Читать книгу The Soviet Diet Cookbook: exploring life, culture and history – one recipe at a time - Anna Kharzeeva - Страница 4

My first Soviet meal really did sound easy and not too time consuming – just like the party line said it should be. According to the instructions, all you need to do is get some meat or fish, fry it, boil a couple of eggs, slice off a piece of bread and cheese and make some tea, coffee or get a glass of milk.

Still less time-consuming is the instruction to “get yogurt out of the fridge,” which is the level of sophistication I’m ready for on a workday morning.

In reality, the fun begins with “just getting some meat” – even now, getting decent meat, especially beef, in Moscow, is not an easy task.

From what I understand, the problem with finding good meat began with Stalin. The Soviet leader got rid of all the beef cattle and decided that dairy cows could be used for both milk and meat. The result was very tough beef that almost always needs tenderizing. Sometimes even slow cooking it doesn’t help – let alone getting a cut decent enough to fry a steak.

There are seven grocery stores within a 10-minute walk from my house, and as far as I know, not one has decent, affordable meat.

But this is nothing compared to Granny’s memories of getting meat during the Soviet times.

“Butchers used to be the richest people in the country. Having the acquaintance of a butcher was priceless,” Granny said. “Butchers used to sell all the meat to ‘their people’ before it hit the shelves – in fact, it was just bones you could find in the shops. My colleague’s mother-in-law was a grocery shop manager, and we used to go to her shop to get meat. But even the shop manager couldn’t be guaranteed a good cut – her success depended on the butcher’s mood.”

This made the carbs-and-protein breakfast completely inaccessible for the average person. Going to the trouble of finding decent meat would have been worth it for a special occasion – much like me going to the best market in town for a leg of lamb – but certainly not for your everyday breakfast.

Fish was more readily available, and there was a selection of red and black caviar, but my great-grandmother, who we called Munka, a single mother who lost her husband in World War II and juggled two part-time jobs in addition to her primary one as a schoolteacher, couldn’t afford the expensive types of fish, and certainly not the caviar.

It sounds like making this “perfect Soviet breakfast” was about as realistic or accessible as getting a leading role at the Bolshoi after a couple of dance classes.

I did eventually find some decent enough meat for this Soviet breakfast, and the meal was quite filling indeed. Yet it was completely weird to be having steak with tea first thing in the morning!

Granny says that in her house, breakfast was most often porridge – my grandfather loved semolina porridge with cherry jam – and lots of bread (again, with jam or salami) and sometimes eggs.

I think I prefer that over tough beef for breakfast, too.