Italiano
Perhaps not everyone knows that Soviet cuisine also had its vademecum: Kniga o vkusnoi i zdorovoi pishche (The Book of Tasty and Healthy Food), a cookbook written by Anastas Mikoyan, then food industry commissioner.
Mikoyan, during the 30s, travelled throughout the immense new country born of the Bolshevik revolution (but also abroad) and collected countless recipes that would not only help the comrades housewives but would show everyone the well-being of the new communist society, as proved by the new canned food and an abundance of fresh, quality ingredients (yeah… today we know it wasn’t exactly like that).
The cookbook was a huge success, so much so that it soon became “Kniga” (the book).
Years went by, the fought war became the “cold war”.
In the second edition of 1952, several recipes with typical ingredients of the decadent capitalist world (such as ketchup and cornflakes) were cancelled. As well as those typical dishes of those so-called “collaborationist” populations, such as the Crimean Tatars or the Kalmyks.
After a year, in the summer of 1953, a new edition in which all the “motivational phrases” dictated by Stalin had been erased. We had just entered the period of de-Stalinization … Josif’s crimes were in the public domain, and the former Marshal of the Soviet Union was now too embarrassing.
However, if you would like to try some good ol’ Soviet recipe yourself, today the book is available in English and contains a wide range of recipes ranging from the more “classy” dishes (like the “sturgeon in jelly“) to other far more “proletarian” ones (like the “Olivier” salad and the pea soup).
Oh, I almost forgot: regardless of whether you want to start a class conflict from your kitchen or not, I have some great catering equipment to offer you!
