William Vasilyevich Pokhlebkin. The hard fate of Russian buckwheat

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

William Vasilyevich Pokhlebkin is a scientist, historian, culinary specialist, almost every one of the 50 books and articles written by him can be safely placed in the favorites. You can throw away all the cookery books, leave only Pokhlebkin and not read anything else. He thoroughly got to the bottom of everything, and was able to intelligibly and logically describe the subject in simple language.

Pokhlebkin is the author of the work about Stalin "The Great Pseudonym"

Among the long list of scarce products of the past years, perhaps in the first place both "for experience", and for the deserved love of people yearning for it, and, finally, for objective culinary and nutritional qualities, undoubtedly, was buckwheat.

From a purely historical point of view, buckwheat is a truly Russian national porridge, our second most important national dish. "Cabbage soup and porridge are our food." "Porridge is our mother." "Buckwheat porridge is our mother, and rye loaf is our own father." All these sayings have been known since ancient times. When in the context of Russian epics, songs, legends, parables, fairy tales, proverbs and sayings, and even in the annals themselves, the word "porridge" is found, it always means buckwheat porridge, and not some other kind.

In a word, buckwheat is not just a food product, but a kind of symbol of the national Russian originality, for it combines the qualities that have always attracted the Russian people and which they considered their national ones: simplicity in preparation (poured water, boiled without interfering), clarity in proportions (one part of cereal to two parts of water), availability (buckwheat has always been in abundance in Russia from the 10th to the 20th centuries) and cheapness (half the price of wheat). As for the satiety and excellent taste of buckwheat porridge, they are generally recognized, have become proverbs.

So let's get to know the buckwheat. Who is she? Where and when was she born? Why does it bear such a name, etc. etc.

The botanical homeland of buckwheat is our country, or rather, South Siberia, Altai, Gornaya Shoria. From here, from the foothills of Altai, buckwheat was brought to the Urals by the Ural-Altai tribes during the migration of peoples. Therefore, the European Cis-Urals, the Volga-Kama region, where buckwheat temporarily settled and began to spread throughout the entire first millennium of our era and almost two or three centuries of the second millennium as a special local culture, became the second homeland of buckwheat, again on our territory. And finally, after the beginning of the second millennium, buckwheat finds its third homeland, moving to areas of purely Slavic settlement and becoming one of the main national cereals and, therefore, the national dish of the Russian people (two black national cereals - rye and buckwheat).

Thus, over the vast area of our country, the entire history of buckwheat development has developed over the course of two and even two and a half millennia, and there are three of its homelands - botanical, historical and national-economic.

Only after buckwheat was deeply rooted in our country, since the 15th century, it began to spread in Western Europe, and then in the rest of the world, where it seems that this plant and this product came from the East, although different peoples determine this "east" in different ways. In Greece and Italy, buckwheat was called "Turkish grain", in France and Belgium, Spain and Portugal - Saracenic or Arab, in Germany it was considered "pagan", in Russia - Greek, since initially in Kiev and Vladimir Rus, buckwheat was cultivated mainly by Greek monasteries. monks, people more versed in agronomy, who determined the names of cultures. The churchmen did not want to know that buckwheat had been cultivated for centuries in Siberia, in the Urals and in the vast Volga-Kama region; the honor of "discovering" and introducing this culture, beloved by the Russians, they peremptorily ascribed to themselves.

When, in the second half of the 18th century, Karl Linnaeus gave buckwheat the Latin name "phagopirum" - "beech-like nut", because the shape of the seeds, the buckwheat grains resembled the nuts of a beech tree, then in many German-speaking countries - Germany, Holland, Sweden, Norway, Denmark - buckwheat began to be called "beech wheat".

It is noteworthy, however, that buckwheat porridge has not become widespread as a dish in Western Europe. In addition to the Velykorossia proper, buckwheat was cultivated only in Poland, and even then after its annexation to Russia at the end of the 18th century. It so happened that the entire Kingdom of Poland, as well as the Vilna, Grodno and Volyn provinces that did not enter, but adjoined to it, became one of the main centers of buckwheat cultivation in the Russian Empire. And therefore it is quite understandable that with their falling away from Russia after the First World War, buckwheat production in the USSR and the USSR's share in world buckwheat exports decreased. However, even after that, our country gave 75% or more of the world buckwheat production back in the 20s. In absolute terms, the situation with the production of commercial buckwheat grain (cereals) has been the same over the past hundred years.

At the end of the 19th - beginning of the 20th centuries, a little more than 2 million hectares, or 2% of arable land, were occupied by buckwheat in Russia. The harvest amounted to 73.2 million poods, or according to current measures - 1.2 million tons of grain, of which 4.2 million poods were exported abroad, and not in the form of grain, but mainly in the form of buckwheat flour, but in round-robin 70 million poods went exclusively to domestic consumption. And then this was enough for 150 million people. This situation, after the loss of the fallen lands under buckwheat in Poland, Lithuania and Belarus, was restored by the end of the 1920s. In 1930-1932, the area under buckwheat was expanded to 3.2 million hectares and already amounted to 2.81 sown areas. Grain harvest amounted to 1.7 million tons in 1930-1931, and in 1940 - 13 million tons, that is, despite a slight drop in yield, in general, the gross harvest was higher than before the revolution, and buckwheat was constantly in sale. Moreover, wholesale, purchase and retail prices for buckwheat in the 20-40s were the lowest among other breads in the USSR. So, wheat was 103-108 kopecks. per pood, depending on the region, rye - 76-78 kopecks, and buckwheat - 64-76 kopecks, and it was the cheapest in the Urals. One reason for the low domestic prices was the fall in world prices for buckwheat. In the 20-30s, the USSR exported only 6-8% of the gross harvest for export, and even then it was forced to compete with the USA, Canada, France and Poland, which also supplied buckwheat flour to the world market, while unground cereals in the world the market was not quoted.

Even in the 1930s, when wheat flour rose in price in the USSR by 40%, and rye flour by 20%, unground buckwheat rose in price by only 3-5%, which, with its overall low cost, was almost imperceptible. And nevertheless, the demand for it in the domestic market in this situation did not increase at all, even decreased. In practice, it was in abundance. But our "native" medicine had a hand in reducing demand, which tirelessly spread "information" about "low calorie content", "difficult digestibility", "high percentage of cellulose" in buckwheat. So, biochemists published "discoveries" that buckwheat contains 20% cellulose and, therefore, is "harmful to health." At the same time, in the analysis of buckwheat grain, the husk was also shamelessly included (that is, the shells, flaps, from which the grain was husked). In a word, in the 30s, right up to the outbreak of the war, buckwheat was not only not considered a deficit, but also low-rated by food workers, sellers and nutritionists.

The situation changed dramatically during the war and especially after it. Firstly, all areas under buckwheat in Belarus, Ukraine and the RSFSR (Bryansk, Orel, Voronezh regions, foothills of the North Caucasus) were completely lost, falling into the zone of hostilities or in the occupied territories. There were only districts of the Cis-Urals, where the yield was very low. The army nevertheless regularly received buckwheat from the large state reserves created in advance.

After the war, the situation became more complicated: the reserves were eaten, the restoration of the areas for sowing buckwheat was slow, it was more important to restore the production of more productive types of grain. And nevertheless, everything was done so that the Russian people would not be left without their favorite porridge.

If in 1945 there were only 2.2 million hectares under buckwheat sowing, then in 1953 they were expanded to 2.5 million hectares, but then in 1956 they were again unjustifiably reduced to 2.1 million hectares, since, for example, in the Chernihiv and Sumy regions, instead of buckwheat, they began to cultivate more profitable corn for green mass as a fodder crop for animal husbandry. Since 1960, the size of the areas allotted for buckwheat, due to its further reduction, has ceased to be indicated in statistical reference books as a separate item among cereals.

An extremely alarming circumstance was the reduction in grain harvests both as a result of a decrease in sown areas and as a result of a drop in yields. In 1945 - 0.6 million tons, in 1950 - already 1.35 million tons, but in 1958 - 0.65 million tons, and in 1963 only 0.5 million tons - worse than in the military 1945! The drop in yields was catastrophic. If in 1940 the buckwheat yield averaged 6, 4 centners per hectare in the country, then in 1945 the yield fell to 3, 4 centners, and in 1958 to 3, 9 centners and in 1963 it was only 2, 7 centners. as a result, there was a reason to raise the question before the authorities about the elimination of buckwheat crops as an "outdated, unprofitable crop", instead of severely punishing everyone who made such a shameful situation.

I must say that buckwheat has always been a low-yielding crop. And all of its producers in all centuries firmly knew and therefore put up with it, did not make any special claims to buckwheat. Against the background of yields of other cereals until the middle of the 15th century, i.e., against the background of oats, rye, spelled, barley and even partially wheat (in southern Russia), buckwheat yields were not particularly distinguished by their low productivity.

Only after the 15th century, in connection with the transition to a three-field crop rotation and with the clarified possibility of significantly increasing wheat yields, and therefore with the "separation" of this crop as more profitable, marketable from all other crops, did it begin, and even then gradually, imperceptibly, little - buckwheat yield. But this happened only at the end of the 19th - beginning of the 20th centuries, and it was especially clear and obvious only after the Second World War.

However, those who were responsible for agricultural production at that time in our country were not at all interested in the history of grain crops or the history of buckwheat cultivation. On the other hand, they considered the fulfillment of the plan for grain crops, and in general, as a matter of fact. And buckwheat, which was included in the number of grain crops until 1963, markedly lowered agricultural officials their overall percentage of productivity in this position, in this line of statistical reporting. This is what the Ministry of Agriculture was most concerned about, and not the presence of buckwheat in trade for the population. That is why, in the depths of the department, a "movement" arose and arose for the elimination of the rank of a grain crop from buckwheat, and even better, in general for the elimination of buckwheat itself as a kind of "troublemaker of good statistical reporting." A situation arose that, for clarity, could be compared to how hospitals reported on the success of their medical activities by … the average hospital temperature, that is, by the average degree derived from the addition of the temperature of all patients. In medicine, the absurdity of such an approach is obvious, but in the conduct of grain farming, no one raised a protest!

None of the “decisive authorities” wanted to think about the fact that the yield of buckwheat has a certain limit, and that it is impossible to increase this yield to a certain limit without compromising the quality of cereals. It is only a complete lack of understanding of the problems of buckwheat yield that can explain the fact that in the 2nd edition of the TSB in the article “buckwheat”, prepared by the All-Union Agricultural Academy, it was indicated that “the leading collective farms of the Sumy region” achieved a buckwheat yield of 40-44 centners per hectare. These incredible and absolutely fantastic figures (the maximum yield of buckwheat is 10-11 centners) did not provoke any objection from the editors of TSB, since neither the "scientists" agronomists-academicians, nor the "vigilant" editors of TSB knew a damn thing about the specifics of this culture.

And this specificity was more than enough. Or, more precisely, all buckwheat consisted entirely of one specificity, that is, it differed in everything from other cultures and from the usual agronomic concepts of what is good and what is bad. It was impossible to be a "medium-temperature" agronomist or economist, planner and do buckwheat, one thing excluded the other, and someone in that case had to leave. "Gone", as you know, buckwheat.

Meanwhile, in the hands of the owner (agronomist or practitioner) who subtly felt the specifics of buckwheat and who looks at the phenomena of modern times from a historical perspective, it would not only not die, but would literally become an anchor of salvation for agricultural production and the country.

So what is the specificity of buckwheat as a culture?

Let's start with the most basic, with buckwheat grains. Buckwheat grains, in their natural form, have a triangular shape, dark brown in color and sizes from 5 to 7 mm in length and 3-4 mm in thickness, if we count them with the fruit shell in which nature produces them.

One thousand (1000) of these grains weigh exactly 20 grams, and not a milligram less if the grain is high quality, full-ripe, well, properly dried. And this is a very important "detail", an important property, an important and clear criterion that allows everyone (!) To control in a very simple way, without any instruments and technical (expensive) devices, the quality of the product itself, grain, and the quality of work on its production.

Here is the first specific reason why, for this straightforwardness and clarity, any bureaucrats do not like to deal with crap - neither administrators, nor economic planners, nor agronomists. This culture will not let you speak. She, like a "black box" in aviation, will tell herself how and who treated her.

Further. Buckwheat has two main types - common and Tatar. Tatar is smaller and thicker-skinned. The common one is divided into winged and wingless. The winged buckwheat gives goods of a lower real weight, which was very important when any grain was measured not by weight, but by volume: the measuring device always contained fewer grains of winged buckwheat, and precisely because of its “wings”. Buckwheat, common in Russia, has always belonged to the winged. All this had and is of practical importance: the stiffened shell of natural buckwheat grain (seeds), its wings, - in general, make up a very noticeable part of the grain weight: from 20 to 25%. And if this is not taken into account or "taken into account" formally, including in the weight of commercial grain, then frauds are possible that exclude or, conversely, "include" in turnover up to a quarter of the mass of the entire crop in the country. And this is tens of thousands of tons. And the more bureaucratized the management of agriculture in the country, the more the moral responsibility and honesty of the administrative and trading apparatus involved in operations with buckwheat decreased, the more opportunities opened up for postscripts, theft, and the creation of inflated figures for harvests or losses. And all this "kitchen" was the property of only "specialists". And there is every reason to believe that such "production details" will continue to remain the lot of only interested "professionals".

And now a few words about the agronomic features of buckwheat. Buckwheat is practically completely undemanding to the soil. Therefore, in all countries of the world (except ours!) It is cultivated only on "waste" lands: in the foothills, on wastelands, sandy loam, on abandoned peat bogs, etc.

Hence, the requirements for the yield of buckwheat have never been particularly imposed. It was believed that on such lands you would not get anything else and that the effect was economic and commercial, and even more purely food and without that significant, because without special costs, labor and time - you still get buckwheat.

In Russia, for centuries, they reasoned in the same way, and therefore buckwheat was everywhere: everyone grew it little by little for himself.

But from the beginning of the 30s, and in this area began "distortions" associated with a lack of understanding of the specifics of buckwheat. The disappearance of all Polish-Belarusian regions of buckwheat cultivation and the elimination of the sole cultivation of buckwheat as economically unprofitable in conditions of low prices for buckwheat led to the creation of large buckwheat farms. They gave enough marketable grain. But the mistake was that they were all created in areas of excellent soils, in Chernigov, Sumy, Bryansk, Oryol, Voronezh and other southern Russian chernozem regions, where more marketable grain crops were traditionally cultivated, and above all wheat.

As we saw above, buckwheat could not compete with wheat in terms of harvest, and in addition, it was these areas that turned out to be the field of the main military operations during the war, so they dropped out of agricultural production for a long time, and after the war, in conditions when it was necessary to increase in every possible way cereal yields were found to be more necessary for the cultivation of wheat, corn, and not buckwheat. That is why in the 60s and 70s buckwheat was being squeezed out of these regions, and the squeezing out was spontaneous and post factum sanctioned by high agricultural authorities.

All this would not have happened if only waste land had been allocated in advance for buckwheat, if the development of its production, specialized "buckwheat" farms developed independently of the regions of traditional, that is, wheat, corn and other mass grain production.

Then, on the one hand, “low” buckwheat yields of 6-7 centners per hectare would not shock anyone, but would be considered “normal”, and on the other hand, the yield would not fall to 3 or even 2 centners per hectare. In other words, the low yield of buckwheat on waste lands is both natural and profitable if the “ceiling” does not go down too low.

And the achievement of a yield of 8-9 centners, which is also possible, should already be considered extremely good. At the same time, profitability is achieved not due to a direct increase in the value of marketable grain, but through a number of indirect measures arising from the specificity of buckwheat.

Firstly, buckwheat does not need any fertilizers, especially chemical ones. On the contrary, they spoil it in taste. This creates the possibility of direct cost savings in terms of fertilizers.

Secondly, buckwheat is perhaps the only agricultural plant that not only is not afraid of weeds, but also successfully fights against them: it displaces weeds, suppresses, kills them already in the first year of sowing, and in the second it leaves the field perfectly clean of weeds., without any human intervention. And, of course, without any pesticides. The economic and plus environmental effect of this ability of buckwheat is difficult to estimate in naked rubles, but it is extremely high. And this is a huge economic plus.

Thirdly, buckwheat is known to be an excellent honey plant. The symbiosis of buckwheat fields and apiaries leads to high economic benefits: they kill two birds with one stone - on the one hand, the productivity of apiaries, the yield of marketable honey increases sharply, on the other hand, the buckwheat yield increases sharply as a result of pollination. Moreover, this is the only reliable and harmless, cheap and even profitable way to increase the yield. When pollinated by bees, the buckwheat yield increases by 30-40%. Thus, the complaints of business executives about the low profitability and low profitability of buckwheat are fictions, myths, fairy tales for simpletons, or rather, sheer eyewash. Buckwheat in symbiosis with an apiary is a highly profitable, extremely profitable business. These products are always in high demand and reliable sales.

It would seem, what is it about in this case? Why not implement all this, and moreover, as soon as possible? What, in fact, has been the implementation of this simple program for the revival of the buckwheat apiary in the country all these years, decades? Ignorance? In unwillingness to delve into the essence of the problem and move away from the formal, bureaucratic approach to this crop, based on the indicators of the sowing plan, yield,wrong geographic distribution of them? Or were there some other reasons?

The only significant reason for the destructive, wrong, unprofessional attitude towards buckwheat should be recognized only as laziness and formalism. Buckwheat has one very vulnerable agronomic property, its only "drawback", or rather, its Achilles' heel.

This is her fear of cold weather, and especially "matinees" (short-term morning frosts after sowing). This property was noticed long ago. In ancient times. And they fought with him then simply and reliably, radically. Buckwheat was sown after all other crops, during the period when good, warm weather after sowing is almost 100% guaranteed, that is, after mid-June. For this, a day was set - June 13, the day of Akulina-buckwheat, after which, on any convenient fine day and during the next week (until June 20), buckwheat could be sown. It was convenient for both the individual owner and the farm: they could start working on buckwheat when all other work was completed in the sowing area.

But in the situation of the 60s, and especially in the 70s, when they were in a hurry to report on the fast and quick sowing, about its completion, those who "delayed" sowing until June 20, when in some places the first mowing had already begun, received thrashers, naplobuchs and other bumps. Those who performed the "early sowing" practically lost their harvest, since buckwheat dies from the cold radically - all entirely, without exception. This is how buckwheat was mixed in Russia. The only way to avoid the death of this culture from the cold was to move it further south. This is exactly what they did in the 1920s and 1940s. Then buckwheat was, but firstly, at the cost of occupying areas suitable for wheat, and secondly, in areas where other more valuable industrial crops could grow. In a word, it was a mechanical way out, an administrative way out, not an agronomic one, not economically thought out and justified. Buckwheat can and should be cultivated much to the north of its usual distribution area, but it is necessary to sow late and carefully, planting seeds up to 10 cm in depth, i.e. leading deep plowing. We need accuracy, thoroughness, conscientiousness of sowing and then, at the moment before flowering, watering, in other words, it is necessary to apply labor, moreover, meaningful, conscientious and intensive work. Only he will give the result.

In a large, specialized buckwheat-apiary farm, buckwheat production is profitable and can be increased very quickly, in a year or two across the country. But you have to work in a disciplined and intensive manner within a very tight deadline. This is the main thing that is required for buckwheat. The fact is that buckwheat has an extremely short, short growing season. After two months, or a maximum of 65-75 days after sowing, it is “ready”. But, firstly, it must be sown very quickly, in one day on any site, and these days are limited, best of all June 14-16, but not earlier or later. Secondly, it is necessary to monitor the seedlings and, in the event of the slightest threat of soil dryness, make quick and abundant, regular watering before flowering. Then, by the time of flowering, it is necessary to drag the hives closer to the field, and this work is done only at night and in good weather.

And two months later, the same fast harvesting begins, and the buckwheat grain is dried after harvesting, and this also requires knowledge, experience and, most importantly, thoroughness and accuracy in order to prevent unjustified losses in weight and taste of the grain at this last stage (from improper drying).

Thus, the culture of production (cultivation and processing) of buckwheat should be high, and everyone employed in this industry should be aware of this. But buckwheat should not be produced by individual, not small, but large, complex farms. These complexes should include not only teams of beekeepers engaged in honey harvesting, but also purely "factory" production, engaged in simple, but again necessary and thorough processing of buckwheat straw and husks.

As mentioned above, husk, i.e.the shell of buckwheat seeds, gives up to 25% of its weight. Losing such masses is bad. And they were usually not only lost, but also littered with this waste everything that was possible: courtyards, roads, fields, etc. Meanwhile, the husk makes it possible to produce high-quality packaging material from it by pressing with glue, which is especially valuable for those types of food products for which polyethylene and other artificial coatings are contraindicated.

In addition, it is possible to process the husk into high-quality potash by simply burning it, and in the same way obtain potash (potash soda) from the rest of the buckwheat straw, although this potash is of a lower quality than from the husk.

Thus, on the basis of buckwheat cultivation, specialized diversified farms can be conducted, practically completely wasteless and producing buckwheat groats, buckwheat flour, honey, wax, propolis, royal jelly (apilak), food and industrial potash.

We need all these products, they are all cost-effective and stable in terms of demand. And above all, one should not forget that buckwheat and honey, wax and potash have always been the national products of Russia, just like its rye, black bread and flax.