The Soviet Table

It is 1956. Khrushchev delivers his “secret speech” at the 20th Congress of the Communist Party. The Soviet Union invades Hungary. And the first issue of USSR hits U.S. newsstands, in an effort to show Americans what Soviet life is all about. USSR appeared monthly until the mid-1960s, when it became Soviet Life, which was transformed into Russian Life following the collapse of the Soviet Union. 

To celebrate this, Russian Life’s 50th anniversary year, I had hoped to find some archival recipes to share with readers. But, to my great surprise, not a single recipe was printed in the early issues of the magazine. Because the Russians have long acknowledged the importance of food in their culture, the lack of recipes or even commentary on food is less a reflection of food’s significance than a tacit acknowledgement of the problems that plagued food distribution during the Soviet years. Still, I wanted to find some sort of culinary trajectory to parallel Russian Life’s evolution. So I turned to three editions of the classic Soviet cookbook, The Book of Tasty and Healthy Food, corresponding roughly to the magazine’s various incarnations. 

Seasonality has always been important to the Russians, who wax rhapsodic over their ephemeral fresh fruits and vegetables. During the Soviet era, this appreciation conveniently served a political purpose as well: by celebrating the native and the local – Russia’s own treasures, people implicitly celebrated the nation. Thus, the 1952 and 1964 editions of The Book of Tasty and Healthy Food offer many recipes for widely available berries, stone fruits and apples, with an occasional recipe for fruits such as quince and oranges from the southern reaches of the USSR. But there are no recipes for tropical fruits like bananas and pineapples, which were a rarity during the Soviet years. Yet, because this cookbook was also intended to educate, both editions provide a sidebar that explains just what pineapples and bananas are:

Pineapples resemble large, ovoid pinecones; they weight up to 1-2 kilograms apiece; the fruits are juicy, sour-sweet and very aromatic. Pineapples are eaten raw, preserved, and are also used in confectionery.

The fruit of the banana has a rather thick, easily removable peel, and slightly mealy, sweet, fragrant pulp, which contains approximately 15% sugar.

By the 1978 edition, this sidebar had been expanded into two separate entries. The entry on pineapple notes that this fruit goes especially well with Champagne. The editors seem to have missed the irony of this allusion to the Ego-Futurist Igor Severyanin’s poem, “Pineapples and Champagne,” which in the early Soviet years was frequently attacked as an example of all that was wrong with bourgeois society. 

Once the go-to source for recipes, The Book of Tasty and Healthy Food has since 1991 given way to an abundance of cookbooks as well as popular food magazines and online culinary sites. So it was to the Internet that I went looking for recent pineapple recipes. There I found a plethora, such as the following dessert from www.gotovim.ru, which bills itself as the “journal of culinary discoveries.” Neither the ingredients nor the preparation of this dish are part of traditional Russian culinary culture, but the recipe demonstrates just how far the boundaries of the Russian kitchen have expanded over the past 50 years. This is all to the good. Still, I hope that access to exotic fruits year round will not minimize the wonderful seasonality of Russia’s own fruits and the joy that people take in celebrating them. 

Crumb Crusted Tropical Fruits 

Serves 4 to 6

1 small pineapple

2 mangos

2 papayas

5 teaspoons sugar

Grated rind of 2 limes

Juice of 1 lime

For the crust:

10 tablespoons butter

1 c. polenta

1 c. flour

2 tablespoons sugar 

Peel the pineapple, mangos and papayas and cut them into chunks. Mix well with the sugar, grated lime rind and juice. Place in a 11⁄2 quart baking dish. Preheat the oven to 375^oF. 

To make the crumb crust, work the dry ingredients into the butter until crumbly. Spread the crumbs over the fruit and bake for 40-45 minutes, until golden. Serve with warm with custard sauce or cream. 

Adapted from www.gotovim.ru