Cooking With Sofia

Anyone unfamiliar with the life and oeuvre of Sofia Tolstaya, the wife of Lev Tolstoy, would be forgiven for basing their opinion of her on something like the movie The Last Station. It shows the last months of Tolstoy’s life, marred by the conflict between Sofia and Vladimir Chertkov – the writer’s disciple – for his legacy and writings that culminated in Tolstoy leaving his estate and Sofia behind, only to die ten days later at a remote train station, with Sofia shut outside until the very final moments.

But that is only a part of the story – the story of an eighteen-year-old girl virtually thrust into marrying the 34-year-old Tolstoy, by that time already a published author. He met her just once and proposed within a month, when she made a stopover at his estate on her way to visit relatives. The wedding took place just a week later. As she wrote, fully aware of the fact that people had differing views of her role in Tolstoy’s life: “Let people be charitable to the woman, who, perhaps, from a very young age, had the overwhelming task of the higher calling – to be a wife of genius and a great man.”

She gave birth to 13 children, eight of whom survived into adulthood. In a diary entry dated December 16, 1887, she described her life:

“This chaos of innumerable cares, overwhelming one another, often makes me mad, and I lose balance. Easy to say, but at each given moment I am troubled by the studying and sick children, the hygienic and, especially, spiritual well-being of my husband, the grown children with their affairs, debts, children and service, the sale and blueprints of the Samara estate, the new edition and the thirteenth part with the banned The Kreutzer Sonata, petition for separation from an Ovsyannikovo priest, the proofs of the 13th volume, nightshirts for Misha, sheets and boots for Andryusha, making all payments on time for the house, insurance, estate duties, people’s passports, keeping all accounts, transcribing, etc., etc. – and all of this concerns me directly.”

In addition to being Tolstoy’s scribe, loving wife and the mother of his children, she took care of the Yasnaya Polyana estate and of the writer’s daily needs. She would compose the family’s menus a month ahead, and her vast recipe archive included many dishes borrowed from friends and family. Her recipes rarely offer any exact measurements, which probably means she was one of those people who cook by feel, tasting and adjusting quantities on the go. But the absence of a strict approach makes the recipes more fun for the adventurous cook, who can follow the story’s thread, but play with its details.

Her seasonal recipe for stewed, wild mushrooms is a perfect example of this easy-cooking attitude. It calls for mushrooms, butter, flour, dill, salt, pepper, bay leaf or tarragon, and sour cream at the very end.

The mushrooms in question would usually be porcini mushrooms, considered by Russians to be the king of the forest, but slippery jacks, Aspen mushrooms, and birch boletes would also work.

Wash the mushrooms well, clean their stipes, and slice them up. If using the slippery jacks, don’t forget to pull off their slimy coating. Since the stipes are more fibrous and tougher than the caps, those pieces should be small. The mushroom caps are cut into slices, following their shape.

Reading on, the recipe advises one to put the mushrooms in a clay pot, add salt and butter, a tablespoon of flour, dill, pepper, bay leaf or tarragon, and then put them into the light oven, so that they stew. Cover the pot and, an hour before serving, add sour cream.

The light oven was a thoroughly preheated oven that was just beginning to cool down. To achieve the same in the comfort of your home, put the mushrooms in an oven preheated to 350º F (180º C). Half an hour later, lower the temperature to 300º F (150º C), and cook for another half hour before adding sour cream, and keep the mushrooms in the stove for another hour.

As for the amounts of butter, dill, bay leaf and tarragon, you can do as you like, keeping in mind the quantity of mushrooms that you have, or you can even replace the dill or tarragon with other favorite herbs for a personal twist on Tolstaya’s classic.

And if you have absolutely no way to get your hands on some wild porcini mushrooms, there’s another recipe from Sofia’s cookbook that’s actually rather precise, and requires just five ingredients, sure to be found in any self-respecting pantry and fridge.

The potato souffle requires 15 medium potatoes, some milk, 2 tablespoons of butter, 5 eggs (separated), and shredded cheese (and here, again, is your chance to make a very personal version of this dish with the use of your favorite cheese and, perhaps, some spices added).

Peel and boil the potatoes. Mash them thoroughly and add some whole milk, so that the mixture is neither too liquid nor too thick. Add two tablespoons of melted butter and 5 egg yolks (and any spices you might want) and mix well. Separately, beat the 5 egg whites to get them fluffy, and carefully fold them into the potato mixture.

Now move the soufflé to an oven safe dish, sprinkle with your cheese of choice, and put it in the 350º F (180º C) oven, as the guests are sitting down to dinner. This potato souffle was a hot appetizer, served second, after cold appetizers, so we can deduce that the baking time should be around 20 minutes.