For the Love of Ice Cream

"Life has become better, comrades; life has become more cheerful."

So proclaimed Stalin in 1935. As part of the push to make life more cheerful, items that had only recently been cast as bourgeois or decadent were reintroduced by the government. Formerly outlawed Christmas trees became New Year's trees, and the production of domestic champagne and chocolates went into high gear. Even the lowliest workers would have access to luxury goods! Although Soviet champagne and chocolates never reached the pinnacle of quality or taste, one product undeniably contributed to the betterment of Soviet life: ice cream.

In 1936 Anastas Mikoyan, the Minister of Foreign Trade, toured the United States, where he became enthralled with American ice-cream-making technology. Mikoyan saw an opportunity to overtake America in ice-cream production. Wasting no time, he imported the necessary equipment, and in 1937 the first Soviet ice cream factory opened. Mikoyan decreed that every Soviet citizen should eat no less than five kilos of ice cream a year. After all, ice cream was a healthy food, rich in calcium and calories.

By 1941 rigorous production standards were already in place. Unlike most standards in Soviet life, they were scrupulously followed. For one thing, the famously rich and flavorful ice cream had to be sold within a week, so it was always fresh. Real cream was used, and the product wasn't whipped with a lot of air. Neither did it contain additives in the form of stabilizers or emulsifiers. Besides being made from all natural ingredients, the best Soviet ice cream — like the vanilla plombir sold from a freezer chest on the ground floor of Moscow's department store, GUM — boasted a whopping butterfat content of 15 percent. [Equivalent to superpremium American ice cream like Ben & Jerry's and Häagen Dazs.] Many Russians still wax nostalgic for that custardy plombir offered up in a waffle cone. With the introduction of affordable Eskimo bars, ice cream really did become a treat for the masses.

Visitors to Russia often marvel at how the Russians eat ice cream year round, happily licking cones outdoors, even in the dead of winter. This phenomenon isn't new. The nineteenth-century German writer Johann Georg Kohl remarked on his visit to Russia that, beginning at Easter time, when the weather was still cold and raw, street vendors hawked flavored ices on the city streets, shouting out colorful cries.

When the Soviet Union collapsed, the market was flooded with brightly packaged European brands, and plain Soviet ice cream lost its cachet. But the taste of these new imports couldn't compare. The bars can be held in freezers for months at a time, thanks to chemical additives that lengthen their shelf life. They contain a great deal of air, making the texture cottony instead of creamy. Vegetable oil often replaces natural butterfat, and extra sugar is mixed in to mask the pallid taste. But hope is on the horizon. Cafés like Chaynaya Vysota (see page 58) are generating a renewed interest in domestic ice cream. With luck, excellent ice cream will once again claim an important place in the Russian diet.