Potatoes before Peter I - a delicacy for the aristocracy

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

Nowadays, potatoes are almost the main basis of the Russian table, but not so long ago, only some 300 years ago, they were not eaten in Russia. How did the Slavs live without potatoes?

Potatoes appeared in Russian cuisine only at the beginning of the 18th century thanks to Peter the Great. But the potatoes began to spread among all strata of the population only in the reign of Catherine.

And now it is already difficult to imagine what our ancestors ate, if not fried potatoes or mashed potatoes. How could they even live without this root vegetable?

Lenten table

One of the main features of Russian cuisine is the division into lean and mild. In the Russian Orthodox calendar, about 200 days a year fall on Lenten days. This means: no meat, no milk or eggs. Only vegetable food, and on some days - fish.

Seems poor and poor? Not at all. The Lenten table was distinguished by its richness and abundance, a huge variety of dishes. Lenten tables of peasants and rather wealthy people in those days did not differ much: the same cabbage soup, porridge, vegetables, mushrooms.

The only difference was that it was difficult for residents who did not live near the reservoir to get fresh fish on the table. So the fish table in the villages was rare, but those who had money could call him themselves.

The main products of Russian cuisine

Approximately such an assortment was available in the villages, but it must be borne in mind that meat was eaten extremely rarely, usually it happened in the fall or during the winter meat-eater, before Maslenitsa.

► Vegetables: turnips, cabbage, cucumbers, radish, beets, carrots, rutabagas, pumpkin, ► Porridge: oatmeal, buckwheat, pearl barley, wheat, millet, wheat, egg.

► Bread: mostly rye, but there was also wheat, more expensive and rare.

► Mushrooms

► Dairy products: raw milk, sour cream, yogurt, cottage cheese

► Baking: pies, pies, pies, rolls, bagels, sweet pastries.

► Fish, game, livestock meat.

► Condiments: onion, garlic, horseradish, dill, parsley, cloves, bay leaves, black pepper.

► Fruits: apples, pears, plums

► Berries: cherry, lingonberry, viburnum, cranberry, cloudberry, stoneberry, blackthorn

► Nuts and seeds

Festive table

The boyar table, and the table of the well-to-do townspeople, was distinguished by a rare abundance. In the 17th century, the number of dishes increased, tables, both lean and modest, became more and more varied. Any large meal already included more than 5-6 changes of dishes:

► hot (cabbage soup, stew, ear);

► cold (okroshka, botvinya, jelly, jellied fish, corned beef);

► roast (meat, poultry);

► solid (boiled or fried hot fish);

► unsweetened pies, ► kulebyaka; porridge (sometimes it was served with cabbage soup);

► cake (sweet pies, pies);

► snacks (sweets for tea, candied fruits, etc.).

Alexander Nechvolodov, in his book Legends of the Russian Land, describes the boyar's feast and admires its wealth: “After the vodka, they began to eat snacks, of which there were a great many; on fast days, sauerkraut, all kinds of mushrooms and all kinds of fish, from caviar and balyk to steamed sterlets, whitefish and various fried fish were served. With a snack, borsch botvinia was also supposed.

Then they moved on to the hot soup, which was also served of the most varied preparation - red and black, pike, sterlet, crucian carp, combined, with saffron, and so on. Other dishes made from salmon with lemon, white fish with plums, sterlet with cucumbers and so on were also served.

Then, pies cooked in nut or hemp oil with all kinds of fillings were also sent to each ear, with seasoning, often baked in the form of various kinds of animals.

After the fish soup followed: "salted" or "salted", any fresh fish that came from different parts of the state, and always under the "zvar" (sauce), with horseradish, garlic and mustard.

Lunch ended with serving "bread": various kinds of cookies, crumpets, pies with cinnamon, poppy seeds, raisins, etc."

All separately

The first thing that was rushed to the overseas guests if they got to a Russian feast: an abundance of dishes, no matter if it was a fast or a fast day.

The fact is that all vegetables, and indeed all products in general, were served separately. The fish could be baked, fried, or boiled, but there was only one kind of fish on one dish.

Mushrooms were salted separately, milk mushrooms, porcini, boletus were served separately … Salads were one (!) Vegetable, and not a mixture of vegetables. Any vegetable could be served fried or boiled.

Hot dishes are also prepared according to the same principle: poultry are baked separately, individual pieces of meat are stewed.

The old Russian cuisine did not know what finely chopped and mixed salads, as well as various finely chopped roasts and meat basics, were. There were also no cutlets, sausages and sausages. Everything finely chopped, chopped into minced meat appeared much later.

Chowders and soups

In the 17th century, the direction of cooking finally took shape, which is responsible for soups and other liquid dishes. Pickles, hodgepodge, hangover appeared. They were added to the friendly family of soups that stood on Russian tables: stew, cabbage soup, fish soup (usually from one kind of fish, so the principle of "everything separately" was observed).

What else appeared in the 17th century

In general, this century is the time of novelties and interesting products in Russian cuisine. Tea is delivered to Russia. In the second half of the 17th century, sugar appeared and the range of sweet dishes expanded: candied fruits, preserves, sweets, lollipops. Finally, lemons appear, which begin to be added to tea, as well as to rich hangover soups.

Finally, during these years the influence of the Tatar cuisine was very strong. Therefore, dishes made from unleavened dough have gained great popularity: noodles, dumplings, dumplings.

When did the potatoes appear

Everyone knows that potatoes appeared in Russia in the 18th century thanks to Peter I - he brought seed potatoes from Holland. But the overseas curiosity was available only to rich people and for a long time potatoes remained a delicacy for the aristocracy.

The widespread distribution of potatoes began in 1765, when, after the decree of Catherine II, consignments of seed potatoes were brought to Russia. It was spread almost forcibly: the peasant population did not accept the new culture, since it considered it poisonous (a wave of poisoning by poisonous fruits of potatoes swept across Russia, since at first the peasants did not understand that it was necessary to eat root crops and ate the tops). [A very tense explanation of the official history. The late Alexander Vladimirovich Pyzhikov investigated this issue in detail, and the conclusion is by no means in the idiocy attributed to the Russian people.

On the contrary, the rejection of the potato was caused by the incomparably higher understanding of the people of the complex world-order processes affecting metaphysics. - Approx. ss69100.]

The potato took a long and difficult time to take root, even in the 19th century it was called "the devil's apple" and refused to plant. As a result, a wave of "potato riots" swept across Russia, and in the middle of the 19th century, Nicholas I was still able to massively introduce potatoes into peasant gardens. And by the beginning of the 20th century, it was already considered the second bread.