Description of the feast in fiction. Description of food and images of "gluttons" in Russian literature

A rare Lenten ringing breaks the frost-bound sunny morning, and it seems to crumble from the bell strikes into small snow grains. The snow crunches underfoot like new boots I put on on holidays.

Clean Monday. Mother sent me to the church “to the clock” and said with quiet severity: “Fasting and prayer open the sky!”

I go through the market. It smells of Great Lent: radishes, cabbage, cucumbers, dried mushrooms, bagels, smelt, lean sugar... Many brooms were brought from the villages (there was a bathhouse on Clean Monday). Merchants do not swear, do not scoff, do not run to the treasury for acres and speak with buyers quietly and delicately:

- Monastic mushrooms!
- Cleansing whisks!
- Pechora cucumbers!
- Fancy snowballs!

From the frost, blue smoke rises from the market. I saw a willow twig in the hand of a passing boy, and a chilly joy seized my heart: spring is coming, Easter is coming, and only streams will remain from the frost!

The church is cool and bluish, like in a snowy morning forest. A priest in a black stole came out of the altar and uttered words I had never heard before: Lord, even Thy Most Holy Spirit at the third hour sent down by Thy apostles, Him, the Good, do not take away from us, but renew us, praying to You.

Everyone knelt down, and the faces of those praying are like those of those who are standing before the Lord in the Last Judgment painting. And even the merchant Babkin, who has beaten his wife into a coffin and does not lend goods to anyone, his lips tremble with prayer and there are tears in his bulging eyes. Near the Crucifix stands the official Ostryakov, who is also baptized, and at Shrovetide he boasted to my father that he, being an educated man, had no right to believe in God. Everyone is praying, and only the church warden is ringing coppers at the candle box.

Outside the windows, the trees, pink from the sun, were showered with snow dust.

After a long service, you go home and listen to a whisper inside yourself: Renew us, praying to You ... Grant me to see my sins and not condemn my brother. And the sun is all around. It has already burned the morning frost. The street rings with icicles falling from the rooftops.

Lunch that day was extraordinary: radish, mushroom soup, buckwheat porridge without butter and apple tea. Before sitting down at the table, they crossed themselves in front of the icons for a long time. The poor old man Yakov dined with us, and he said: “In the monasteries, according to the rules of the holy fathers, dry food, bread and water are laid for Great Lent ... And Saint Herm and his disciples ate food once a day and only in the evening ... "

I thought about Jacob's words and stopped eating.

- You don't eat? the mother asked.

I frowned and answered in a bass, frowningly:

“I want to be Saint Hermes!”

Everyone smiled, and grandfather Yakov stroked my head and said:

- Look at you, how perceptive!

The lean stew smelled so good that I could not restrain myself and began to eat, sipped it to the end and asked for another plate, but thicker.

Evening came. The twilight wavered from the ringing to Great Compline. The whole family went to the reading of the canon of St. Andrew of Crete. The temple is in darkness. In the middle stands a lectern in a black robe, and on it is a large old book. There are many pilgrims, but you can hardly hear them, and they all look like quiet trees in the evening garden. From poor lighting, the faces of the saints became deeper and stricter.

The twilight shuddered at the exclamation of the priest - also some distant one, shrouded in depth. They sang in the kliros - softly, softly and so sadly that it ached in the heart: Helper and Protector be my salvation, this is my God, and I will glorify Him, the God of my Father, and I will exalt Him, gloriously be glorified ...

The priest approached the lectern, lit a candle and began to read the Great Canon of St. Andrew of Crete: From where shall I begin to lament my accursed life of deeds? How shall I begin, O Christ, the present weeping? But like a Gracious, give me forgiveness of sins.

After each verse read, the choir echoes the priest:

Long, long, monastically strict service. Behind the extinguished windows, a dark evening walks, showered with stars. My mother came up to me and whispered in my ear:

“Sit down on the bench and rest a little…

I sat down, and from weariness a sweet slumber seized me, but on the kliros they sang: My soul, my soul, wake up, that you are sleeping?

I brushed off my slumber, got up from the bench and began to cross myself. Father reads: I have sinned, I have sinned, and I have rejected Your commandment...

These words make me think. I start thinking about my sins. At Shrovetide he stole a dime from his father's pocket and bought himself some gingerbread; recently threw a clod of snow in the back of a cabman; he called his friend Grishka a "red-haired demon", although he is not at all red-haired; Aunt Fedosya called "gnawed"; he hid his “change” from his mother when he bought kerosene in a shop, and did not take off his hat when he met with the priest.

I kneel down and with contrition repeat after the chorus: Have mercy on me, God, have mercy on me...

When we were walking home from the church, on the way, I said to my father, bowing my head:

— Folder! Forgive me, I stole a dime from you!

The father replied:

“God forgive me, son.

After some silence, I turned to my mother:

“Mom, forgive me too. I ate change for kerosene on gingerbread.

And the mother also replied:

- God will forgive.

Falling asleep in bed, I thought:

How good it is to be sinless!

Roast turkeys, geese, chickens, game, pork hams, large cuts of beef, suckling pigs, garlands of sausages, fried pies, plum puddings, barrels of oysters, hot chestnuts, ruddy apples, juicy oranges were piled on the floor in a huge pile, resembling a throne. , fragrant pears, huge liver pies and steaming bowls of punch, the fragrant vapors of which hung in the air like fog.

I really wanted to publish this post two weeks ago - December 24-25, but, unfortunately, it did not work out. Well, don't wait until next year now, right? Better make something else next time. One way or another, I would like to congratulate everyone on the holidays: Catholics - on the past Catholic Christmas, Orthodox - on the Orthodox and everyone in general - on the New Year. Let it bring you more bright moments and turn out to be meaningful and tasty in every sense of the word.

In general, I must say that I am impressed by many "foreign" holidays. I almost never mark them (especially according to all the rules), but I like to watch how others do it, and I rejoice with them. So it is here: I'm not a Catholic, but I like to watch how the whole Catholic world is immersed in the pre-Christmas commotion. Of course, we have our own Christmas, but this is a completely different holiday, which, moreover, is not so massive these days. The Catholic version, on the contrary, due to its wide popularity, has partly lost its religious overtones.

By the way, in Dickens's work, Christmas also appears to be by no means a religious date: the spirits of Christmas are not some kind of angels, but completely pagan creatures in their essence. And this holiday teaches not the worship of any particular deity, but simple human virtues that do not depend on religion - kindness, philanthropy, responsiveness and compassion. This is what I like about him. And that's what I like about Dickens' Christmas.

The above quote, of course, describes an exaggerated picture, and for obvious reasons I don’t undertake to build such a thing 🙂 (Although, by the way, in Russian literature, descriptions of feasts in a similar style are found all the time, and I still have no idea which side to them approach.) Today we have a poor Christmas dinner, but even he can leave indifferent only a completely jaded person. Because there will be a goose, which the poor see almost once a year - on the occasion of a great holiday, Christmas pudding, which is not cooked for other reasons, as well as simple roasted chestnuts, which in themselves are not some kind of delicacy, but perfectly complement the overall picture.

“Gas lamps burned brightly in shop windows, throwing a reddish glow on the pale faces of passers-by, and twigs and holly berries that adorned the windows crackled with heat. Green and chicken shops were decorated so elegantly and magnificently that they turned into something outlandish, fabulous, and it was impossible to believe that they had any connection with such ordinary things as buying and selling.

“The Lord Mayor in his stately residence has already ordered five dozen cooks and butlers not to lose face so that he can celebrate the holiday as it should be,and even the little tailor, whom he had fined the day before for drunkenness and bloodthirsty intentions, was already stirring his holiday pudding in his attic, while his skinny wife and skinny little son ran to buy beef.

“In the chicken shops, the doors were still half open, and the fruit stalls shimmered with all the colors of the rainbow. There were huge round baskets of chestnuts, like the waistcoat-clad bellies of jolly old gentlemen. They stood, leaning against the lintel, and sometimes completely rolled out of the threshold, as if they were afraid to suffocate from plethora and satiety. There were also ruddy, dark-faced, fat-bellied Spanish onions, smooth and shiny, as if glossy with fat, the cheeks of Spanish monks. Slyly and impudently, they winked from the shelves at the girls running past, who, with mock shyness, glanced furtively at a sprig of mistletoe hanging from the ceiling. There were apples and pears stacked in tall, colorful pyramids. There were bunches of grapes hung in the most prominent places by the burly owner of the shop, so that passers-by could, admiring them, swallow their saliva completely free of charge. There were heaps of hazelnuts, brown and slightly downy, whose fresh scent brought back memories of old walks in the woods, when it was so pleasant to plod along, buried up to your ankles in fallen leaves, and hear them rustle under your feet. There were baked apples, plump, glossy brown, set off the bright yellowness of lemons and oranges, and with all their appetizing appearance persistently and ardently urged you to take them home in a paper bag and eat them for dessert.

“And the grocers! Oh, the grocers only have one or two shutters, maybe they've been taken down from the windows, but there's something you can't see when you look in there! And not only did the scales tinkle so cheerfully, hitting the counter, and the twine so quickly unwound from the reel, and the tin boxes jumped so quickly from the shelf to the counter, as if they were balls in the hands of the most experienced juggler, and the mixed aroma of coffee and tea it tickled my nostrils so nicely, and there were so many rare varieties of raisins, and almonds were so dazzlingly white, and cinnamon sticks so straight and long, and all the other spices smelled so delicious, and candied fruits shone so seductively through the sugar coating that covered them, that even the most indifferent buyers began to suck in the stomach! And not only were the figs so fleshy and juicy, and the dried plums blushed so bashfully and smiled so sour-sweetly from their magnificently decorated boxes, and everything, decisively, everything looked so delicious and so elegant in its Christmas dress ... "

But then they announced the gospel in the bell tower, calling all good people to the temple of God, and a cheerful, festively dressed crowd poured through the streets. And right there, a lot of people flowed from all the lanes and nooks and crannies: it was the poor who carried their Christmas geese and ducks to the bakeries ... such steam, as if the stone slabs of the sidewalks were also being boiled or steamed, and all this was a pleasant indication that the Christmas dinners were already put in the oven.

This was a common practice in Dickens's time: the houses of the poor did not have comfortable large ovens, and they took their "semi-finished products" to bakeries, where they were heat-treated for a small fee. I must say that my current dwelling also does not boast a spacious oven, and before I went to the market for a goose, I even measured it just in case, so that he would definitely fit in there. And then, of course, there is a bakery directly in our house, but nowadays you can hardly count on the help of its employees in such a matter as preparing a private festive dinner, and even from customers’ products 🙂 Fortunately, I got a small goose , and in the oven it fit even with a fair amount of comfort. I'll tell you how it happened.

christmas goose

“Then two more Cratchits burst into the room with a screech - the youngest son and the youngest daughter - and, choking with delight, announced that there was a smell of roast goose near the bakery and they immediately smelled that it was their goose being roasted. And enchanted by the dazzling vision of a goose stuffed with onion and sage, they began to dance around the table, extolling young Pete Cratchit, who meanwhile was so diligently fanning the fire in the hearth (he did not imagine himself superfluous, despite the magnificence of the collar that almost strangled him ) that the potatoes in the lazily gurgling pot suddenly began to bounce and knock against the lid from the inside, demanding that they be released as soon as possible and skinned from them.

Well, with boiling potatoes for a side dish, I think everyone will successfully cope even without special instructions. Peter Cretchit then kneaded it with particular frenzy to serve it already in the form of mashed potatoes, but here everyone is free to do as he pleases. But the roasting of a goose stuffed with onions and sage, we will try to consider in more detail.

Firstly, we need a goose, and, of course, not a natural death, but innocently killed in the prime of life. We had few eaters, so the goose was small - only 2.5 kg. For a large family, of course, you need a bigger bird.

Second, the stuffing. Here, in principle, it is quite possible not to complicate anything and get by with basic products: onions, sage and bread crumbs. Now, perhaps, next time I will do without prunes: the demon beguiled him to add, an apple would be quite enough. It turned out well, but the taste of prunes significantly dominated the rest. In addition, it is better to take sage, of course, fresh, but I did not find this - I had to be content with dried. As a result, the composition of the filling I got this:

300 g onion
130 g bread crumbs
150 g prunes
1 apple
75 ml madeira
2 tbsp. l. with a large slide of dried sage
1 egg

But let's talk about everything in order.

1. Cut off excess fat from the goose. We put fat on the bottom of the baking sheet in which the bird will be cooked.
2. We carefully rub the goose itself with salt and leave it to rest for a while while we work on the filling.

3. Cut the onion, apple and prunes not too large.
4. Saute the onion in vegetable oil.
5. Add apples and prunes to it and cook until the apples soften a little.
6. Remove the pan from the heat, pour in the bread crumbs and mix.
7. Add chopped sage, mix.
8. Pour in Madeira, break the egg here, salt and pepper, and then mix everything again. The filling is ready.

9. We stuff the goose with it and put it back down on a baking sheet.
10. We tie the legs of the goose stronger, picking up the tail to block the minced meat all the way to retreat.
11. We send the bird to the oven, heated to 200 ºС. It took a total of about an hour and a half to cook my goose. Somewhere I saw a recommendation to calculate the cooking time in this way: 15 minutes for every 450 g, plus another 15 minutes in addition. Basically, that's what happened to me. In the process of baking, you need to water the goose from time to time with fat accumulating in the pan or something else. For me it was like this:
12. After the first 30 minutes, I took the goose out of the oven, thoroughly poured it with fat and sent it back.
13. After another 30 minutes, she took it out again and drained all the fat from the pan. She poured the goose itself this time with the same Madeira that went into the filling, and sent it to reach its final condition. For another half an hour.

“In the meantime, young Peter and the two ubiquitous younger Cratchits set off to fetch the goose, with which they soon returned in solemn procession. The appearance of the goose created an unimaginable commotion. One might think that this poultry is such a phenomenon, in comparison with which the black swan is the most ordinary phenomenon. And yet, in this poor dwelling, the goose was indeed a curiosity.

So, after the last half hour, the goose was completely ready. And for the first experience, it turned out, perhaps, more than not bad.

"Mrs. Cratchit warmed up the gravy (prepared in advance in a small saucepan) until it sizzled."

Everyone is free to make the gravy to their liking: Dickens does not have any clarifications regarding its composition. You can, for example, use goose offal in its preparation, usually attached to purchased geese (not to mention homemade ones). And mine was something like this:

4 tbsp. l. goose fat
3 art. l. flour
200 ml stock (I used chicken stock)
200 ml milk or cream
A couple sprigs of fresh thyme

1. In a frying pan (or in a saucepan), heat the fat and fry the flour in it until golden brown.
2. Pour in the hot broth, stir thoroughly so that there are no lumps, throw thyme in the same place and cook, stirring, until thick.
3. Add milk or cream, mix and heat. Finally, remove the thyme sprigs.

Oh, applesauce is just a song! I can eat it as an independent dish, separately from anything else.

500 g sour apples (I weighed already peeled and chopped)
200 g water
50 g sugar
lemon zest

1. Peel the apples, remove the core and cut into large cubes.
2. Place in a saucepan, fill with water and sprinkle with sugar. We also put a little lemon zest here.
3. Bring to a boil and simmer for about 20-25 minutes. During this time, the apples will become very soft and almost boiled into puree.
4. We wipe the apples through a sieve (at the same time removing the lemon zest) and cool.

“Martha wiped off the hot plates. Bob sat Little Tim in a corner next to him, and the younger Cratchits set up chairs for everyone, not forgetting themselves, and froze at the table at guard posts, spooning their mouths shut so as not to ask for a piece of goose before they reached them. turn".

“But the table is set. Read the prayer. There is a painful pause. Everyone held their breath, and Mrs. Cratchit, with an inquisitive look at the blade of the roast knife, prepared to plunge it into the chest of the bird. When the knife stabbed and the juice splashed, and the long-awaited minced meat opened up, a unanimous sigh of delight swept over the table, and even Little Tim, incited by the younger Cratchits, tapped on the table with the handle of the knife and squeaked weakly:

No, there has never been such a goose in the world! Bob said emphatically that he would never believe that another such wonderful stuffed goose could be found anywhere! Everyone vied with each other to admire its juiciness and aroma, as well as its size and cheapness. With the addition of applesauce and mashed potatoes, it was enough for a dinner for the whole family. Yes, in fact, they couldn't even finish him off, as Mrs. Cratchit remarked admiringly when she discovered a microscopic bone that had survived on a platter. However, everyone was full, and the younger Cratchits not only ate to satiety, but were smeared with onion stuffing to the very eyebrows.

What a wonderful goose! But the festive evening does not end there.

Christmas pudding

"... The younger Cratchits took possession of Little Tim and dragged him into the kitchen - to listen to the boiling water in the cauldron, in which the pudding wrapped in a napkin is boiled."

Yes, we are talking about the famous English Christmas pudding. Perhaps, I have not approached the preparation of any dish with such reverence with which I began to implement this recipe for a long time. From the outside, the whole hours-long process seemed to me akin to some kind of pagan ritual, or just another alchemical experiment. But in fact, it turned out that everything is quite simple - at least if you follow the instructions clearly. True, I still did not dare to cook the pudding in the traditional way - in a napkin, but used a more modern technique, distributing the dough into containers of suitable size. This allowed me to be sure at least that the final product will have a clear shape 🙂

I made Christmas pudding according to the recipe: you can check out the original. In principle, I practically did not change anything, only immediately halved the amount of all the ingredients, and also translated some of them into units of measurement that were more convenient for me. As a result, the test was enough to fill (not to the very top) one liter and one half-liter form. And the composition, in fact, is this:

168 g suet, grated (aka internal fat, beef fat, etc.) - I thought that this would be the most problematic ingredient, but I found it in the market closest to my house
113 g flour
1/3 tsp baking powder
1 tsp sweet spice mixes: cinnamon, coriander, ginger, cloves, nutmeg (I got a little bigger than intended, as you can see from the photo, but it did not hurt the pudding at all)
168 g fresh breadcrumbs (I chopped a sliced ​​\u200b\u200bloaf peeled from the peel in a combine - not the whole whole, of course)
225 g brown sugar
½ tsp salt
225 g seedless raisins
225 g sultanas
225 g small black raisins (in the original - cinnamon raisins, but I didn’t find something on sale, in the end I just replaced it with dark raisins, and quite large ones, so it didn’t turn out quite authentic)
1 medium apple
30 g chopped almonds (I took ready-made, cut into slices)
60 g candied citrus peels (orange and lemon), finely chopped
Juice and zest of ½ orange
75 ml ale (can be replaced with dark beer or milk)
45 ml whiskey (without a twinge of conscience rounded up to 50)
3 eggs

Yes, regarding rounding. Excuse me for the wonderful numbers like “168” - we all understand that it’s difficult to do without error anyway, and there will be no big trouble from reasonable rounding (the key word is “reasonable”).

To avoid confusion, I have listed the ingredients in the order in which they are added to the pudding mix. Julia in her post gives a useful recommendation to write them down on a piece of paper and cross them out as you add them, so as not to confuse anything. I did just that, and also prepared and measured all the products in advance and put them together on a separate table, which not only made the cooking process more visual, but also significantly accelerated it.

1. Put chopped lard into a large container, sift flour with spices and baking powder into it, add bread crumbs and mix thoroughly.
2. Pour sugar and salt, mix.
3. Add raisins of all three types and a grated apple (I cleaned it beforehand). We mix.
4. Add nuts and mix.
5. Pour finely chopped citrus peels and mix.
6. Add orange juice and zest.
7. Pour in ale and whiskey, mix.
8. Whisk the eggs into foam, add to the pudding mixture and knead it thoroughly again.

Now we examine the cupboard for containers suitable for cooking pudding. I found a Ikea salad bowl and a couple of bouillon mugs. They seemed to me the most suitable in shape: the puddings ended up being hemispheres. I did not have one hundred percent confidence in the heat resistance of these forms, so I, away from sin, placed under them on the bottom of the pots in which the puddings were cooked, along a piece of cotton fabric folded several times. This not only insulated the dishes from direct contact with the hot bottom, but also provided the right atmosphere in the kitchen - read: the smell of boiled laundry - as if the pudding was actually cooked in a napkin 🙂

“It smelled like laundry! It's from a wet wipe. Now it smells like near a tavern, when there is a pastry shop nearby, and a laundress lives in the next house!”

9. Lubricate the molds with oil and put the dough in them. The pudding will rise a little during the cooking process, so don't fill the molds to the brim, leave some space.
10. We close the form with a piece of parchment paper and a piece of foil and tightly tie this “lid” with a thick thread - so that water does not accidentally get inside the form during the boiling process.
11. From the same thread we make a loop or something like that, for which it will be possible to pull out the form from boiling water.
12. We put each form in its own pot of boiling water. My water reached about half the height of the molds. We close the pots with lids and leave each to boil for the time it is supposed to, adding hot water from the kettle as necessary. A liter pudding needs to be boiled for about 8 hours, for a half-liter pudding, 5 hours is enough.

“But then Miss Belinda changed the plates, and Mrs. Cratchit left the room all alone to take the pudding out of the cauldron. She was so worried that she wished to do it without witnesses.

Well, how did the pudding not reach! And well, how it will fall apart when it is laid out from the mold! And well, how they pulled him off while they were having fun and eating the goose! Some intruder could climb over the fence, climb into the yard and steal the pudding from the back door! Such assumptions caused the younger Cratchits to freeze with fear. In a word, what horrors did not come into my head here!

By the way, ideally, the pudding is not eaten immediately, but left to ripen for at least a month. In this case, before serving directly on the table, it must be immersed in boiling water again and boiled for two hours.

But, as we understand, it was difficult for the poor to organize the preparation of such a complex dish ahead of time, and besides, it was not easy for a whole month to fight the temptation and protect it from little unspoiled children. So Mrs. Cratchit made her pudding right at Christmas, and we, like her good family, ate ours the same day it was made. And since we had nothing to compare with, we were quite inspired by such an early result. But next year, of course, you will need to take care of cooking the pudding in November.

“And here comes Mrs. Cratchit - flushed, out of breath, but with a proud smile on her face and with a pudding on a dish - so unusually hard and strong that it looks more than anything like a pockmarked cannonball. The pudding is engulfed on all sides by the flames of the burning rum and adorned with a Christmas holly branch stuck in the very top of it.

The pudding is divinely good on its own, but ideally it should be served with some kind of sauce. The traditional version is prepared on the basis of butter and brandy - you can see its recipe in Julia's LiveJournal, at the same link as the pudding recipe. Regular whipped cream is fine too. And we ate pudding with English cream.

English cream

3 egg yolks
30 g powdered sugar
300 ml milk
Piece of vanilla pod

1. Without beating, mix the yolks with sugar.
2. Cut the vanilla pod lengthwise, clean out the seeds from it into milk, throw the pod itself in the same place. I had some kind of completely mummified one (I didn’t save it) - I had to first warm it up a little in milk, and then extract the seeds.
3. Bring the milk almost to a boil and pour it into the yolks (the remains of the pod at this stage must be removed from it). Pour in a thin stream, actively stirring the yolks so that they do not curl.
4. Pour this mixture back into the saucepan from the milk, put on medium heat and heat, stirring very actively, until it thickens. In no case should the mixture boil, otherwise it will become heterogeneous. Tested by sad experience: the result, of course, will be edible, but it will no longer be an English cream. So do not be distracted from the saucepan!

"Oh wonderful pudding! Bob Cratchit declared that in all the time of their marriage Mrs. Cratchit had never been so perfect in anything, and Mrs. Cratchit declared that now her heart was better, and she could confess how worried she was about whether the flour would be enough . Everyone had something to say in praise of the pudding, but it never occurred to anyone not only to say, but even to think that it was a very small pudding for such a large family. That would be just blasphemy. Yes, each of the Cratchits would burn with shame if they allowed themselves such a hint.

Roasted chestnuts

“But now the dinner is over, the tablecloth has been removed from the table, swept in the fireplace, kindled a fire. They tasted the contents of the jug and found it to be excellent. Apples and oranges appeared on the table, and a full scoop of chestnuts was poured onto the coals.

I also fried chestnuts for the first time, but it turned out to be quite elementary. In the absence of a fireplace, a modern kitchen stove also fit.

1. On the shell of each chestnut, we make an incision in an arbitrary place. Traditionally - cruciform, but for the result it is not very important, one long cut across or diagonally will do.
2. Put the chestnuts in a dry frying pan (preferably cut up), cover with a lid and put on a small fire for about 20 minutes (the exact time depends on how large the chestnuts are).
3. Pour the finished chestnuts into some more convenient dish and immediately put it on our hands. Chestnuts can only be peeled while they are hot, so for a small group it is not worth roasting a lot at one time. Or you need to immediately connect all the sympathizers to their peeling, until they cool down.

Hot gin drink

“Bob, turning up the cuffs (the poor fellow probably thought something else could hurt them!), poured water into a jug, added gin and a few slices of lemon there and began to diligently shake it all up, and then set it to bask over low heat” .

As I understand it, this is a kind of "mulled wine for the poor" - after all, this is happening in England. Moreover, in the description of a richer festival, just the same real mulled wine is mentioned. In general, if you, unlike Cratchits, can afford it, it is better to cook it. According to our realities, it comes out just cheaper! But to fully comply with the book, it costs nothing to follow the Dickensian description. If you want, like the heroes, to crown the evening with this drink, then it’s worth starting its preparation, of course, not before serving the goose, as Bob did, but at the same time as roasting the chestnuts. Well, provided that your home does not have a natural hearth, but a modern stove.

1. Mix gin with water, choosing the proportion to your liking. But don't overdo it! Still, gin has a rather sharp taste and smell, which is felt even at low concentrations. And in any case, I think there should be more water.
2. Add a few slices of lemon (about one per serving).
3. We shake it up well (I shook it from the bottom of my heart in a shaker, since we have a big one ... but inauthentic).
4. Pour into a refractory dish and set to bask over low heat. We heat up to the maximum temperature, but we make sure that in no case does it boil.

“Then the whole family gathered around the fire, “in a circle,” as Bob Cratchit put it, meaning, probably, a semicircle. On Bob's right hand, the entire collection of family crystal was lined up in a row: two glasses and a mug with a broken handle. These vessels, however, could hold hot liquids no worse than any golden goblets, and when Bob filled them from a jug, his face shone, and the chestnuts hissed and burst with a cheerful crackle on the fire.

“These are joyful days - days of mercy, kindness, forgiveness. These are the only days in the entire calendar when people, as if by tacit agreement, freely open their hearts to each other and see in their neighbors - even in the poor and destitute - people like themselves, wandering along the same path to the grave, and not some creatures of a different breed, which befits to go a different way.

At first glance, a strange choice of book for this magazine, isn't it? The theme of the recipes may also seem unexpected. I myself am not a vegan or even a vegetarian, and so far I do not see any prerequisites for this. But almost every time I happen to introduce some new, typically vegetarian dish into my menu, I get so much pleasure from it that I involuntarily wonder why I don’t cook this more often :)

As for the book, this novel by Scarlett Thomas deserves attention in itself (despite the stupid title). I started reading it as part of a kind of “flashmob” and did not expect that I would like it at all. Now I remember: the plot is rather stupid, the ending was somewhat disappointing, but nevertheless the story quickly captured me and gave me a certain number of pleasant hours, so I do not regret the time spent. At the same time, it was enriched with new knowledge from the field of mathematics (I have had problems with it since school) and cryptanalysis: the book is richly flavored with entertaining facts from both areas and, perhaps, this is the most interesting. But what about veganism?

In fact, when reading any book, I automatically note for myself what the characters eat - this is something akin to professional deformation :) Naturally, most of these notes do not find any continuation in my own kitchen, and with the book Scarlett Thomas, most likely it would be the same. But, having finished reading, I found a number of curious applications at the end of the book, and among them - a specific recipe from the menu of heroes, and the recipe for a pie - I had to urgently bake! Well, everything else followed behind the pie. In the end, not all recipes turned out to be strictly vegan, but if necessary, they are easy to adjust accordingly.

- Well, what do we have for dinner? - I'm interested.
“We have… Hmm… Sticky patties with onions, sautéed red cabbage with apple and red wine sauce, plus mashed potatoes, parsley, and celery.” There was beans and chips, but I decided to boo. Instead of pudding - lemon tart with mint leaves. One of the chefs said that this pie is called "Let them eat cakes." Something from the repertoire of Marie Antoinette. I think they're a little bored here. And I also brought you green “gunpowder” tea.

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• January 29th, 2013 02:35 am

Those who have what they have, sometimes they cannot eat,
And others can eat, but sit without bread.

And here we have what we have, but at the same time we have what we have, -
So, we have to thank the sky!

Robert Burns was born in the Scottish village of Alloway on January 25, 1759. His life turned out to be not very long, but fruitful: in his 37 years, he not only managed to become the father of a dozen children from different mothers (at the moment, over six hundred of his descendants live in the world), but also left a unique literary heritage. Today, Burns is the main national poet of Scotland, a truly national poet, and his birthday - January 25 - is celebrated as the second most important public holiday. The celebrations associated with it are commonly referred to as Burns Supper or Burns Night. And they are relevant not only in the poet's homeland - all over the world, Burns lovers' societies on this day (or approximately on these dates) arrange gala dinners that take place according to a certain scenario. It does not do without the sounds of bagpipes, the reading of Burns' poems and the performance of his songs, but the main point of the program is still gastronomic - the solemn removal of haggis, the reading of a poem ("Ode to haggis") and the ritual opening of this famous Scottish pudding (naturally, followed by eating). This year we also have a real Burns Supper. Naturally, with homemade haggis and other traditional treats.

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• February 17th, 2011 , 10:48 pm

“It was still early when we settled in, and George said that since we had so much time, it would be a great opportunity for us to have a chic, delicious dinner. He promised to show us what can be done on the river in terms of cooking, and offered to cook Irish stew from vegetables, cold meat and all kinds of leftovers.

There are several books that I always turn to when I want to remember what real humor and jokes are that make you sincerely smile with all 32 teeth or laugh out loud. "Three in one boat, not counting the dogs" - certainly one of them. For emergency elimination of a bad mood, it is enough to find the appropriate audiobook on the computer and start playing from almost anywhere. The effect is guaranteed - tested repeatedly. And even now, banging on the keyboard and just thinking about it, I can't help but smile in the most stupid way. Miracles, and more!

If we consider the immortal story of Jerome from a culinary point of view, then here we have to include a similar approach. Because the central dish of this book is simply impossible to cook in a bad mood and with a head full of all sorts of problems. Willy-nilly, you begin to flutter around the kitchen, giggling stupidly.

And I also like Jerome’s description of Irish stew because, no matter how the result turns out and no matter what stupid things I do in the cooking process, everything can be attributed to compliance with the literary source :)) This is one of the very comfortable from this point of view of books (I know other such books, and I will also gladly get to them). In general, just in case, I remind you of what is written in the very top post: this magazine is more about literature than about cooking. And this time I won't try to do everything right in culinary terms - that's what Irish stew is for! If you are disgusted by this approach - do not blame me, but I warned you.

“Towards the end Montmorency, who had shown great interest in the whole procedure, suddenly went off somewhere with a serious and thoughtful look. A few minutes later he returned, carrying a dead water rat in his teeth. Obviously, he intended to offer it as his contribution to the common meal. Whether it was a mockery or a sincere desire to help - I do not know.
We had a dispute about whether to let the rat into the business. Harris said why not, if you mix it with everything else, every little thing can come in handy. But George cited precedent: he had never heard of water rats being put into Irish stew, and preferred to refrain from experimenting.
Harris said:
- If you never experience anything new, how do you know if it's good or bad? People like you hinder the progress of mankind. Think of the German who was the first to make sausages.”

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• January 8th, 2011 03:46 pm

Roast turkeys, geese, chickens, game, pork hams, large cuts of beef, suckling pigs, garlands of sausages, fried pies, plum puddings, barrels of oysters, hot chestnuts, ruddy apples, juicy oranges were piled on the floor in a huge pile, resembling a throne. , fragrant pears, huge liver pies and steaming bowls of punch, the fragrant vapors of which hung in the air like fog.

I really wanted to publish this post two weeks ago - December 24-25, but, unfortunately, it did not work out. Well, don't wait until next year now, right? Better make something else next time. One way or another, I would like to congratulate everyone on the holidays: Catholics - on the past Catholic Christmas, Orthodox - on the Orthodox and everyone in general - on the New Year. Let it bring you more bright moments and turn out to be meaningful and tasty in every sense of the word.

In general, I must say that I am impressed by many "foreign" holidays. I almost never mark them (especially according to all the rules), but I like to watch how others do it, and I rejoice with them. So it is here: I'm not a Catholic, but I like to watch how the whole Catholic world is immersed in the pre-Christmas commotion. Of course, we have our own Christmas, but this is a completely different holiday, which, moreover, is not so massive these days. The Catholic version, on the contrary, due to its wide popularity, has partly lost its religious overtones.

By the way, in Dickens's work, Christmas also appears to be by no means a religious date: the spirits of Christmas are not some kind of angels, but completely pagan creatures in their essence. And this holiday teaches not the worship of any particular deity, but simple human virtues that do not depend on religion - kindness, philanthropy, responsiveness and compassion. This is what I like about him. And that's what I like about Dickens' Christmas.

The above quote, of course, describes an exaggerated picture, and for obvious reasons I do not undertake to build such a thing :) (Although, by the way, in Russian literature, descriptions of feasts in a similar style are found all the time, and I still have no idea from which side to approach them.) Today we have a poor Christmas dinner, but even he can leave indifferent only a completely jaded person. Because there will be a goose, which the poor see almost once a year - on the occasion of a great holiday, Christmas pudding, which is not cooked for other reasons, as well as simple roasted chestnuts, which in themselves are not some kind of delicacy, but perfectly complement the overall picture.

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Artistic description of various meals is quite common in the literature. But some writers go further, presenting to the reader the very process of preparing various dishes and drinks, giving fairly detailed descriptions of recipes. Using quotes from such literary works as a guide, you can create a real lunch menu, which is what we tried to do.

1 Writer Alexander Kuprin (1870 - 1938) by nature was a reveler and ladies' man, who loved to go hussar and intolerant of the routine of everyday life. He knew a lot about food and drink and gained a reputation as a foodie.

AT story "At rest" , which takes place in Shelter for the elderly infirm artists named after Alexei Nilovich Ovsyannikov”, one of the heroes recalls the salad recipe he invented:

Before for dinner, Stakanych made himself a salad of beets, cucumbers, and olive oil. All these supplies were brought to him by Tikhon, who was friends with the old prompter. Lidin-Baidarov greedily watched Stakanych's cooking and talked about what a wonderful salad he had invented in Yekaterinburg.

I was then in the "European", - he said, not taking his eyes off the hands of the prompter. - A cook, you know, a Frenchman, six thousand salaries a year. There, after all, in the Urals, when gold miners come, such revels go on ... it smells of millions! ..

All of you are lying, actor Baidarov, - inserted Mikhalenko, chewing beef.

Get the hell out! You can ask anyone in Yekaterinburg, anyone will confirm you ... So I taught this Frenchman. Then the whole city purposely went to the hotel to try. So it was on the menu: salad a la Lidin-Baidarov. You understand: put the pickled mushrooms, cut the Crimean apple and one tomato thinly and chop the onion head, boiled potatoes, beets and cucumbers there. Then, you know, mix all this, salt, pepper and pour vinegar with Provence oil, and sprinkle a little fine sugar on top. And to this, melted Little Russian lard is also served in a gravy boat, you know, so that the cracklings swim and hiss in it ... Amazing thing! Baidarov whispered, even closing his eyes with pleasure.”. A. I. Kuprin, "At rest" (1902)

2. Detective "Clownery" (trilogy "Escapade", "Clownery", "Cavalcade") by an American writer Walter Satterthwaite tells about the adventures of two employees of the Pinkerton agency at the beginning of the 20th century. This is not only a stylization of the American “hard-boiled detective”, but also a literary game full of allusions and quotes. Not without reason among the characters are Gertrude Stein and Ernest Hemingway. And the detective story contains many "culinary" digressions - a tribute to the author's past, who worked in bars and restaurants for many years.

The below excerpt gives one of the recipes for the main dish of French cuisine - Coq au vin (rooster in wine ). Despite the presence of the word “rooster” in the name, the dish is usually prepared from chicken.

By the time we're done, I'll go home for an hour. My wife will cook coq au vin (rooster in wine sauce) I'm already salivating.
Does she take red wine? asked Ice.
"No," replied the Inspector, looking at him. She takes white. Riesling.
- BUT! What about lardon? - He turned to me. “Slices of lard,” he explained.
"No," said the inspector. She fries the chicken in lard, then removes it from the pan. Add carrots, shallots and some garlic. Of course, everything is finely chopped.
"Yes, of course," Ledoc agreed.
- It all blushes, put the chicken back in the pan and add an equal amount of riesling and strong chicken broth.
- Ah, got it. Bouillon. Does he add spices?
- After she thickens the sauce with chicken yolk mixed with a little cream, she adds lemon juice and some plum brandy.
- Plum brandy. Very interesting. Ice nodded thoughtfully. - Thanks.
"Please," said the inspector.. Walter Satterthwaite, Clownery (1998)

3. The Commissioner of the Royal Police, Nicolas Le Floc, is a hero of historical detectives Jean-Francois Parot set during the time of Louis XV. To date, 11 books by the writer have been published, but Nicolas Le Floc gained particular popularity thanks to the series of the same name, launched in 2008 and which has already lasted 6 seasons. Descriptions of the adventures of the commissar - a professional detective and an amateur cook - alternate with a detailed description of dishes and recipes for their preparation. Jean Francois Parot , writer and historian, used authentic recipes of the 18th century for his detective stories. The passage below contains a recipe for cooking exotic potatoes at that time.

Pribor, bread and a bottle of cider stood on the table. Settling down, he poured a glass of cider and filled the plate with food. His mouth watered at the sight of delicious vegetables in a delicate white sauce, with pieces of finely chopped parsley and chives floating on the surface. Katrina, sharing with him the recipe for preparing this delicious dish, did not forget to remind him that one should not be impatient at the stove if you want to get a decent result.
First of all, it is necessary to select several potatoes of equal size, or “plump”, as Katrina called potato tubers. Then wash them, walk around and carefully remove the peel, trying to give them a rounded shape without protrusions. Cut the lard into pieces, throw it into a deep frying pan and simmer over low heat until the lard gives up all its juice, and then remove it from the pan, trying not to let it start to burn. In hot fat, the cook explained, dip the potatoes and fry until golden brown. Do not forget to add a couple of unpeeled garlic cloves, a pinch of cumin and a bay leaf. Gradually, the vegetables will be covered with a crispy crust. Continue frying, carefully turning over, for some more time, so that the middle of the vegetable becomes soft, and only then, and not earlier, sprinkle a good spoonful of flour on top and saute the flour along with the vegetables with confident movements, and after sauteing, pour half a bottle of Burgundy wine. Well, of course, salt and pepper, and then leave to languish over low heat for another good two-quarters of an hour. When the sauce is reduced, it will become tender and velvety. Light and fluid, it gently hugs crumbly potatoes melting in your mouth in a fried crust. There is no good cuisine without love, Katrina repeated.» Jean-Francois Parot, "The Riddle of the Rue Blanc Manteau" (2000)

4. In a novel Yuliana Semenova“ Expansion - I. On the razor's edge” that talks about work Soviet intelligence officer Stirlitz in the post-war period, there is one unusual coffee recipe. Its originality lies in the presence of such an unexpected ingredient as ... garlic. This old recipe has a mysterious name “ The Old Moor's Secret”.

Jacobs went to the fireplace, where he had a coffee grinder and a small electric stove with brass turrets. Arbitrarily and beautifully, somehow magically, he began to make coffee, while explaining:
- In Ankara, they gave me a recipe, it is fabulous. Instead of sugar - a spoonful of honey, very liquid, preferably lime, a quarter of a clove of garlic, this links together the meaning of coffee and honey, and, most importantly, do not let it boil.
All that boiled over is meaningless. After all, people who have undergone excessive overload - physical and moral - lose themselves, don't you think?” Yulian Semenov "Expansion - I. On the Razor's Edge" (1984)

5. A glass of cognac will be a worthy end to the meal. According to the rules of modern etiquette, cognac should be drunk only as digestif, i.e. at the end of a meal. Fits him perfectly spicy appetizer "Nikolashka".

Such a strange name is associated with the name of the last Russian Tsar Nicholas II, who allegedly invented this appetizer. And how to cook it, you can learn from a fragment of a science fiction novel by Sergei Lukyanenko, full of culinary descriptions.

ATFirst, he began to prepare a snack. Pound sugar in a coffee grinder to a state of light powder, poured it into a saucer. He threw a dozen coffee beans into the mill and turned them into dust, unsuitable even for espresso. Mixed with sugar. Now all that remained was to cut the lemon into thin slices and sprinkle with the resulting mixture, building the famous “nikolashka”, a wonderful cognac appetizer, the main contribution of the last Russian tsar to cooking ... I rinsed the lemon under the tap and doused it with boiling water, cut it into thin circles, sprinkled with sugar and coffee powder. Some aesthetes recommended adding a salty note to the harmony of sour-sweet-bitter taste - a tiny pinch of salt or a small portion of caviar. But this always seemed to Martin an excess and gluttony. Now the preparations for the solitary binge were completed.”Sergei Lukyanenko, Spectrum (2002).

The theme of gluttony has long been found in literary works. But since gluttony has always been considered a mortal sin, the images of “gluttons” created in them are often presented in a satirical way. True, depending on the literary genre, the tone in relation to literary characters varies from frank condemnation of "Mammon's saints" to grotesque and banter over the gastronomic weaknesses of the characters. Everyone eats, but not everyone becomes a gourmet. The description of eating habits is successfully used by the authors to characterize individual characters, as well as to immerse readers in the culture and life of that time.

NIKOLAI VASILIEVICH GOGOL with his “Evenings on a Farm near Dikanka”, where dumplings with sour cream go into your mouth by themselves, which seems to symbolize gluttony, but right there, - in the preface - such “desserts” are served:

“But when you are welcome to visit, we will serve melons such as you may not have eaten in your life; and honey, I swear, you won’t find better on farms. Imagine that as you bring in the honeycomb, the spirit will go throughout the whole room, you can’t imagine what it is: pure, like a tear, or expensive crystal, which happens in earrings. And what kind of pies will my old woman feed! What pies, if you only knew: sugar, perfect sugar! And the oil flows like that on the lips when you start eating.

Have you ever drunk, gentlemen, pear kvass with blackthorn berries or varenukha with raisins and plums? Or have you sometimes eat putru with milk? My God, what kind of food there are in the world! If you start to eat - gluttony, and it’s full. ”

"Evenings on a Farm Near Dikanka"

And here is an excerpt from the story "Old-world landowners."

The “old-world landowners” are addressed “not by the striking power of sarcasm”, but by the “uplifting power of lyricism”. Great Faith N.V. Gogol to the beautiful in man allowed him to find love in everyday life, in caring for each other loving people.

The desire of Pulcheria Ivanovna conveyed by the writer to regale her husband, to please him with his favorite dishes, the reverent relationship between the old-world landowners is the lyrical beginning of the story. Thanks to this, in the imagination of readers, a picture of a peaceful, measured life of a provincial noble estate and its inhabitants is formed.

“Both old men, according to the old custom of old-world landowners, were very fond of eating. As soon as dawn broke (they always got up early) and as soon as the doors started their discordant concert, they were already sitting at the table and drinking coffee ...

“What would you like to eat now, Afanasy Ivanovich? Is it shortbread with bacon, or pies with poppy seeds, or, perhaps, salted mushrooms?

“Perhaps, even saffron milk caps, or pies,” answered Afanasy Ivanovich, and suddenly a tablecloth with pies and saffron milk caps appeared on the table.

An hour before dinner, Afanasy Ivanovich ate again, drank an old silver glass of vodka, ate mushrooms, various dried fish and other things. They sat down to dinner at twelve o'clock. In addition to dishes and gravy boats, there were a lot of pots with smeared lids on the table so that some appetizing product of old delicious cuisine could not run out of steam. At dinner, conversation usually went on about subjects closest to dinner.

“It seems to me as if it’s porridge,” Afanasy Ivanovich usually used to say, “it’s a little burnt, doesn’t it seem to you, Pulcheria Ivanovna? “No, Afanasy Ivanovich, put in more butter and then it won’t seem burnt, or just take this sauce with mushrooms and add it to it.”

"Perhaps," Afanasy Ivanovich said, and held out his plate: "we'll try it, how it will be."

After dinner, Afanasy Ivanovich went to rest for one hour, after which Pulcheria Ivanovna brought a sliced ​​watermelon and said: "Here, try it, Afanasy Ivanovich, what a good watermelon."

“Don’t believe it, Pulcheria Ivanovna, that it’s red in the middle,” said Afanasy Ivanovich, taking a decent chunk, “It happens that it’s red, but not good.” On the watermelon immediately disappeared. After that, Afanasy Ivanovich ate a few more pears and went for a walk in the garden with Pulcheria Ivanovna.

Arriving home, Pulcheria Ivanovna went about her business, and he sat under a canopy facing the courtyard, and watched how the pantry constantly showed and closed its insides and the girls, pushing one another, then brought in, then carried out a bunch of all sorts of squabbles in wooden boxes, sieves , overnight stays and other fruit storage facilities. A little later he sent for Pulcheria Ivanovna, or went to her himself and said: “What would I like to eat, Pulcheria Ivanovna?”

"What would it be?" - said Pulcheria Ivanovna, am I going to tell you to bring dumplings with berries, which I ordered to leave for you on purpose?

"And that's good," replied Afanasy Ivanovich.

“Or maybe you would eat kisselika?”.

“And that’s good,” answered Afanasy Ivanovich. After that, all this was immediately brought and, as usual, was eaten.

Before supper Afanasy Ivanovich had something else to eat. At half past ten they sat down for dinner. After supper they immediately went back to bed, and a general silence settled in this active and at the same time calm corner. The room in which Afanasy Petrovich and Pulcheria Ivanovna slept was so hot that few people would be able to stay in it for several hours. But Afanasy Ivanovich was even warmer than that, although the intense heat often forced him to get up several times in the middle of the night and pace the room. Sometimes Afanasy Ivanovich would moan as he walked up and down the room.

Then Pulcheria Ivanovna asked: “Why are you moaning, Afanasy Ivanovich?”

“God knows, Pulcheria Ivanovna, as if his stomach hurts a little,” said Afanasy Petrovich.

"Maybe you ate something, Afanasy Petrovich?"

“I don’t know if it will be good, Pulcheria Ivanovna! However, why would you eat something like that? ”

"Sour milk, or thin uzvara with dried pears."

“Perhaps, if only to try,” said Afanasy Ivanovich. The sleepy girl went to rummage through the cupboards, and Afanasy Ivanovich ate a plate, after which he usually said: "Now it seems to have become easier."

Dishes prepared with love, hospitality, unhurried conversations make the life of the old people simple and clear, help to withstand adversity.

Old-world life becomes life, because, because it is permeated by the love of the characters for each other, for life, even if Gogol calls it a “habit”. However, he says, “Such a deep, such a crushing pity,” about Pulcheria Ivanovna’s feelings for Afanasy Ivanovich. "Such a long, such a hot sadness" - about the feeling of an old man after the death of his wife.

In Dead Souls, the food says a lot about the characters. In the chapter devoted to Chichikov's visit to Sobakevich, the latter emphasizes the traits of heroism (albeit with irony) through many n portrait details, enumeration of dishes served for dinner, and their quantity.

N.V. Gogol "Dead Souls" (lunch at Sobakevich's)

“Chi, my soul, is very good today! - said Sobakevich, taking a sip of cabbage soup and dumping off a huge piece of nanny, a famous dish that is served with cabbage soup and consists of a lamb stomach stuffed with buckwheat porridge, brains and legs. “You won’t eat in the city like a nurse,” he continued, turning to Chichikov, “the devil knows what they’ll serve you there.” All this was invented by the Germans and the French doctors, I would hang them for this! Invented a diet, treat hunger! That they have a German liquid nature, so they imagine that they can cope with the Russian stomach! I don't. I have pork - let's put the whole pig on the table. Lamb - drag the whole ram, goose - the whole goose! I'd rather eat two dishes, but eat in moderation, as my soul requires. Sobakevich confirmed this with a deed: he tipped half a lamb side onto his plate, ate it all, gnawed it, and sucked it down to the last bone.

The Russian stomach for him is equal to the broad Russian soul, this is the subject of his pride. Of course, Gogol laughs at his hero: Sobakevich's gluttony is, of course, gluttony and sin, but the many-page, hospitable descriptions of feasts in "Old World Landowners" are rather gourmet. What, by the way, the author secretly confessed: “My grandfather (God rest his soul! So that in the next world he would eat only loaves up to poppy seeds in honey!) knew how to tell wonderfully.”

The great ANTON PAVLOVICH CHEKHOV had a cult of food already in his early stories. You just read his story "Siren" before dinner - this is the best way to increase appetite:

“Ah, to blame, sir, Pyotr Nikolaitch! I'll be quiet, - said the secretary and continued in a half-whisper: - Well - sir, but to eat, my soul Grigory Savvich, you also need to be able to. You need to know what to eat. The best appetizer, if you want to know, is herring. You ate a piece of it with onion and mustard sauce, now, my benefactor, while you still feel sparks in your stomach, eat caviar by itself or, if you wish, with lemon, then a simple radish with salt, then herring again, but best of all, benefactor , salted mushrooms, if you cut them finely, like caviar, and, you know, with onions, with Provencal oil ... overeating ”But burbot liver is a tragedy!

Hmmm ... - the honorary world agreed, screwing up his eyes. - For a snack, they are also good, that ... stuffy porcini mushrooms ... ". (However, in his youth, Anton Palych showed youthful maximalism, arguing that “Humanity thought and thought, but still it didn’t come up with anything better than a pickle with a glass of vodka”). Even the herring he mentions is one of the most frequently depicted snacks in Russian painting.

Kuzma Petrov-Vodkin "Herring". 1918. State Russian Museum. St. Petersburg

Zinaida Serebryakova Herring and Lemon. 1920-1922

But how A.P. Chekhov in the story "On Frailty" describes the meal of his hero.

“The court adviser Semyon Petrovich Podtykin sat down at the table, covered his chest with a napkin and, burning with impatience, began to wait for the moment when pancakes would be served. In front of him, as in front of a commander surveying the battlefield, a whole picture spread out. In the middle of the table, stretched out to the front, stood slender bottles. There were three varieties of vodka, Kyiv liqueur, Rhine wine. Herrings with mustard sauce, sprats, sour cream, granular caviar (three rubles 40 kopecks per pound), fresh salmon and so on crowded around the drinks in an artistic mess. Podtykin looked at all this and greedily swallowed saliva. But then, finally, the cook appeared with pancakes ... Semyon Petrovich, at the risk of burning his fingers, grabbed the top two, hottest pancakes and appetizingly slapped them on his plate. The pancakes were fried, porous, plump, like a merchant's daughter's shoulder... Podtykin smiled pleasantly, hiccupped with delight, and doused them with hot oil. Whereupon, as if whetting his appetite and enjoying the anticipation, he slowly, with an arrangement, smeared them with caviar. He poured sour cream on the places where the caviar did not fall ... now all that was left was to eat, wasn’t it? But no! Podtykin looked at the work of his hands and was not satisfied ... After thinking a little, he put the fattest piece of salmon, sprat and sardine on the pancakes, then, chuckling and panting, rolled both pancakes into a pipe, drank a glass with feeling, grunted, opened his mouth ... But then he had an apoplexy." Involuntarily think about the sense of proportion!

It seems, whatever one may say, the great writers Pushkin, Gogol, Chekhov and other virtuosos of the gastronomic description of delicious food belong to gourmets ... And what about the poet of the Enlightenment - Gavriil Derzhavin, who even before them knew how to give savory, without too much gloss, definitions: " Crimson ham, green cabbage soup with yolk, ruddy-yellow pie, white cheese, red crayfish "...

Gavriil Romanovich Derzhavin

A.S. Pushkin

In the first chapter of the novel "Eugene Onegin" we find a joyful description of a dinner of a real dandy in the fashionable French restaurant Talon on Nevsky Prospekt, where the protagonist hurries:

“The cork entered the ceiling,

The fault of the comet spurted current;

Before him roast-beef bloodied,

And truffles, the luxury of youth,

French cuisine best color.

And Strasbourg's imperishable pie.

Between live Limburg cheese

And golden pineapple ... ".

This dinner can be called luxurious and it is no coincidence. This also applies to truffles - fragrant mushrooms that grow underground and are very expensive for gourmets. On the table "roast-beef bloody" - a dish of the best beef, which was fried on a spit and served to the table not completely fried, with blood. Strasbourg pie is a goose liver pate that was brought to Russia in canned form. Delicious Limburg cheese was delivered from Belgium, soft, with a pungent smell. Onegin drinks these sumptuous dishes with Comet Wine, French champagne from the 1811 vintage. That year, a comet appeared in the sky, which was considered the forerunner of Napoleon's invasion of Russia. "Wine of the Comet" was especially appreciated by connoisseurs. The exquisite meal of the Pushkin hero is completed by the “golden pineapple”.

We see a completely different picture in the same novel "Eugene Onegin", but already at dinner at the Larin estate.

Instead of "Wine of the Comet" on the table is Tsimlyansk champagne. Instead of roast-beef - roast. Instead of Strasbourg pie - "fat pie". Pushkin, describing these two feasts, was always accurate in describing gastronomic details.

Here is how the poet, not without slight irony, depicts the dishes of a simple rural landowner Russian cuisine:

“They have a fat carnival

There were Russian pancakes...

And at the table they have guests

They carried dishes according to ranks ...

Simple Russian family

Great zeal for guests.

... Rite of famous treats:

They carry jam on saucers,

On the table put waxed

A pitcher of lingonberry water."

Sometimes Pushkin gives "gastronomic advice" in short humorous poems. Here is what the poet recommends to his friend Sergei Aleksandrovich Sobolevsky:

"They'll bring you trout!

Immediately they were boiled.

As you can see: turned blue,

Pour a glass of Chablis into your ear.

So that the ear is in the heart,

It will be possible in boiling water

Put some pepper

Luke a small piece.

As a secular person, Pushkin was tempted in overseas cuisine, but still preferred domestic dishes. Among them, the poet's special love was for "pozharsky" cutlets:

"Dine at your leisure

At Pozharsky's in Torzhok,

Taste fried cutlets

And go light,” wrote A.S. Pushkin S.A. Sobolevsky. 1828. The village of Mikhailovskoye.

I.A. Goncharov

I.A. Goncharov in the novel "Oblomov":

“The whole house conferred about dinner ... Everyone offered their dish: some soup with offal, some noodles or stomach, some scars, some red, some white gravy for the sauce ... Taking care of food was the first and main life concern in Oblomovka. What calves fattened up for the annual holidays! What a bird was brought up! Turkeys and chickens, appointed for name days on other solemn days, were fattened with nuts, geese were deprived of exercise, forced to hang motionless in a bag a few days before the holiday, so that they swam with fat. What stocks were there of jams, pickles, urination! What honeys, what kvass were brewed, what pies were baked in Oblomovka!

M.A. Bulgakov

M.A. BULGAKOV knew how to write beautifully and poetically. Even such trifles as the description of borscht are described so appetizingly that the saliva flows, and the “hangover” table is the share of Likhodeev? And let us remember how the meal in the apartment of Professor Preobrazhensky is described in “Heart of a Dog” ...

... Eh-ho-ho ... Yes, it was, it was! .. Moscow old-timers remember the famous Griboyedov! What boiled portioned zander! Cheap, it's dear Ambrose! And what about sterlet, sterlet in a silver saucepan, sterlet in chunks with crayfish tails and fresh caviar?

And the egg cocottes with mashed mushrooms in cups? Didn't you like thrush fillets? With truffles? Quail in Genoese? Ten and a half! Yes jazz, yes polite service! And in July, when the whole family is at the dacha, and you, urgent literary business, are kept in the city - on the veranda, in the shade of climbing grapes, in a golden spot on a clean tablecloth, a plate of soup-printanier? Remember Ambrose? Well, why ask! By your lips I see that you remember. What are your sizhki, perch! And what about great snipes, harriers, snipes, seasonal woodcocks, quails, waders? Narzan hissing in the throat?! But enough, you are digressing, reader! Follow me!...

... Styopa, goggling his eyes, saw that a tray was served on a small table, on which there was sliced ​​white bread, pressed caviar in a vase, pickled porcini mushrooms on a plate, something in a saucepan and, finally, vodka in a voluminous jewelry decanter. Styopa was especially struck by the fact that the decanter was fogged up from the cold. However, this was understandable - he was placed in a slush bowl filled with ice. Covered, in a word, it was clean, skillfully ...

Five minutes later the chairman was sitting at a table in his little dining room. His wife brought from the kitchen neatly chopped herring, thickly sprinkled with green onions. Nikanor Ivanovich poured a lafetnik, drank, poured a second, drank, picked up three pieces of herring on a fork ... and at that time they rang, and Pelageya Antonovna brought in a steaming saucepan, at one glance at which one could immediately guess what was in it, in the thick of the fiery borscht , there is something that is not tastier in the world - the marrow bone ...

... - I like to sit low, - the artist said, - it is not so dangerous to fall from a low one. Yeah, so we settled on sturgeon? My dove! Freshness, freshness and freshness, that should be the motto of every barman. Yes, would you like to taste...

Here, in the crimson light from the fireplace, a sword flashed in front of the barman, and Azazello laid a hissing piece of meat on a golden plate, poured lemon juice on it, and handed the barman a golden two-pronged fork.

- More humbly... I...

- No, no, try it!

The barman, out of courtesy, put a piece in his mouth and immediately realized that he was chewing something really very fresh and, most importantly, unusually tasty ...

... Washed to a shine lettuce leaves were already sticking out of a vase with fresh caviar ... a moment, and a misted silver bucket appeared on a specially moved separate table. Only after making sure that everything was done in honor, only when a closed frying pan flew up in the hands of the waiters, in which something was grumbling, did Archibald Archibaldovich allow himself to leave the two mysterious visitors, and even then after whispering to them:

- Sorry! For a moment! I will personally look after the fillets ...

Food, at first glance, is an everyday, everyday phenomenon, in general, the prose of life, but under the pen of great masters - poets and writers - it turns into poetry, and we - readers - plunge into the world of life and culture of our people from different eras.