December 01, 2019

Herring Under a What?


Herring Under a What?
No Russian New Year's table is complete without this dish. Image by Eugene Zelenko via Wikimedia Commons

Every country has distinctive holiday dishes. For Russia, this means the New Year’s table. And one dish that is quite popular in Russia and other FSU states is herring under a fur coat (Селедка под шубой). While many tables in Russia enjoyed this dish on New Year’s, it remains a bit mysterious to outsiders.

Herring under a Fur Coat is actually a layered salad consisting of potato, herring, carrots, beets, egg, and lots of mayonnaise. The beet layer on top makes the entire dish look like it’s wearing a bright purple fur coat.

According to legend, the dish originated in 1918 in a bar in Moscow. A merchant named Anastas Bogomilov, who owned several pubs in Moscow and Tver, was frustrated that his customers got too drunk on New Year’s eve after drinking too much vodka, and would then break his china and windows in fights. So he came up with this hearty dish to help soak up the alcohol.

In addition, the ingredients in the salad symbolized values important to the new communist regime: the salted herring represented the proletariat, potatoes symbolized the peasantry, and the red color of the beets stood in for the Bolshevik flag. Bogomilov topped off the dish with the French sauce Provençal (later replaced with mayonnaise). He named this new creation SHUBA (ШУБА), which was an acronym for “Shovinismu i Upadku – Boikot i Anafema” (Шовинизму и Упадку – Бойкот и Анафема), or “Death and Damnation to Chauvinism and Degradation.”

Since its debut a century ago, herring under a fur coat has just gotten steadily more popular. In the initial years of Bolshevik rule, mayonnaise was difficult to come by, so only the political and cultural elite could afford it, making the dish something of status symbol. By the 1960s, mayo production had increased, making Herring Under a Fur Coat more accessible for all, and cementing its role as a staple of the New Year’s table.

Other popular New Year’s dishes include pirozhki, kholodets, Olivye salad, vinegret, pryaniki, and much more!

See Also

A Time for Pirogi

A Time for Pirogi

January – and the winter months in general – are a great time to master the hearty Russian recipes for all kinds of pirogi.
Russian Food With a Twist

Russian Food With a Twist

At Moscow's fashionable GQ Bar, Chef Konstantin Ivlev cooks up a new style of Russian cuisine. Here we present a flashy Baked Chicken Breast with Garlic, Potatoes and Truffles.
Christmastide Tradition

Christmastide Tradition

St. Nicholas, Babouschka, Christmas Eve festivities . . .Ded Moroz leading to Christmas on January 7th.
7 Russian Dishes for Olympic Viewing

7 Russian Dishes for Olympic Viewing

OK, so you are recovering from the Super Bowl and starting to look ahead to next weekend’s opening of the Sochi games. Which of course means a viewing party, which means food, which means Russian food!
Unusual Russian Dishes and VR Films

Unusual Russian Dishes and VR Films

“This dish is eaten in almost every home. I don’t understand Russian people’s tastes at all.” - Chinese blogger on herring under a fur coat, one of six items he listed as unusual Russian dishes
Like this post? Get a weekly email digest + member-only deals

Some of Our Books

White Magic

White Magic

The thirteen tales in this volume – all written by Russian émigrés, writers who fled their native country in the early twentieth century – contain a fair dose of magic and mysticism, of terror and the supernatural. There are Petersburg revenants, grief-stricken avengers, Lithuanian vampires, flying skeletons, murders and duels, and even a ghostly Edgar Allen Poe.
Dostoyevsky Bilingual

Dostoyevsky Bilingual

Bilingual series of short, lesser known, but highly significant works that show the traditional view of Dostoyevsky as a dour, intense, philosophical writer to be unnecessarily one-sided. 
Driving Down Russia's Spine

Driving Down Russia's Spine

The story of the epic Spine of Russia trip, intertwining fascinating subject profiles with digressions into historical and cultural themes relevant to understanding modern Russia. 
Life Stories: Original Fiction By Russian Authors

Life Stories: Original Fiction By Russian Authors

The Life Stories collection is a nice introduction to contemporary Russian fiction: many of the 19 authors featured here have won major Russian literary prizes and/or become bestsellers. These are life-affirming stories of love, family, hope, rebirth, mystery and imagination, masterfully translated by some of the best Russian-English translators working today. The selections reassert the power of Russian literature to affect readers of all cultures in profound and lasting ways. Best of all, 100% of the profits from the sale of this book are going to benefit Russian hospice—not-for-profit care for fellow human beings who are nearing the end of their own life stories.
Survival Russian

Survival Russian

Survival Russian is an intensely practical guide to conversational, colloquial and culture-rich Russian. It uses humor, current events and thematically-driven essays to deepen readers’ understanding of Russian language and culture. This enlarged Second Edition of Survival Russian includes over 90 essays and illuminates over 2000 invaluable Russian phrases and words.
Tolstoy Bilingual

Tolstoy Bilingual

This compact, yet surprisingly broad look at the life and work of Tolstoy spans from one of his earliest stories to one of his last, looking at works that made him famous and others that made him notorious. 
93 Untranslatable Russian Words

93 Untranslatable Russian Words

Every language has concepts, ideas, words and idioms that are nearly impossible to translate into another language. This book looks at nearly 100 such Russian words and offers paths to their understanding and translation by way of examples from literature and everyday life. Difficult to translate words and concepts are introduced with dictionary definitions, then elucidated with citations from literature, speech and prose, helping the student of Russian comprehend the word/concept in context.
Murder at the Dacha

Murder at the Dacha

Senior Lieutenant Pavel Matyushkin has a problem. Several, actually. Not the least of them is the fact that a powerful Soviet boss has been murdered, and Matyushkin's surly commander has given him an unreasonably short time frame to close the case.
Davai! The Russians and Their Vodka

Davai! The Russians and Their Vodka

In this comprehensive, quixotic and addictive book, Edwin Trommelen explores all facets of the Russian obsession with vodka. Peering chiefly through the lenses of history and literature, Trommelen offers up an appropriately complex, rich and bittersweet portrait, based on great respect for Russian culture.
Stargorod: A Novel in Many Voices

Stargorod: A Novel in Many Voices

Stargorod is a mid-sized provincial city that exists only in Russian metaphorical space. It has its roots in Gogol, and Ilf and Petrov, and is a place far from Moscow, but close to Russian hearts. It is a place of mystery and normality, of provincial innocence and Black Earth wisdom. Strange, inexplicable things happen in Stargorod. So do good things. And bad things. A lot like life everywhere, one might say. Only with a heavy dose of vodka, longing and mystery.

About Us

Russian Life is a publication of a 30-year-young, award-winning publishing house that creates a bimonthly magazine, books, maps, and other products for Russophiles the world over.

Latest Posts

Our Contacts

Russian Life
73 Main Street, Suite 402
Montpelier VT 05602

802-223-4955