testify to the benefits and widespread use of acorns at that time. Thus, Plutarch extols the virtues of the oak, arguing that “of all wild trees, the oak brings the best fruits". Not only was bread baked from his acorns, but he also provided honey to drink.

The medieval Persian physician Avicenna, in his treatise, also writes about the healing properties of acorns, which help with various diseases, in particular in diseases of the stomach, bleeding, as a remedy for various poisons. He notes that there are "people who are accustomed to eating acorns, and even make bread from them, which does not harm them, and benefit from it."

Ancient ancient authors also mention arbutu, or strawberries, as the main advantages. This is a plant whose fruits are somewhat reminiscent of strawberries. Another heat-loving wild plant known since ancient times is the lotus. The root of this plant, round, the size of an apple, is also edible.

Variety in nutrition

As we can see, the food of ancient man was represented by both meat products and vegetable products. Perhaps he quite consciously diversified his diet, supplementing the basic meat food with plant foods. This leads to the idea that the diet of ancient man was not so monotonous. He certainly had taste preferences. His food was not directed solely at satisfying hunger.

By the end of the Paleolithic, the first "food" differentiation and the associated features of the socio-cultural development of ancient people took shape. This moment is especially important for the subsequent history of human nutrition.

First, it clearly shows the relationship between food consumption and the way of life, culture and, in some respects, the social organization of the ancient human collective. Secondly, differentiation indicates the presence of preferences, some choice, and not just simple dependence on circumstances.

Understanding benefits and harms

More and more new types of food appeared in the human diet. How did ancient people determine the benefits or harms of food?

This happened in stages. With the advent of fire, a variety of diets arose, especially meat and fish. Then a person formed the concept of taste, what is tasty and what is not tasty. Then came the data from practical life, purely intuitively, and then consciously, what is useful and what is harmful. For example, people used fresh blood, without any understanding, but it saved their lives. We can say that intuitive concepts about "vitaminology" have appeared.

Blood instead of salt

An important issue that needs to be addressed when talking about the nutrition of prehistoric humans concerns salt intake. Primitive people did not need salt and, most likely, did not use it.

Before the transition to agriculture with a predominance of plant foods in his diet, man was content with the salt that he received from the fresh blood of animals. The blood of the animals eaten contains a sufficient amount of necessary natural trace elements and minerals.

The consumption of fresh blood and raw meat by primitive people was necessary even after man mastered the fire and learned to cook with it, since cooked meat does not contain enough natural salt substitutes.

Numerous testimonies of Russian and foreign travelers of the past indicate that the indigenous inhabitants of the North of Russia, engaged in hunting, did not know salt until the 20th century. So, the "steam" blood of animals among the northern peoples is revered as a delicacy. But they did not use salt and even felt disgust for it.

But the further south, the greater the need for salt. Firstly, this is due to the significant amount of plant foods consumed in the south. And secondly, life itself in a hot climate forces the body to consume more salt.

E501 - legacy of ancestors

In ancient times, salt was obtained from ash by burning plants, evaporating salt from spring salt water. The substance obtained by burning plants became widespread in later eras. It is called potash or potassium carbonate, currently registered as a food additive E501 (permitted for use by TR CU 029/2012). Potash is a good natural preservative, and they often replaced salt in cases where it was not possible to get it.

With the transition of man to agriculture, the most ancient sources and salt substitutes were not enough. The so-called Neolithic revolution, among other things, meant the end of the “salt-free” existence of man, who was forced to start looking for ways to find and obtain salt for his needs.

Domesticated herbivores could not exist without salt, thus, the extraction of salt in large quantities has become a vital necessity for humans.

PALEOLITHIC COOKING

Piping hot

It was also a necessity for man to discover new ways of cooking - "cooking", if you can apply this word to a man of the Paleolithic era. As a result, the food became more satisfying and plentiful. It became possible to eat all the parts of the animal that were previously thrown away, that is, people began to use the results of production more rationally. Man's influence on food for its transformation began to be of a conscious nature, and was not the use of the situation.

Regarding the methods of cooking, there are enough archaeological and late ethnographic data to restore an objective picture:

• simple frying of meat on an open fire;
• roasting meat in ash;
• roasting meat on coals, in skins, in leaves, clay, in its own shell;
• cooking on hot coals;
• cooking meat by holding it between hot stones;
• cooking in utensils made from animal skins, parts of their bodies (for example, the stomach, gallbladder and bladder), holes hollowed out of wood, woven from different parts of plants - bark, stems, vessel branches, natural vessels - shells, skulls, horns .

Archaeological evidence indicates the presence various types Cooking ovens in the late Paleolithic era:

• cooking in dug holes in the ground, where a fire was made from above;
• cooking in pits dug in the ground, where a fire was first made and, after the fire burned out, the ashes were raked up to the walls, and food for cooking was laid out on the liberated bottom;
• pits - stoves lined with stones.

The bones of the animals themselves were often used as fuel for fires, especially in winter, when it was more difficult to get wood in cold regions, as well as in those regions where there was a shortage of wood.

The conscious transformation of food, in addition to the physiological benefits of better absorption of nutrients, also affected the physical development of a person, and this could not but lead to the appearance of a taste for food, the desire to diversify it for pleasure.

FOOD STORAGE

Delicacies of the Ancients

The oldest and simplest way of processing food without the use of any additional devices is associated with its fermentation and fermentation. Moreover, initially this happened without the addition of salt or other reagents that provoke and enhance the process. This method of cooking led to softening and improving its taste, increasing the shelf life of products, even turning inedible into edible. This method of cooking was very common among primitive tribes, and meat, fish, and plants were prepared in this way.

Everything is suitable for fermentation: herbs, and meat, and individual parts of animals, and fish, even the blood of animals. Of course, you will not find archaeological traces of the fermentation of products in the primitive era. But the fact that this method of harvesting products has been preserved among many peoples of the world is hardly accidental.

In Russia, where for a rather long period in most regions there was a shortage of fresh vegetables and fruits, a method of fermenting food products was mastered. The famous sauerkraut is an indispensable source of vitamins in the Russian countryside for almost the entire year, as well as pickled cucumbers, beets, apples, berries, green herbs and other plants remain on our table to this day.

In fairness, let's say that fermenting, for example, fish is customary among many peoples - not only in the Far North and Scandinavia. In Russia, this method of cooking was widespread among the Pomors, who fermented fish in barrels until completely softened. Thus, the fish was not only preserved for a long time, but also received additional useful properties.

Shark meat is prepared in the same way in Iceland. True, the health benefits of this dish are dubious - the product contains ammonia and smells strongly of it.

In a word, fermentation is a simple technology, the absence of any special devices or additional complex ingredients, even salt, the most accessible way of cooking for an ancient person.

Technology for the Ages

Another very common way of preserving food, inherited from our ancestors, is freezing.

In ancient times, they were also engaged in food preservation: there were pits around ancient dwellings, which could also be used as a kind of hermetic containers - “canned food”.

Other methods of food processing known to us were widely used - drying and curing of meat, fish and plants.

All the above methods of cooking: on fire, in the likeness of furnaces, in holes dug in the ground, etc., are quite simple, they do not require special vessels.

"Gastronomic" fate of man

Of course, modern knowledge about the nutrition of ancient man is very limited. More large-scale interdisciplinary work on the study of this issue remains to be carried out, especially since man has changed very much over 10 thousand years. In addition, it has been scientifically proven that in the modern world, the needs for proteins, fats and carbohydrates differ from culture to culture. Now it is impossible to restore those foods that made up the food of antiquity: domesticated animals bear little resemblance to their distant ancestors, including the chemical composition of meat and fat. The same can be said about cultivated plants.

It is impossible not to take into account the changes that have occurred in water, air and other important elements of the human environment. Study of initial stage history of mankind is extremely important for understanding what happened in the future. It was in antiquity that many foundations were laid that determined the further "gastronomic" fate of man. The most important point here is the folding by the end of the Stone Age of a highly developed food system, with certain principles of cooking, adaptations for this and taste preferences. During this period, the foundations of social behavior were laid, as a rule, associated with the extraction, preparation and eating of food. After all, the relationship between members of the community, a representative of his team with representatives of other teams was based to a large extent on the "food basis".

Intuition - the dietology of the ancients

If we talk about the dietary side, then, of course, there was no need to talk about any dietology at that time. Ancient people purely intuitively, and then consciously used fresh and frozen blood, fermented foods ( sauerkraut, fermented fish products, honey drinks, fresh berries and fruits). There were no data and concepts about the composition of products (proteins, fats, carbohydrates), about its energy value (caloric content), about vitamins and minerals, due to the fact that there were no such sciences as chemistry, biochemistry, physics. But the ancient people were already well aware of which products were beneficial to human health, and which ones were harmful.

LIST OF USED LITERATURE

Kozlovskaya M.V. The phenomenon of nutrition in the evolution and history of man, M., 2002. - 30 p.

Kozlov A. I. Food for people, Fryazino, 2005.

Dobrovolskaya M.V. Man and his food, M., 2005.

Kolpakov E.M. Nutrition of the ancient population of the European Arctic // In: Scientific and Practical Conference. Nutrition and intelligence. Collection of works. - St. Petersburg. - 2015. - p. 29-33.

Want more information on dietetics?
Subscribe to the informational and practical magazine "Practical Dietology" with a 10% discount!

Please enable JavaScript to view the

The culinary traditions of the Russian people are rooted in antiquity. Even in pre-Christian Russia, when Maslenitsa was celebrated and bloodless sacrifices were made to the gods, such once ritual dishes as porridge, pancakes, spring larks other. The Slavs were engaged in arable farming, growing rye, barley, wheat, oats, and millet. In the 10th century, according to travelers, the Slavs "sow millet most of all." During the harvest, they take millet grains in a ladle, raise them to the sky and say: “Lord, you who have given us food until now, give us it and now in abundance.”

A little later, a ritual porridge appears - kutya. It was prepared from cereals with the addition of honey. The Slavs cooked ordinary porridge from flour, for which they ground the grains, in water or in milk. Bread was baked from flour - first unleavened cakes, and then kalachi and pies cooked with honey.
In Russia, they were also engaged in the cultivation of garden crops. The most popular were cabbage, cucumbers, turnips, swedes and radishes.

Ancient chronicles that told about the fate of the state, wars and disasters, however, sometimes mentioned facts, one way or another related to food and nutrition.

Year 907 - in the annals, wine, bread, meat, fish and vegetables are named among the monthly tax (in those days fruits were also called vegetables).

Year 969 - Prince Svyatoslav says that the city of Pereyaslavl is conveniently located - "various vegetables" from Greece and honey from Russia converge there. Already at that time, the table of Russian princes and rich people was decorated with salted lemons, raisins, walnuts and other gifts. Eastern countries, and honey was not only an everyday food product, but also an object of foreign trade.

Year 971 - during the famine, the high cost was such that a horse's head cost half a hryvnia. It is interesting that the chronicler does not speak about beef, not about pork, but about horse meat. Although the case takes place during the forced wintering of the troops of Prince Svyatoslav on the way from Greece, the fact is still remarkable. This means that there was no ban on eating horse meat in Russia, but they used it, probably, in exceptional cases. This is also evidenced by the relatively small proportion of horse bones in kitchen waste found by archaeologists.

Usually, to characterize, as we would now say "price index", the cost of products of daily demand is indicated. So, another chronicler reports that in the lean year of 1215 in Novgorod "there was a cartload of turnips for two hryvnias."

Year 996 - a feast is described, at which there was a lot of meat from cattle and animals, and bread, meat, fish, vegetables, honey and kvass were taken around the city and distributed to the people. The squad grumbled that she had to eat with wooden spoons, and Prince Vladimir ordered to give them silver ones.

Year 997 - the prince ordered to collect a handful of oats, or wheat, or bran, and ordered the wives to make "cezh" and cook jelly.

So, bit by bit, you can collect in our chronicles a lot of interesting information about nutrition in the 10th-11th centuries. Describing the simplicity of the manners of Prince Svyatoslav (964), the chronicler says that the prince did not take carts with him on campaigns and did not cook meat, but thinly sliced ​​horse meat, beef or beast, ate them, baked on coals.

Charcoal roasting is the oldest method of heat treatment, characteristic of all peoples, and it was not borrowed by the Russians from the peoples of the Caucasus and the East, but was used from ancient times. In historical literary monuments of the 15th-16th centuries, chickens, geese, and hares are often referred to as "twisted", that is, on a spit. But still, the usual, most common way of preparing meat dishes was boiling and frying in large pieces in Russian ovens.

For a long time, cooking was a purely family affair. They were in charge, as a rule, of the oldest woman in the family. Professional chefs first appeared at the princely courts, and then - in the monastery refectories.

Cooking in Russia stood out as a specialty only in the 11th century, although the mention of professional chefs is found in chronicles as early as the 10th century.

The Laurentian Chronicle (1074) says that in the Kiev Caves Monastery there was a whole kitchen with a large staff of monks-cooks. Prince Gleb had an "elder cook" named Torchin, the first Russian cook known to us.

The monastic cooks were very skillful. Prince Izyaslav, who visited the borders of the Russian land, who had seen a lot, especially loved the "meals" of the Pechersk monks. There is even a description of the work of cooks of that era:

“And put on the sackcloth and sackcloth of the retinue of the votolyan, and began to create ugliness, and began to help the cooks, cooking for the brothers ... And after matins, you went to the cookhouse, and prepared fire, water, firewood, and I’ll come and take the other cook to take.”

During the time of Kievan Rus, cooks were in the service of princely courts and rich houses. Some of them even had several chefs. This is evidenced by the description of one of the rich man's houses of the 12th century, which mentions a lot of "sokachi", i.e. cooks, "working and doing with darkness" .

Russian chefs sacredly kept the traditions of folk cuisine, which served as the basis of their professional skills, as evidenced by the oldest written monuments - "Domostroy" (XVI century), "Painting for the royal dishes" (1611-1613), table books of Patriarch Filaret and boyar Boris Ivanovich Morozov, monastery account books, etc. They often mention folk dishes - cabbage soup, fish soup, cereals, pies, pancakes, kulebyaks, pies, kissels, kvass, honey and others.

The nature of the preparation of dishes of Russian cuisine is largely due to the peculiarities of the Russian stove, which for centuries faithfully served as a hearth for ordinary city people, and noble boyars, and townspeople. It is impossible to imagine Ancient Russia both without log huts and without the famous Russian stove.

The Russian stove, with its mouth, was always turned towards the doors, so that the smoke could exit the hut through the open doors into the vestibule in the shortest way. The stoves in the chicken huts were large; several dishes could be cooked in them at the same time. Despite the fact that the food sometimes gave off a little smoke, the Russian oven had its advantages: the dishes cooked in it had a unique taste.

The peculiarities of the Russian stove determine such features of our cuisine as cooking dishes in pots and cast iron, frying fish and poultry in large pieces, an abundance of stews and baked dishes, a wide range of baked goods - pies, krupeniks, pies, kulebyak, etc.

Since the 16th century, we can talk about the differences in the cuisine of the monastery, rural and royal. Vegetables, herbs, herbs and fruits played the main role in the monastery. They formed the basis of the diet of the monks, especially during fasting. Rural cuisine was less rich and varied, but also refined in its own way: at least 15 dishes were supposed to be served at a festive dinner. Lunch is generally the main meal in Russia. In the old days, in more or less wealthy houses, four dishes were served in turn on a long table of strong oak planks, covered with an embroidered tablecloth: cold appetizer, soup, the second - in non-fasting times, usually meat - and pies or pies, which were eaten "for dessert".
Starters were very different, but the main among them were all sorts of salads - a mixture of finely chopped vegetables, usually boiled, to which you could add anything - from an apple to cold veal. From them came, in particular, a vinaigrette known to every Russian home. By the end of the 17th century, jelly became popular (from the word “chilled”, that is, cold: firstly, jelly must be cold, otherwise it will spread on a plate; secondly, they usually ate it in winter, from Christmas to Epiphany, that is, in coldest time of the year). At the same time, fish soup made from various fish, corned beef and sausages appeared. Pickle amazed foreigners with its refined taste. Shchi - remember the proverb: "Schi and porridge is our food" - so, shchi was served with mushrooms, with fish, with pies.

Of the drinks, the most popular were berry and fruit juices with fruit drinks, as well as tinctures. Medovukha - a drink based on bee honey - was stronger, and then vodka appeared. But bread kvass has been the main Russian drink since ancient times. With what they didn’t do it - from raisins to mint!

But at the feasts of the boyars, a huge number of dishes began to appear, reaching up to fifty. At the royal table, 150-200 were served. Lunches lasted 6-8 hours in a row and included almost a dozen courses, each of which, in turn, consisted of two dozen dishes of the same name: a dozen varieties of fried game, salted fish, a dozen varieties of pancakes and pies.

Dishes were prepared from a whole animal or plant, all kinds of grinding, grinding and crushing of food were used only in fillings for pies. Yes, and very moderately. Fish for pies, for example, were not crushed, but plastified.

At feasts, it was customary to drink honey before the feast, as an appetite stimulant, and after it, at the conclusion of feasts. Food was washed down with kvass and beer. This happened until the 15th century. In the 15th century, “bread wine”, i.e. vodka, appeared in Russia.

In the 17th century, the order of serving dishes began to change (this applies to a rich festive table). Now it consisted of 6-8 changes and only one dish was served in each change:
- hot (soup, stew, fish soup);
- cold (okroshka, botvinya, jelly, jellied fish, corned beef);
- roast (meat, poultry);
- body (boiled or fried hot fish);
- unsweetened pies, kulebyaka;
- porridge (sometimes it was served with cabbage soup);
- cake (sweet pies, pies);
- snacks.

As for drinks, for example, the register of those released from Sytny Dvor to receive Polish ambassadors read: Sovereign: 1 submission: Romanes, Bastra, Rensky, for purchase; 2nd serving: malmazei, muskatel, alkane, for purchase w; 3 serving: kiparei, French wine, church wine, for purchase; red honey: 1 serving: cherry, raspberry, currant, ladle each; 2 serving: 2 buckets of raspberry honey, a bucket of boyar honey; 3 serving: 2 buckets of juniper honey, a bucket of wild cherry honey; white honey: 1 serving: 2 buckets of molasses honey with nails, a bucket of bucket honey; 2 serving: 2 ladles of honey with a musket, a ladle of bucket honey; 3 serving: 2 buckets of honey with cardamom, a bucket of bucket honey. In total about the Great Sovereign: Romanes, Bastra, Rhenskago, Malmazei, Mushkatel, Alkane, Kinarev, French wine, Church wine, 6 mugs each, and 6 glasses of vodka; red honey: cherry, raspberry, currant, bone, wild cherry, juniper, scalded, ladle each; white honey: bucket with cloves, with musket, with cardamom, 8 mugs each, 9 mugs of sugar. About the boyars, and about the roundabout, and about the thoughtful people, and about the ambassadors, and about the royal nobles: 2 mugs of aniseed vodka from romanea, cinnamon also, 8 mugs of boyar vodka, 5 buckets of romanea boyar, also, 5 buckets of bastra, 2 buckets of rensky, 5 buckets of alkane, 4 buckets of fryazhsky wine, 3 buckets of church wine, 8 buckets of cherry wine, 4 buckets of raspberry honey...” And this is not the end of the list.

However, despite the difference in the number of dishes for the rich and the poor, the nature of the food retained national features. The division happened later, from the time of Peter the Great.

The formation of Russian cuisine was also influenced by cultural exchange with neighboring peoples. Immediately, as soon as after the baptism, Slavic writing came to Russia from Bulgaria, books began to be translated and copied, and not only liturgical ones. At this time, the Russian reader little by little gets acquainted with literary works, historical chronicles, works of natural science, collections of sayings. In a very short historical period - during the time of Vladimir and especially his son Yaroslav - Russia joins the culture of Bulgaria and Byzantium, Russian people actively assimilate the heritage of ancient Greece, Rome and ancient east. Along with the development of spiritual and cultural life in Russia, the introduction of church canons significantly changed the nature of nutrition. Spices and seasonings came into use: black and allspice, cloves and ginger, overseas fruits - lemons, new vegetables - zucchini, sweet peppers, etc., new cereals - Saracen millet (rice) and buckwheat.

Russian “cooks” borrowed many secrets from the Tsargrad masters who arrived in Muscovy - “skillful men, highly experienced not only in painting icons, but also in kitchen art.” Acquaintance with Greek-Byzantine cuisine turned out to be very useful for our cuisine.

No less strong was the influence on Russian cuisine and our eastern neighbors - India. China, Persia. The first Russian people who visited these countries brought many new impressions from there. Russians learned a lot from Athanasius Nikitin's famous book "Journey Beyond Three Seas" (1466-1472), which contains a description of foods unfamiliar in Russia - dates, ginger, coconut, pepper, cinnamon. And the book of Vasily Gagara (written in 1634-1637) expanded the horizons of our compatriots. They learned about the products used by the inhabitants of the Caucasus and the Middle East. Here are his observations on how sugar was produced in the East: “Yes, in the same Egypt reeds will be born, and sugar is made from it. And they dig reeds near the sea ... and when the reeds ripen, and eat them like there is honeycomb.

But our ancestors mastered not only the practical methods of cooking. They also thought about the essence of the phenomena occurring at the same time. A long time ago they mastered the secrets of making yeast dough, which is mentioned in the chronicles: the monks of the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra knew how to cook custard bread that did not stale for a long time.

Already in the XI-XII centuries. Russians knew many rather complicated methods of preparing kvass, medkov, and hops. They can be found in the famous ancient Russian herbalists, as well as in various "lives". So, kvass was widely known - wheat, honey, apple, ash, etc. Our ancestors were well versed not only in the intricacies of preparing various types of kvass, but also in the mechanism of action of sourdough, yeast, as evidenced by the numerous instructions of the ancients:

“The wheat is crushed and grinded, and the flour is sowed, and the dough is kneaded and sour.” Or: “And kvass for them to sour with sour thickening, and not with yeast.” "Kvass separates the mating and pasting of the dough and makes the bread liquid and buhon."

And other literary sources confirm the knowledge of Russian people in the field of food. So, in the "Book, the verb is a cool heliport" (XVII century) contains numerous discussions about the difference, for example, cow's milk from goat's, rabbit's meat from bear's, etc. It is curious that even then Russian people had an idea about the antiseptic properties of protein : “Egg white is put into medicine ... for sores and for all sorts of subcutaneous wounds. It also helps protein to oprelin, soak it in hot water and apply it ”(section“ about chicken eggs ”).

For a general idea of ​​nutrition in ancient times in Russia, here are a few culinary recipes for dishes that were popular at that time.

Turnip stuffed. Turnips are washed, boiled in water until soft, cooled, the skin is scraped off, the core is cut out. The removed pulp is finely chopped, added chopped meat and fill turnips with this stuffing. Sprinkle grated cheese on top, drizzle with butter and bake.

Oatmeal jelly. Pour grits warm water and leave overnight in a warm place. Then strain and squeeze. Add salt, sugar to the resulting liquid and boil, stirring constantly, until thickened. Add milk to hot jelly, mix, pour into buttered bowls, put in the cold. When the jelly hardens, cut it into portions and serve with cold boiled milk or yogurt.

"Pea block". Peas are completely boiled and crushed, the resulting puree is seasoned with salt and molded (you can use molds, cups, etc., oiled). molded pea mash spread on a plate and pour sunflower oil with fried onions, sprinkle with herbs.

Peasant bread soup. Fry small dry crusts of white bread in fat with finely chopped parsley and finely chopped onions, then pour water, salt, pepper and bring to a boil. Whisking constantly, pour the beaten eggs into the soup in a thin stream. This soup, which tastes like meat, should be served immediately.

Sbiten-zhzhenka. To get burnt, sugar in a spoon is heated over low heat until a dark brown syrup forms. Dissolve honey in 4 cups of water and boil for 20-25 minutes, then add spices and boil for another 5 minutes. Strain the resulting mixture through cheesecloth and add zhzhenka for color. Serve hot.

"Monastery chicken". Cut the head of cabbage not very finely, put it in a clay pot, pour eggs beaten with milk, salt, cover with a frying pan and put in the oven. Cabbage is considered ready when it acquires a beige color.