Our cuisine is considered one of the most satisfying, delicious and rich in the world. Ancestors knew a lot about food and loved a good table. They gathered for him five to six times a day. It all depended on the time of year, the duration of daylight hours and economic necessity. And it was called - interception, afternoon snack, lunch, paobed, dinner and pauzhin. Interestingly, this tradition was strictly observed until the abolition of serfdom. With the advent of capitalism, the number of daily meals was reduced first to three times, and then to two.
The main ingredients of Russian cuisine
Russian folk dishes have always been very diverse. The ancestral menu contained cereals, and meat, and fish, and vegetables, and mushrooms, and berries, and fruits. They also knew how to make butter. By the way, flaxseed oil was not consumed. It was used as the basis for paints. Scented nut oils from cedar and hazel were very popular, and the food was seasoned with hemp, mustard or poppy seeds. In general, vegetable oil did not occupy such a large place in the diet as it is at present. But the flour was of different varieties and types.
Historical change
After the adoption of Orthodoxy, Russian folk dishes became even more diverse. This is not surprising. If eating meat, milk, eggs, fish and vegetable oil is prohibited for more than half the days of the year, one has to be creative.
After long fasts, Russians gladly indulged in feasting feasts, many cattle were bred, and hunting grounds were teeming with animals - hares, pheasants, partridges, ducks, grouse, grouse, black grouse. They hunted bears, deer, elks, wild boars. The accession of lands has updated a lot of Russian folk national dishes and greatly expanded our menu. A lot of new things were introduced into the diet of compatriots by the tsar-reformer - Peter 1. He started a tradition of making butter from cream and sour cream, as is customary in Holland. He owns the introduction of new crops into the crop rotation and the ban on the cultivation of shiritsa, which is now known as amaranth.
The way of life in Russia was repeatedly updated, and traditional Russian folk dishes also changed. The history of the country with a circle of everyday traditions is perfectly described in essays about Russian antiquity by Mikhail Ivanovich Pilyaev,
Vladimir Alekseevich Gilyarovsky, Nikolai Ivanovich Kostomarov, Ariadna Vladimirovna Tyrkova-Williams.
Famous dishes of Russian cuisine
Traditions have changed, but some preferences have stood the test of time. Such Russian folk dishes as cabbage soup, pancakes, borsch, porridge, kulebyaka, pie, jelly, okroshka, kvass, sbiten, mead, etc. are well known all over the world. Fish, mushrooms, cereals - this is what they used to cook most often. .
Smoking, our ancestors did not know. It came to Russia at the beginning of the twentieth century. Meat and fish were cooked, baked, stewed, salted, fermented, dried or eaten raw, in the form of planing. Sturgeon, sterlet, beluga were by no means the diet of the rich alone. Delicious fish soup, aspic or pies of noble fish ate and ordinary people. Pancakes with black caviar, pies with hare, jellies from stellate sturgeon, cereals with froth from melted cream - these are all traditional Russian folk dishes. The list is far from final. Too few chronicles have survived to this day. More or less complete evidence dates from the 9th century.
Russian cabbage soup and Russian stove
Russian cabbage soup is a universal dish that visitors to Russian restaurants abroad know well. The correct pronunciation of the word even became a kind of entertainment. In German, for example, as many as 8 letters are used to denote the letter combination "cabbage soup". Of these, 7 are consonants. Try a few times fluently to pronounce a combination of seven consonants and one vowel at the end.
Cabbage soup can be cooked on vegetable, mushroom, meat, fish broth. Sour cabbage soup is cooked from sauerkraut or on a pickle from other vegetables. Russian folk cuisine did not expose the stepped heat treatment. If cabbage soup, borsch, porridge, etc. were cooked, then no products for them were fried separately, as is customary now. Either cooked or baked. Cooked in a large stone oven. The dish did not come into contact with open fire. It seemed to languish at a constant or slowly decreasing temperature from all sides, and not just from below. This gave the food a special taste, texture and consistency. The food was not brought to a boil. Other indicators were more significant - before the bread, that is, a very large heat, after the bread - that is, at a lower temperature and on a free spirit. The food was prepared for a long time. Any cabbage soup or porridge that had been obscured in the hot oven for several hours acquired an absolutely amazing taste, and the nutrients in this treatment were preserved much more completely.
It is impossible to reproduce the taste on the electric or gas stove, which distinguished Russian folk dishes. Their names are in old cookbooks - this is kalya, turrya, zatiruha, nanny, henhouse, kulag, maloduha, logaza, zhur, mess, tumble, gamula, vole, krupenik, oatmeal, etc.
Oatmeal
Fiber is a specially prepared flour made from oats or barley, which can be used in a variety of dishes. The peeled grain is steamed, dried, calcined and crushed into flour. Flour from oat flour is poured with hot milk, water, broth, a decoction of berries, vegetables or fruits. It does not form gluten, but swells and thickens very well. Cooking or boiling oily oil is not necessary. This flour contains a large amount of lecithin, which is destroyed at high temperature. Cabbage and feces were sometimes thickened with a fiber. Flax porridge in fat was part of the diet of the soldiers menu. The fiber was mixed with berries and placed in the oven for several hours. Berries gave juice, soaked flour and baked. The result was a delicious treat that was eaten with honey.
Calla
In modern terms, hookah is a fish soup, or rather, hodgepodge. However, ancient hookah was made on pickle from pickled cabbage or cucumbers. It was allowed to add kvass to the brine. The fish was taken sturgeon, with caviar. Often cooked on one black caviar. Callia had a very rich broth with a spicy taste. At other times, it was made from ducks, black grouse or quail. Cooked in the oven for several hours, it turned out incredibly fragrant, and the bones of the game were boiled to a soft state. Spicy herbs were grown in the gardens - dill, caraway seeds, horseradish, mustard, etc. Our ancestors used fragrant herbs skillfully, but over time, many secrets have sunk into oblivion, since spices brought from East Asia took the place of domestic herbs.
Currently, potato can be prepared from catfish or halibut and cod roe. Pickle is suitable from barrel cucumbers, cabbage, olives, watermelons or other fruits. It is important that it does not contain vinegar and preservatives.
Kurnik
This is an old festive Russian folk dish. The recipe involves a yeast or unleavened dough. Previously, small pies were made, which began with porridge, mushrooms, fish, vegetables and combined into one big pie. In the Russian oven, it was very well baked, it turned out juicy and magnificent. Not a single wedding could have done without a kurnik. It was also used to predict the future. Interpretations were made depending on who got what filling.
Okroshka
Okroshka was prepared mainly in the summer. This is a cold dish that looks like a soup. It is based on kvass and finely chopped fresh vegetables. Modern okroshka is made not only on kvass, but also on kefir. In addition to cucumbers, green onions, radishes, eggs, boiled meat is put in it, seasoned with sour cream and flavored with a large amount of salad greens - dill, parsley, etc.
Honey
There has always been a lot of honey in our country. It was exported in large quantities. Before sugar, food was sweetened only with honey. Berries were cooked with him for the winter, drinks were made. They did not heat the honey because they knew about the great health benefits of this product. Drinks from it were made warm or cold.
Water was boiled in a samovar and herbs insisted on it. Such decoctions were used everywhere. Linden flowers, chamomiles, ivan-tea, viburnum, raspberries, strawberries and other plants were picked and dried in the summer. Blasts on honey according to old recipes began to come into fashion again.
Jellies and jellies
Foreigners noted that cold dishes are very good in Russia - jellies and jellied meat. They were cooked from sturgeon fish. In winter, carnivores were made from milk pigs and birds. They practically didn’t eat beef, since the land was plowed on the bulls, and the cows gave milk. Pork was also not very favored. Chickens and ducks laid eggs. The main supplier of meat was wood. Game was the main meat during periods outside fasting. Seasoned jellies and jellies with horseradish, mustard, vinegar and salt sauces.
Fish
In the winter, sturgeons were brought from Central Russia on a sleigh to central Russia. The caviar of this fish was not a delicacy. Both the poor and wealthy people ate it in large quantities. In large barrels, she was taken abroad. Fresh caviar was eaten with vinegar and salt.
Smelts were baked in a oven until crispy and served on the same dish. It was baked so that the bones and fins became very soft and invisible.
Sturgeon tarts were used for filling pies. Vyaziga was removed, cleaned and dried. As needed, it was soaked, cut and, mixed with porridge, made pies. Fishmen, or fish pies, were made from raw fish.
Ear from sterlet, stellate stellate, sturgeon or beluga was made on a complex broth. First, small river fish was cooked, which was not cleaned, and thrown away after cooking. This broth, or yushka, served as the basis for the royal soup.
Russian folk dishes were not prepared from slaughter, obtained by women. Also, animals that feed on carrion, that is, river crayfish, were not suitable for food.
After Peter's reforms and the appearance of the “window to Europe”, wine and sugar began to be imported into Russia. A trade route was laid through the country from China and India to Europe. So we got tea, coffee, spices, etc.
New traditions came along with them, however, Russian folk dishes, photos of which are presented in the article, are still loved and in demand. If you cook them in the oven or slow cooker, they will be a bit like authentic options.