The History of Cooking

Today cooking is quite an art. There are great chefs, famous restaurants, thousands and thousands of cook clubs, and millions of people who are proud of being able to cook well.

Yet there was time when man didn’t even cook his food. The early cave man ate his food raw. Even after fire was discovered, the only kind of cooking that took place was to put an animal carcass over the burning embers. It was only gradually that man learned to bake in pits with heated stones and to boil meat and vegetables, dropping red-hot stones into a vessel of water.

Greek civilization advanced cooking to a stage of great luxury. In ancient Athens, they even imported food from distant lands, and the Romans had magnificent banquets in their days. Then, during the Middle Ages, the art of cooking declined and the only place where fine cooking was found was in monasteries. When good cooking was revived again, Italy, Spain, and France led the way. These countries were proud of having a more refined taste than Germany, where people ate chiefly meat.

A curious thing about cooking is that many primitive peoples knew almost every form of cooking that we are practicing now. They just did it more crudely. For instance, we cook by broiling, roasting, frying, baking, stewing or boiling, steaming, parching and drying. The American Indians actually knew all these ways of cooking, except frying!

Now every nation has it’s own traditional cuisine, and as the result of globalization many dishes, such as pizza, hamburger, pasta and others became internationally known and accepted. Most people think the chief reason for cooking food is to make it taste better. Actually, the changes cooking produces in food help us to digest it better. Cooked food also guards our health, because heat destroys parasites and bacteria which might cause harm.

The History of Russian Cuisine

The Russian cuisine is well known all over the world. Many products, originally used only in the Russian cuisine (caviar, sour cream, rye grains etc.) and traditional Russian dishes (borsch, bliny) have entered the restaurant cuisines in many countries.

The traditional Russian cuisine started from IX or X centuries, and the culmination point dates XV-XVI centuries. From the earlier period, the Russian cuisine was divided into two major types depending on the religious requirements to keep the fast. The first type is postny cuisine, which used fish, mushrooms, vegetables and fruit. The second is skoromny cuisine that allowed milk, eggs and meat.

The postny cuisine was the lucky one, because many days a year — from 192 to 216 depending on the year – were considered postny, which meant that in those days people had to keep a very strict fast. Meat, eggs and milk were not allowed, and that led to the natural desire to expand the range of postny dishes. That is the reason why there are so many fish and mushroom dishes, berries, grains and porridges in the Russian cuisine.

By the end of XIX century the Russian cuisine became so rich and varied, and it’s popularity in Europe rose so high, that it became as widely accepted as the French cuisine that was the world’s favourite at that time.

Is the Russian cuisine uniform or are there any regional differences? There are many different variations of every dish because traditional Russian food varies as greatly as the climatic zones through which the country stretches. Every big country seemingly features the variation of regional cuisines. Each zone has slightly different flora and fauna, which also influence the cuisine of Russian regions. That is why the cuisines of Moscow citizens, Don Cossacks, Siberians and coast-dwellers are different. North people eat venison, sea fish and mushrooms, people living on Don river eat poultry, fruit and vegetables and drink grape wine. The cuisine of Russian coast-dwellers is much similar to Scandinavian and Finnish ones. And the cuisine of Don Cossaks had been influenced by Turkish cuisine. The regional differences are caused by the traditional competition between the cities of Moscow and Tver, Vladimir and Yaroslavl, Novgorod and Pskov. The differences in their receipts were subtle, but very persistent. We our days, we still have Tula, Moscow and Vyazma pryaniks (cookies). The regional differences make Russian cuisine even richer.

Russian cooking has also been influenced by the design of the Russian oven and cuisines of the neigbouring countries. Russian Cuisine represents a wonderful bouquet of many cultural traditions and influences that have been absorbed over many centuries. For instance, tea was brought to Russia as the most precious gift from a Mongolian khan. This herb became very popular and now Russians drink tea 3-5 times a day. Tea has always been served with candies, pies, pryaniki and pastries.

Russian dishes

Russian cuisine is rich and varied. The basic food of Russian cuisine goes back to ancient times and include all kinds of vegetables, mushrooms, meat, milk products, honey, fruits and berries, and a variety of wheat, barley, and rye grains. But know we enjoy a huger range of tasty dishes.

Milk products. In Russia there is a large variety of milk products: a sort of dry, granulated cream cheese called “tvorog”, thick sour cream called “smetana”, several types of sour milk products of the youghourt type. Kefir is pleasant, useful beverage made from cow’s milk, yeast and lactic acid bacteria. It’s dietary product. Ryazhenka is a sour milk product made from baked milk, very pleasant to taste.

Appetizers. There is huge variety of appetizers – salmon, hot and cold smoked sturgeon, pikeperch in aspic or stuffed, herring, red herring. Baltic salt-sprats; fried, smoked, marinated smelt and the like. As for cold meat dishes, our guests can taste ham, lean cold boiled pork with spices (buzhenina), jellied tongue, meat jelly and horse-radish sauce and various salads beginning with salad “Stolychnii” to beet salad. For a change, you can taste frozen apples. They are delicious. Russian bliny are popular hot appetizers. In the old days Russian rivers were overfilled with different kinds of fish, that made for variety of fish table in Russia. Fish, caviars and milt became part and parcel of every meal and especially of “Zakuski” which usually a hearty introduction to a still heartier meal or cold appetizers served with vodka.

Soups. What about soups? There are plenty of them. No cuisine in the world can claim a variety of soups as large as that known in Russian cooking. The world itself appeared in the Russian vocabulary in the time of Peter the Great. Today there are many different kinds of soups. Shchee (cabbage soup), borshch (beet and cabbage soup), rassolnic (cucumber soup), ookha (special fish soup), mushroom soup and such cold soups as okroshka (redish, cucumbers, sausage, boiled potatoes and sour-cream in special beverage called kvass) and cold beetroot soup are very popular with our guests.

Main course.As for the hot dishes, guests can order fried burbot or carp, or meat dishes to their taste: beef-Stroganoff and mashed potatoes, roast veal, golubtsy (meat and cabbage rissoles), pelmeni (meat-filled dumplings), boiled potatoes with pickles and so on. There is a large variety of poultry and game dishes: roast chicken, roast duck and goose stuffed with apples, roast partridge, hazel-grouse, wood grouse, blackbird, pheasant and quail. They are juicy and tender dishes.

Desert. For desert you can have baked apples, fruit and berry kisel, compot, dessert fruit: aromatic melons from Middle Asia, water-melons from the Volga, juicy grapes, apricots, peaches, oranges. Russian cuisine is famous for its Russian pies which were baked in Russia in good old times and remain popular nowadays. There are a lot of different cakes and pies at the bakers, but the best samples are sure made at home. Some special pies are nearly unknown, but one is rather famous in the world. They are: kulebiaka, rasstegay, vatrushki, krendeli, boubliki, baranki, sooshki, Russian Easter cakes and various fancy-cakes.

Drinks. As for drinks I should recommend fruit and berry beverages: morse, kvas. Tea and coffee are also popular now.

Russian Recipes

Boiled potatoes with pickles
Boiled potatoes with pickles is a true Russian dish at any time of a day or a year.
Cut potatoes in small cubes, add finely chopped pickled cucumbers and
onion. Add salt to taste and dress with oil. Stir carefully.
Ingredients
250 g potatoes boiled.
80 g pickled cucumbers (sauerkraut).
60 g onion.
60 g oil

Beet salad

A very good appetizer for any occasions. Beet is very useful for digestions and contains a lot of trace elements necessary for a man.
Grate beets and cucumbers, chop garlic cloves finely. Combine all ingredients and stir in mayonnaise. If you don’t like garlic, don’t use it, the salad will be tasty
anyway.

Ingredients:

2 beets boiled and peeled.
2 pickled cucumbers.
2 garlic cloves.
mayonnaise.
salt

Borsch

1 c Navy beans dry
2 1/2 lb Lean beef
1/2 lb Slab bacon
10 c Cold water
1 Bay leaf
8 Whole peppercorns
2 Cloves garlic
2 tb Dried parsley
1 Carrot
1 Celery stalk
1 lg Red onion
1 ts Salt (opt)
8 Beets for soup
2 sm Beets
2 c Green cabbage shredded
2 lg Leeks sliced
3 md Potatoes cut into eighths
1 cn (1 lb 13 oz) tomatoes
1 tb Tomato paste
3 tb Red wine vinegar
4 tb Sugar
1 lb Kielbasa (opt)
2 tb Flour
1 tb Butter melted
1/2 c Sour cream (opt)

Cover beans with water and allow to soak overnight; cook until tender; drain; set aside. Place beef bacon and water in large soup pot; bring to a boil. Skim fat from surface. Add bay leaf peppercorns garlic parsley carrot celery onion and salt. Cover and simmer over low heat for about 1 1/2 hours. Scrub beets for soup and cook in boiling water until tender about 45 minutes; drain and discard water; cool. Peel and cut each beet into eighths. Scrub small beets; grate; cover with water to soak. Remove meat from soup; set aside. Strain soup into another pot and add cooked beets cabbage leeks potatoes tomatoes tomato paste vinegar sugar beef and bacon. Bring to a boil and simmer 45 minutes. Cut kielbasa into chunks and add with navy beans to soup. Simmer 20 minutes more. Mix flour and butter together to form paste. Stir into soup to thicken slightly. Strain raw beets saving liquid and discarding beets. Add beet liquid to soup. Additional sugar or vinegar may be added for sweeter or more sour flavor. Slice meat and arrange in individual soup bowls. Pour hot soup with vegetables over meat. Garnish each serving with a dollop of sour cream if desired. Serves 10.

Bliny

You can make bliny from flour made from wheat, buckwheat or oats. Heat 200 grams of milk or water, dissolve 20 grams of fresh yeast in it, add 250 grams of flour and mix the thick batter well. Leave it to stand for 2-3 hours in a warm place, and when it has risen, add 40 grams of melted butter, a teaspoon - full of salt, a tablespoonful of sugar, an egg and 250 grams of flour, and mix well. Then dilute with 600 grams of warm milk and leave to stand in a warm place. When the batter has risen, beat it down, and leave it to rise again. Now you are ready to cook the bliny.

Heat frying-pan with a long handle, rub with butter, pour in some batter and swirl the pan lightly to spread it evenly. When one side is cooked, turn the bliny over and cook the other side.

Bliny are often served with red and black caviar and salted fish, such as salmon, chum or herring. They can also be served with sour cream or melted butter. Many people like their bliny sweet, and eat them with all kinds of jam and tea.

Pelmeni

There are some other dishes in Russian cuisine which are very special for Russia. Pelmeni are Russian poached pasties that have a meat filling. It’s traditional Siberian dish. It’s difficult to give a recipe, because to learn to cook pelmeni you should visit Siberia.
Making pelmeni begins with the preparation of the pastry. Sift 300-400 grams of flour into a mound, make a well in the center and add a teaspoonful of salt, one or two eggs, half a glass of warm water and knead the dough. Cover it with a tea towel and leave to stand for 30-40 minutes.
Meanwhile, make the meat filling. Take 200 grams of beef and 200 grams of pork and put through the meat grinder twice, together with two brown onions. Add salt and ground black pepper to taste, chopped fresh herbs, such as green onions, thyme, dill, parsley and then some cold boiled water. The mixture should be not quite so thick as for rissoles. When the filling is ready, return to the pastry.
Roll it out thinly, cut out circles and put a small ball of filling onto each. The edges have to be joined and pinched together, which is not as easy as it sounds. No one cook’s pelmeni are the same: some make large ones, others small ones, some pelmeni are very intricately, and others more simply joined. Put the pelmeni in the fridge so that they become firm.

To serve, cook the pelmeni in boiling salted water for about 10 minutes, until they rise to the surface. They are served with sour cream, melted butter, vinegar, pepper and mustard.

Evgeniya Stroganova