Description of the feast in Russian literature. Research work (project) in literature on the topic "Traditions of the Russian feast in works of art"

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 took up 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, reading Burns' poems and performing 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.

()

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 sneer, 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!

Nadezhkina Maria, Radygina Maria, 10th grade students

Research work on the topic "Russian feast traditions in works of art" was carried out by students of the 10th grade of the secondary school at the Russian Embassy in the Republic of Cuba "in 2013 under my supervision. The project includes a historical review of the traditions of joint feasts from princely feasts to high society receptions from the time of A. Pushkin , a story about traditional dishes of Russian cuisine, an analysis of episodes from the works of I. Goncharov "Oblomov", N. Gogol "Dead Souls", I. Shmelev "Summer of the Lord". Materials of the work can be used in literature, history and even technology lessons.

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middle School of General education

at the Russian Embassy in the Republic of Cuba

RESEARCH WORK (project)

on literature

on the topic "Traditions of the Russian feast"

Students: Nadezhkina M.S., Radygina M.A.

Grade: 10

Head: Petrova O.V.,

teacher of Russian language and literature

Havana, 2012

Introduction

The practical significance of the work
The relevance of the topic of work
Goals and objectives
Overview of sources of information

Main part

What is traditional Russian cuisine?
The world of dishes on the pages of the poem by N.V. Gogol "Dead Souls"
The kitchen as the basis of the way of life in the novel by I.A. Goncharov "Oblomov"
Festive and fasting dishes in the work of I.S. Shmelev "Summer of the Lord"

Conclusion

Introduction

Practical significance

The research work on the topic “Russian feast traditions in works of art” includes a historical review of the traditions of joint feasts from princely feasts to high-society receptions from the time of A.S. Pushkin, a story about traditional dishes of Russian cuisine, an analysis of episodes from the works of I.A. Goncharova "Oblomov", N.V. Gogol "Dead Souls", I.S. Shmelev "Summer of the Lord" The work has a practical focus. The materials can be used in literature lessons when studying the following works of art: the novel by I.A. Goncharov "Oblomov", poems by N.V. Gogol "Dead Souls", stories by I.S. Shmelev "Summer of the Lord" And also at the lessons of history and technology, as the materials of the work expand knowledge about the dishes of Russian national cuisine and the origin of the traditions of the Russian feast.

Relevance of the topic

The topic "Russian feast traditions in works of art" is relevant in today's world of fast food and the disappearance of the traditions of joint meals, the loss of recipes for Russian national cuisine.

Goals and objectives

To study the issue of the origin of the traditions of the Russian feast

Describe the features of Russian national cuisine

Analyze works of art in which food is one of the leading motives

Overview of the main sources

For work were investigated:

Artistic works: novel by I.A. Goncharov "Oblomov", poem by N.V. Gogol "Dead Souls", a story by I.S. Shmelev "Summer of the Lord", novel by A.S. Pushkin "Eugene Onegin"

Explanatory Dictionary of S.I. Ozhegova, V.I. Dahl.

The book "Russian feast" by M. Ulybysheva and V. Zapetsky, whose information about the traditions of the Russian feast formed the basis of part 1 of the work.

Historical review. Traditions of our ancestors

A person in the modern world lives on the run, late somewhere, in a hurry. On the run and snacks - with whatever comes to hand. But even in this hectic life, sooner or later he wants to sit down at the laid table and taste delicious and plentiful treats. Salted mushrooms, potatoes, generously drizzled with butter, ruddy pies, piping hot pies ... And so that relatives or friends sit next to this table and have a conversation. And then the song would have been dragged on - drawn out, sincere.

And it's not just a craving to eat or rest. This tradition our ancestors. It is embedded in the genetic memory, has become an integral part of our lives. Tradition - gather at the table, arrange a feast with a mountain.

Echoes of this tradition can be heard in old Russian fairy tales. In them, the feast personifies the happy end of the matter, the fulfillment of a dream, the achievement of the desired. Therefore, fairy tales often ended like this - with words about a feast. For example, a fairy tale about Ivan Tsarevich and Koshchei the Immortal:"Ivan Tsarevich came home and made a feast with a mountain". Or here is the ending of the fairy tale about Emelya:“And upon arrival they made a feast for the whole world”. Loved by storytellers and such a funny saying:“And I was there, I drank beer honey, it flowed down my mustache, but it didn’t get into my mouth».

In Russian proverbs, as in a mirror, the generosity of the Russian soul, its hospitality and hospitality are reflected.

What is in the oven, all on the table are swords.

The hut is not red with corners, red with pies.

In Russia, first bring a guest.

I was driving past, but turned in the smoke.

Bread and salt at the gate, so you can't turn it off.

There is no doubt that the customs of the cuisine of any nation reflect its way of life, its history, and its spiritual culture.

Long Orthodox fasts and the lack of sun and heat necessary for agriculture also probably affected our eating habits. Ancestors had to give up modest, that is, meat, food. But what cuisine can boast such an abundance of mushroom pickles? Where else in the world are so many types of the most useful honey collected?

Moderation for oneself and boundless generosity for guests have long been bizarrely combined in our people. Therefore, in the Russian feast you can see both extreme modesty and abundance. The Russian people knew how to fast strictly and break the fast from the heart.

Feasts, hearty dinners accompanied, and still accompany, our life on holidays and celebrations. Probably, we can say that they embody the dream of every person about a happy and prosperous life - let everyone around be full and satisfied!

The Russian people liked to feast very much. After all, with rare exceptions, the soul rejoiced at feasts. And our ancestors began to do this for every reason: they defeated the enemy - a feast! Consecrated a new temple - a feast! The new prince ascended the throne - also a feast!

A special place in Russian history was occupied by folk feasts. The prince invited all the people to such a feast - from young to old, so that no one would remain hungry and offended.

K. Makovsky. Boyar wedding feast of the 17th century

Our ancestors considered it shameful to abuse alcohol. Strong drinks were not known then. And they drank honey. That old honey was special.

"Honey" was called specially made drinks. They prepared honey for feasts in large barrels, adding juices for fermentation. Therefore, there were a great many varieties of it: cherry, currant, juniper, red, raspberry, bird cherry. It was aged in such barrels for at least ten years, and it was called set. In the 16th century, it was allowed to drink honey and beer only four times a year.

What did they eat at princely feasts?

Not a single princely feast was complete without a roasted swan. It is not known how the ancient cooks contrived, but they only fried these birds whole. Moreover, so that a beautifully curved swan's neck, crowned with a head with a gilded nose, towered above the dish. Their snow-white wings were tied to the carcass in a special way. On huge trays, these swans were carried into the chambers and placed on the prince's table. And with his own hand he cut off someone's wing, someone's breast, someone's tail ...

IN. Shilov. Boyar feast

In addition to swans, they roasted geese, peacocks, cranes and other birds. An indispensable dish at the feast was a whole roasted wild boar.

Solemn royal dinners were held in large rooms, where tables stood in several rows. When everything was ready, they announced: “Sir! The meal has been served." He entered the dining room and occupied a place on a dais. And the feast began with a mountain! So we talk about a rich table, a generous treat.

In the meantime, only the most necessary things were placed on the tables: bread, salt, vinegar, pepper and cutlery. But among them we would not see plates - they were not yet known. As soon as the king sat down on the throne, the servants bowed low to him and set off for food. They walked two people abreast and brought up to a hundred dishes at a time.

Court ranks, such as stolnik, kravchiy and chasnik, no longer exist today, and these words have fallen into disuse. The stolnik is the one who watched the table, the bowler watched that the guests’ bowls were full, and the kravchiy’s duties included cutting, that is, breaking or cutting, roasts and pies.

Meat and fish dishes were prepared whole, which is why they turned out to be especially juicy and tasty. And all without exception were decorated in a special way. Fish with feathers inserted into them looked like outlandish birds!

When the guests dispersed, they were offered to take meat dishes and pies with them “on the path”. Not accepting these gifts meant angering God and offending the owner.

Peter's times

Much has changed under Tsar Peter I. The royal dinners have become different too - almost without servants. Even if Peter dined with one of his ministers, generals or naval officers, only his chief kitchen master (as the kravchiy was now called), a batman and two pages came up to the table. Footmen appeared at his table only at ceremonial dinners.

The biggest innovation was the assemblies (free meetings). Here you could meet with the right people, talk about business. Unlike earlier times, women were also invited here. The owner no longer met the guests, did not see them off and did not regale them. Moreover, he himself could not be at home! He had only to prepare chambers with laid tables. The Assembly was scheduled for certain hours, but everyone could come (without an invitation) and leave as he pleased. Not only the highest ranks and nobles could come, but also noble merchants, famous artisans.

C. Khlebovsky. Assembly under Peter I

Pushkin times

Under the first Russian tsars, the feasts of noble and ordinary people were similar, differing only in the quantity and sophistication of some dishes. After Peter, everything changed, and the Great French Revolution contributed to this, from which many nobles fled from France to Russia.

The life of the capital Petersburg has become completely different. To know and rich townspeople, if they did not have to work themselves, got up late, dined no earlier than four, drank evening tea no earlier than ten, and went to bed late at night.

That's how A.S. Pushkin in "Eugene Onegin" described this life:

What about my Eugene? half asleep
In bed he rides from the ball;

And Petersburg is restless

Already awakened by the drum.

The merchant gets up, the peddler goes,

A cabman is pulling to the stock exchange,

The okhtenka is in a hurry with a jug,

Beneath it, the morning snow crunches.

I woke up in the morning with a pleasant noise.

The shutters are open; pipe smoke

A column rises blue,

And a baker, a neat German,

In a paper cap, more than once

I have already opened my vasisdas.

It became the norm to order cooks from abroad, especially French chefs. Then many new recipes appeared, and the very nature of the feast changed. There was a habit of interspersing heavy dishes - meat, fish - those in which the taste was neutral. The tastier seemed those dishes that were considered basic.

2. What is traditional Russian cuisine?

What is traditional Russian cuisine? What are its characteristic features? One of the most famous authors of books about Russian cuisine, V. Pokhlebkin, notes the addiction of Russian people to sour. Even at the dawn of the development of our national cuisine, the ancestors fell in love with bread made from sour (yeast) dough. What kind of culinary delights did not appear later on the basis of sour dough - juicy, bacon, pancakes, pancakes, crumpets, pies - it's impossible to list everything.

In Russia, bread is the head of everything! This proverb says a lot. And how could it be otherwise, because our ancestors were mostly peaceful farmers? The bread of the Russian people has always been on a par with the shrine, they treated him with reverence. Dropping it or throwing it away was considered no small sin.

Rye, black bread, cabbage soup or stew - that was the lunch, for example, of a worker or peasant in the 19th century.

Kirill Datsyuk. Bread and milk

Sour sauerkraut, sour kvass - the Russian table cannot do without them. Recall the saying - "professor of sour cabbage soup." And Russian sour cabbage soup is not a soup at all, but a drink. It was at one time very common in Russia and was made quite simply. It's so simple that you don't have to be a professor to do it.

Real Russian kissels were also made on sour, leavened sourdough. And they were cooked not from berries, but from oats, wheat, rye.

But what else makes up the originality of Russian cuisine? Mandatory presence in it of liquid hot and cold dishes. What we call today the French word "soups" is actually from our ancient history. But earlier in Russia they were called “khlebovo” and there were a huge number of them: cabbage soup, ear, kalya, mash, talker, stew. Later, borscht, pickles, hodgepodges were added here.

There are a lot of vegetable, fish, mushroom "delicacies" on our table. And this is understandable, because most days of the year were fast. In our classical literature today we meet so many forgotten and half-forgotten names of fish dishes: sigovina, taimenin, pike, halibut, catfish, salmon, sturgeon, stellate sturgeon, puddle, whitefish ... The ear could be perch, and ruff, and burbot, and sturgeon ...

Russian cuisine has always been rich in flour “joys”: gingerbread, bagels, bagels, rolls, gingerbread…

A separate story is porridge. Truly a national dish! Unfortunately, today a modern person less and less often prefers porridge in his diet. And since ancient times, it was not by chance that they said about a weak, sickly person that he ate little porridge.

The morning diet of every Russian person was limited to the remnants of yesterday's food, which were still warm in the oven. And even just a piece of bread and a mug of kvass. The day started very early, before dawn. Everyone in the family had their own responsibilities, so there was no common breakfast. But at noon, the work stopped: it was time for dinner - then everyone gathered together. The head of the family read a short prayer and took his place on a bench in the corner under the images, at the “upper” end of the table. Women at that time did not sit at the table, they only served food, they themselves ate later.

After dinner, an “hour of rest” was supposed, which could last several hours. Then the usual work resumed - until dinner. Dinner was held, like lunch, in a stately, if not solemn, atmosphere. Then came free time, but how much of it was left? After all, tomorrow morning, early in the morning, it was necessary to get down to business again ...

In the summer, a simple peasant expanse: in the forest you can pick mushrooms. Many edible herbs were eaten - gout, sorrel, dill. In lean years of famine, cakes were baked from quinoa, nettle, and wormwood.

Tea and sweet table

Russian cuisine is characterized by an abundance of special drinks: honey, sbitney, kvass, fruit drinks. Now this abundance is being replaced by tea. But tea also took root on Russian soil. This is not just a drink to quench your thirst - during tea drinking you can have a conversation, and without it, a Russian person is bored.

Tea was also accompanied by jam. In its preparation, housewives achieved truly extraordinary skill. Apple, pear, plum, strawberry, raspberry, currant, gooseberry jams…

Our chefs loved to surprise the royal and boyar guests with images of eagles, swans, ducks, pigeons, kremlins, towers, people made of sugar.

Nuts - pine, forest were also considered a delicacy.

Having studied the issue of the emergence of the traditions of the Russian feast and having characterized the features of the Russian national cuisine, we can begin to study works of art in which Russian writers assign a special role to the description of dishes and joint meals of their heroes. For analysis, let's take the poem by N.V. Gogol "Dead Souls", a novel by I.A. Goncharov "Oblomov" and the story of I.S. Shmelev "Summer of the Lord"

3. “The world of food on the pages of the poem by N.V. Gogol "Dead Souls"

Gogol had long dreamed of writing a work "in which all of Russia would appear." It was supposed to be a grandiose description of the life and customs of Russia in the first third of the 19th century. Such a work was the poem "Dead Souls", written in 1842.

Aksakov wrote: "If fate had not made Gogol a great poet, he would certainly have been an artist - a cook."

The heroes of his work reveal their culinary passions, and references to various dishes of Russian national cuisine are often found on the pages of the poem. They contain lengthy descriptions of feasts, dialogues about the history of a particular dish, disputes about the taste advantages of different dishes. The very description of the food is so bold and detailed that it not only serves as an additional characteristic of the character, but creates, if not the action itself, then its basis.

Here is a description of the pie ordered by Pyotr Petrovich Petukh, a character in Gogol's "Dead Souls":

"Yes, make a kulebyaku at four corners; in one corner you put sturgeon and vyaziga cheeks for me, in the other run buckwheat porridge, mushrooms with onions, sweet milk, yes brains, and you know that there is something like that ... Yes, so that from one side she, you know, it would be reddened, and from the other let it go easier. Yes, from the bottom, you know, bake it so that it crumbles, so that it gets through, you know, with juice, so that you don’t hear it in your mouth - how the snow has melted.

By the way, Gogol is absolutely accurate here in describing the old Moscow kulebyaka. Minced meat was put into it differently, it was placed in wedges, dividing each type of pancakes "into four corners" (so that the dough does not get wet due to the juicy filling). They made it from unleavened rich crumbly dough. It was a special art to bake the kulebyaka well with such complex minced meat.

And now we learn about the gastronomic addictions of another hero - Sobakevich. The requirements of this character are colossal - the whole pig, the whole ram, the whole goose. Gogol writes: "There was no soul at all in this body."

Sobakevich (to Feodulia Ivanovna): Shchi, my soul, is very good today! (He rolls off a huge piece of nanny on his plate). (to Chichikov) You won't eat the kind of nanny in the city, the devil knows what they'll serve you there!

Chichikov: The governor's desk, however, is not bad.

Sobakevich: Do you know what it is all prepared from? You won't eat when you find out.

Chichikov: I don’t know how it’s cooked, I can’t judge about it, but the pork cutlets and boiled fish were excellent.

Sobakevich: It seemed so to you. After all, I know what they are buying in the market. The cook over there, who learned from the Frenchman, will buy a cat, skin it, and serve it instead of a hare.

Feodulia Ivanovna: Fu! What kind of trouble are you talking about.

Sobakevich: Well, darling, that's how they do it, that's how they all do it, it's not my fault, that's how they all do it. Everything that is unnecessary that Akulka throws with us, if I may say so, into the garbage tub, they put it into soup!

Feodulia Ivanovna: You always say such things at the table!

Sobakevich: Well, my soul, if I did it myself, but I'll tell you straight to your face that I won't eat nasty things. Put some sugar on the frog for me, I won’t take it in my mouth, and I won’t take oysters either: I know what an oyster looks like. (to Chichikov) Take a ram. It's lamb side with porridge! These are not the fricassees that are made in the master's kitchens from lamb, which is lying around on the market for four days! 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! No, it's all wrong, it's all fiction, it's all ... (Shakes his head angrily). I don't. When I have pork - put the whole pig on the table, lamb - drag the whole ram, goose - the whole goose!

“Please humbly have a bite,” said the hostess.

The list of meat dishes of our ancient cuisine is very wide and varied. Their character was largely determined by the peculiarities of the Russian oven: frying in large pieces and whole carcasses, baking ... Whole pigs were roasted, in large pieces - lamb and pork, and only occasionally beef, carcasses - poultry and game. Adherence to meat fried in large pieces has been preserved among Russian people since ancient times. Fried meat dishes were popular: lamb brisket and shoulder blades stuffed with buckwheat porridge with chopped eggs, ducks and geese with apples, chickens stuffed with rice with raisins or prunes, stuffed pork legs, etc.. )

And now let's see what Korobochka Chichikova treated.

“Chichikov looked around and saw that there were already mushrooms, pies, quick thinkers, shanishki, spinners, pancakes, flat cakes with all sorts of seasonings on the table: onion seasoning, poppyseed seasoning, cottage cheese seasoning, filmed seasonings, and who knows what was missing” .

Korobochka is a hospitable, hospitable hostess, but treats Chichikov with exclusively flour dishes. This is understandable: meat is expensive, she will not beat cattle.

Brief summary of the dishes mentioned earlier:

Nanny - a dish that is served with cabbage soup and consists of

lamb stomach stuffed with buckwheat porridge, brain

and legs.

quick thinkers - an old recipe for pancakes.

Shanishki - stuck together in the form of cheesecakes, have curved

up the edge with a variety of filling-lubrication.

Spinner - a pancake, a thick pancake in oil.

Pictures (snacks)- smelt fish.

pripyok - stuffing for pancakes or fritters that are not

wrapped inside the finished pancake, and poured onto

frying pan and pour batter on top. The filling is obtained

inside the pancake and fried on one side.

Gastronomic tastes and inclinations of Gogol's landowners from "Dead Souls" are an important characteristic, a means of revealing characters, one of the methods of the author's assessment and a "tool" for symbolizing their images. But the depiction of a plentiful meal in "Dead Souls" is not limited to an ironic interpretation and to the depiction of the sin of gluttony, because a hearty and even excessive dinner is a manifestation of hospitality that Gogol likes. And Russia has always been famous for hospitality.

4.Kitchen as the basis of the lifestyle in the novel

I.A. Goncharov "Oblomov"

In the novel by I.A. Goncharov "Oblomov" food plays a very important role. For the protagonist of the novel, Ilya Oblomov, the kitchen was the basis of the way of life.

In the text of the novel, the attitude to food acts as a measure of attitude to the world, life, and also becomes a kind of "language" that allows you to express your own view of the world. Therefore, food, like sleep, is not only the satisfaction of physical needs - they eat and sleep as much as the “soul” wants, as much as the “soul” asks. Hence, in Goncharov's novel, they eat often and tasty. In Oblomovka, nothing is to such an extent"occupied minds ', as concern for subsistence. Loved to eat here.“The main concern was the kitchen and dinner. The whole house conferred about dinner.". According to the life philosophy of the inhabitants of Oblomovka,“a decent person should first of all take care of his table”. Oblomovites do not just eat and drink: their appetite imperceptibly turns into true gourmetism, cooking into virtuoso skill, and the kitchen into a kind of temple.

The apotheosis and symbol of Oblomov's satiety and general contentment is the gigantic pie, which was baked on Sunday and holidays. This cake required double the usual amount of flour and eggs. Hence, as a consequence,"there was more groaning and bloodshed in the bird yard". Pies in Oblomovka were baked with chicken and fresh mushrooms. This pie“The gentlemen themselves ate the next day; on the third and fourth days, the remains entered the girl's room; the cake lived until Friday, so that one completely stale end, without any filling, was given as a special favor to Antipas, who, crossing himself, fearlessly destroyed this curious fossil with a crash.. The feast continued until it was time to bake a new cake. In Oblomovka, as Yu.M. Loshchits, a real cult of the pie reigns. The pie in the popular worldview is one of the most obvious symbols of a happy, abundant, fertile life. A pie is a “mountain feast”, a cornucopia, the pinnacle of universal fun and contentment. Feasting, festive people gather around the pie. Warmth and fragrance emanate from the cake. Oblomovka's "sleepy kingdom" revolves around its cake, like around a hot star. Agafya Pshenitsyna also prepares such pies, it is no coincidence that Zakhar says that they are no worse than Oblomov's.

Joint food in this world is not a household detail, but a symbol of unity. Food, both in one's own family and in the world, from time immemorial has been a sacred ceremony, a ritual for Russian people. It began and ended with a prayer of thanksgiving. Cheerful and relaxed communication, friendly family conversation, discussion of upcoming business - everything happened at the table. The table was a unity of family brotherhood, a symbol of unity. In the dream world of Ilya Ilyich Oblomov, “food” must certainly be shared with spiritually close people, with a “colony of friends” living in the neighborhood, it is then that it acquires its true, social content. When Stolz visits Oblomov during his birthday for the first time on the Vyborg side, he shares a table with a friend. In their dialogue there is a common theme, openness, trust, correctness, sensitivity. The dialogue ends with a toast to Olga. Both characters eat and drink the same thing, which encourages rapport in conversation. During the second visit by Stolz to Oblomov, the conversation testifies to the spiritual disunity of the characters. At the table, only Oblomov speaks about food.Stolz grimaced as he sat down at the table. Stolz did not eat either lamb or dumplings, put down his fork and watched with what appetite Oblomov ate it all.

So we see that the traditions of the feast, which originated long ago in Russia, play a significant role both in the life of both the heroes of the novel and in ours. These traditions have taken root so much that we don’t even notice how we follow them.

5. Festive and Lenten dishes in the work of I.S. Shmeleva

"Summer of the Lord"

The story "Summer of the Lord" is the pinnacle of the late work of the great Russian writer Ivan Sergeevich Shmelev. In the story, the abundance and variety of descriptions of food plays an important role. The description of food is an artistic technique that not only helps to recreate the atmosphere of life and life in old Russia, but also to show the world of childhood through the eyes of a child.

Fast

Food is necessary for a person to maintain strength, but gluttony, gluttony, drunkenness, excessive love for sweets in Russia has always been considered a sin. Russian people tried to streamline their attitude to food, to introduce rules that would limit its use. Orthodoxy prescribed abstinence in food to a person, and believers observed the fasts established by the church charter. Of the 365 days a year, more than 220 were fast, when it was forbidden to eat meat and dairy products, eggs, and sometimes, for example, during Lent, and fish.

However, despite all these restrictions, Lenten Russian table is very diverse.

For example, in the story "Summer of the Lord" what was not on the Lenten market!“Cloudberries and blueberries - for lean pies and jelly”, “lingonberries, there are apples in it. How many lingonberries!”, “Peas ... pink, yellow, in a sleigh, bags.”, “Cabbage, stalk, winter winter, like sugar. You take a bite - it clicks. “But the cucumbers pulled, strong and fresh spirit, dill, horseradish. They play golden cucumbers in brine, they dance. “Tubs of salted watermelon, under the cabbage glistens with green baldness. “Pickle: antonovka, cloudberries, gooseberries, ruddy lingonberries with linen, plums in tubs. Any kvass - bread, sour-cheek, malt, beer, old - with ginger ... ". “Saiki, bagels, dryers ... Kaluga, Borovsky, Zhizdrinsky, - sugar, pink, mustard, with anise - with cumin, with salt and poppy seeds, Pereslavl bagels, vitushi, horseshoes, larks ... lemon bread, poppy bread, with saffron, sieve weight with raisins, pecked ... ". “And there - in stacks of ice plates - Great Lenten sugar, like green ice, and pink, and red, and lemon”, “soaked prunes, placers of whispers, raisins, and medlar, and vine berries on knittings, and apricot beetroots with a leaf, sugar sesame seeds, sugared raspberries, and mountain ash, blue jug raisins, self-real lean, fudge bars with fir-trees in jelly, butter halva, Kaluga pie dough, Belevsky marshmallow ... and gingerbread, gingerbread - there is no end. "Salted-resined mushrooms, monastic, snack bars." "Mozhaisky borovichi, bishop's milk mushrooms, selected Lopasninsky, in honey vinegar ...".

Easter

The Day of the Resurrection of Christ - Easter - is one of the most important Orthodox holidays of the year. And no holiday is complete without Easter cakes. They are always baked according to a special recipe, so that they turn out lush and tall. Easter is an obligatory dish on the festive table in honor of the Resurrection of the Lord, symbolizing the Paschal Lamb (a lamb is a meek, gentle, trusting creature). In the Orthodox tradition, the Savior is compared with him.

Traditional painted eggs create a special festive mood for Easter. Housewives have achieved great skill in this. Eggs are painted with bizarre patterns, painted in various colors. But most of all eggs are painted red.

According to Orthodox tradition, painted eggs were lit in churches. They were given to relatives and friends, distributed to the poor, left in the church. The consecrated Easter egg was eaten first when they returned from matins and sat down at the festive table.

Here are the eggs considered by the main character in the story "The Summer of the Lord":

“Here is crystal gold, through it everything is magical. Here - with a stretching fat worm; it has a black head, beady black eyes, and a scarlet cloth tongue. With soldiers, with ducks, carved bone…”

The presence of the motive of food in the book by I. S. Shmelev "Summer of the Lord" is not just a part of everyday life, but a deeper and more meaningful concept: it is both bodily and spiritual food. I. S. Shmelev continues the best traditions of Russian classics of describing food in a literary text as an important detail in creating an image.

I. Kaverznev. Bright Sunday

Conclusion

In the course of the work, the issue of the emergence of the traditions of the Russian feast was studied, the features of the Russian national cuisine were characterized, works of art were analyzed: the novel by I.A. Goncharov "Oblomov", poem by N.V. Gogol "Dead Souls", a story by I.S. Shmelev "Summer of the Lord", novel by A.S. Pushkin "Eugene Onegin", which reflected the traditions of the Russian feast.

Output:

Russian cuisine, like any other, reflects the life, history and spiritual culture of the people. Hospitable and open, the Russian man knew how to have fun, knew how to express his affection for the guest by putting his soul into what he served on the table. Artistic works are a kind of textbooks of the history of the people.

Bibliography

Gogol N.V. Tales. Dead Souls. – M.: Olimp; LLC Firm AST Publishing House, 1998. - 688 p.
Goncharov I.A. Oblomov: Roman. – M.: Olimp; TKO AST, 1996. - 688 p.
Krasnova E.V. The Flemish style of "Oblomov": the motive of "food" and its functions in the novel by I.A. Goncharova // Third Maiminsky Readings. - Pskov, 2000. S. 81.
Loshchits Yu.M. Goncharov. - M., 1977. S. 172.

Ozhegov S.I. Dictionary of the Russian language: Ok. 57,000 words. – M.: Rus. yaz., 1988. - 750 p.
Pushkin A.S. Dramatic works. Novels. Tale - M .: Olympus; LLC Firm AST Publishing House, 1988. - 704 p.
Toporov V.N. Myth. Ritual. Symbol. Image: Studies in the field of mythopoetic. - M.: 1995. S. 166.
Shmelev I.S. Summer of the Lord: Autobiography. story - M .: Olympus; LLC "Publishing House AST_LTD", 1997. - 560 p.
www.easycooking.ru
www.foodested.ru

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 rapidly 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 squeal - 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 Cratchit 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 in flames from 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.

The opinion that the characters of classical Russian literature are preoccupied with spiritual issues is fair, but one-sided. If you take a closer look, it turns out that the heroes of the frantic moralist Tolstoy, and the depressive melancholic Gogol, and the modest intellectual Chekhov knew a lot about food and did not hide it.

The quotes were prepared at the Yasnaya Polyana Estate Museum for the Ankovsky Pie or the Secrets of the Manor Kitchen project.

Cold snacks

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 onions. Nikanor Ivanovich poured a lafitnik, drank, poured a second one, drank it, picked up three pieces of herring on a fork ... and at that time they rang. Swallowing his saliva, Nikanor Ivanovich grumbled like a dog: “May you fail! Food will not be given. Don't let anyone in, I'm not there, I'm not."

We had a snack, as all vast Russia snacks in cities and villages, that is, with all sorts of pickles and other exciting graces.
N.V. Gogol "Dead Souls"

Lebedev. Herring, mother, a snack for all snacks.
Shabelsky. Well, no, a cucumber is better... Scientists have been thinking since the creation of the world and have not come up with anything smarter... (to Peter.) Peter, go ahead and bring cucumbers and have them fry four pies with onions in the kitchen. To be hot.
A.P. Chekhov "Ivanov"

Noticing that the appetizer was ready, the police chief suggested that the guests finish their whist after breakfast, and they all went into the room from which the wafting smell had long begun to pleasantly tickle the nostrils of the guests, and where Sobakevich had long peered through the door.
N.V. Gogol "Dead Souls"

Yes, something like that would be nice now ... - agreed the inspector of the religious school, Ivan Ivanovich Dvootochiev, wrapping himself in a red coat against the wind. “It’s now two o’clock and the taverns are closed, but it wouldn’t be bad to have some mushrooms, or something ... or something like that, you know ...
A.P. Chekhov "Tears Invisible to the World"

Vegetable and green shops are also not left without attention by me, our gardeners are truly worthy of respect, who know how to preserve greens all year round with such art.

Well, when you enter the house, the table should already be set, and when you sit down, now put your napkin on your tie and slowly reach for a decanter of vodka. Yes, you don’t drink it, mommy, right away, but first you sigh, rub your hands, look indifferently at the ceiling, then, so slowly, bring it, vodka, to your lips and - immediately sparks from your stomach all over your body ... How just drank, now you need to eat. Well, sir, and to eat, my soul Grigory Savvich, you also need to skillfully. You need to know what to eat.
A.P. Chekhov "Siren"

As soon as you have drunk, now, my benefactor, while you still feel sparks in your stomach, eat caviar by itself or, if you wish, with a lemon ... overeating!
A.P. Chekhov "Siren"

Will you order your cheese?
- Yes, parmesan. Or do you love someone else? Steve asked.
"No, I don't care," said Levin, unable to hold back his smiles.
L.N. Tolstoy "Anna Karenina"

- No, no kidding, what you choose is fine. I ran on skates, and I want to eat. And don't think,' he added, noticing the dissatisfied expression on Oblonsky's face, 'that I don't appreciate your choice. I am happy to eat well.
- Still would! Whatever you say, this is one of the pleasures of life,” said Stepan Arkadyevitch.
L. N. Tolstoy "Anna Karenina"

Hot snack

Note, Ivan Arnoldovich, only the landlords, who were not cut by the Bolsheviks, eat cold appetizers and soup. A little self-respecting person operates with hot snacks. And of the hot Moscow snacks - this is the first.

An hour before dinner, Afanasy Ivanovich ate again, drank an old silver glass of vodka, ate mushrooms, various fish and other things.
N.V. Gogol "Old World Landowners"

Dear Stepan Bogdanovich, - the visitor spoke, smiling shrewdly, - no pyramidon will help you. Follow the wise old rule of treating like with like. The only thing that will bring you back to life is two shots of vodka with a spicy and hot snack.
M.A. Bulgakov "Master Margarita"

Dumplings

All Moscow Siberians were constant visitors to the tavern. A cook specially ordered by Lopashov from Siberia made dumplings and stroganina. And somehow the largest gold miners came from Siberia and dined Siberian style at Lopashov's, and the menu included only two changes: the first - an appetizer and the second - "Siberian dumplings". There were no more dishes, and 2,500 dumplings were prepared for twelve diners: meat, fish, and fruit dumplings in pink champagne ... And the Siberians slurped them with wooden spoons ...

Pancakes

But then, finally, the cook showed up 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 ... All that remained now was to eat, wasn't it? But no!.. Podtykin looked at the work of his hands and was not satisfied... After thinking for a while, he put the fattest piece of salmon, sprat and sardine on the pancakes, then, melting and panting, he rolled both pancakes into a pipe, drank a glass of vodka with feeling, grunted, opened his mouth ...
A.P. Chekhov "On Frailty"

Soups

And having extinguished the first hunger and raised a real appetite in ourselves, we will turn to meat hodgepodge, and we will have it amber, soaring, hiding under its surface delicious meats of various types and black shiny olives ...
Arkady and Boris Strugatsky "Lame Fate"

Marina. We will live again, as it was, in the old way. Tea in the morning at eight o'clock, lunch at one o'clock, in the evening - sit down to have dinner; everything is in its own order, like with people ... in a Christian way. (With a sigh.) I, a sinner, have not eaten noodles for a long time.
Telegin. Yes, we have not cooked noodles for a long time.
A.P. Chekhov "Uncle Vanya"

And if you love soup, then the best of soups, which is covered with roots and herbs: carrots, asparagus and all that kind of jurisprudence.
- Yes, a magnificent thing ... - the chairman sighed, tearing his eyes from the paper.
A.P. Chekhov "Siren"

Main dishes

Lunch followed. Here the good-natured host became a perfect robber. He hardly noticed someone had one piece, put another one on him right there, saying: “Without a pair, neither man nor bird can live in the world.”
N.V. Gogol "Dead Souls"

You are my brother, do not need your pineapples! By God ... Especially if you drink a glass, another. You eat and you don’t feel… in some kind of oblivion… you will die from the aroma of one!..
A.P. Chekhov "Tears Invisible to the World"

After a roast, a person becomes full and falls into a sweet eclipse, the secretary continued. - At this time, the body is good and the soul is touching. For pleasure, you can eat after a glass of three.
A.P. Chekhov "Siren"

“It’s damp in the field,” Oblomov concluded, “it’s dark; fog, like an overturned sea, hangs over the rye; the horses shudder with their shoulders and beat with their hooves: it's time to go home. The lights were already on in the house; in the kitchen knock on five knives; mushroom pan, cutlets.
I.A. Goncharov "Oblomov"

Buckwheat porridge. Grain to grain. How many of them, fragrant, faceted! If you pour them out of cast iron, for example, onto a large sheet of paper, they will rustle and crumble as if dry. Oh, not at all, they are soft, hot, overflowing with juice and steam, absorbing the aromas of the meadows, the July midday heat, and evening falling asleep flowers, and dew juices. The taste of walnut is felt in these grains. Buckwheat! From black porridge, faces become white and well-groomed, and mercy awakens in the soul.
Bulat Okudzhava "Date with Bonaparte"

Zina brought in a covered silver dish in which something was grumbling. The smell from the dish was such that the dog's mouth immediately filled with liquid saliva. "Gardens of Babylon"! he thought, and tapped his tail on the parquet like a stick.
"They're in here," Philipp Philippovich commanded rapaciously.
M.A. Bulgakov "Heart of a Dog"

Well, Kuzma Pavlovich, we treat the famous artist! Build vodka first ...
For an appetizer so that jars and trays, and not a cat crying.
- I'm listening.
- But between meat it would be nice to have a salmon, - suggests V.P. Dalmatov.
- There is salmon. Mannost heavenly, not salmon.
V.A. Gilyarovsky "Moscow and Muscovites"

In late October or early November, Balaklava begins to live a peculiar life. Mackerel is fried or marinated in every house. The wide mouths of ovens in bakeries are lined with clay tiles, on which fish is fried in its own juice. This is called: mackerel on the scale - the most exquisite dish of local gastronomes.
A.I. Kuprin "Listrigons"

Eat, young lady-countess, - she kept saying, giving Natasha this or that. Natasha ate everything, and it seemed to her that she had never seen or eaten such cakes and such chicken.
L.N. Tolstoy "War and Peace"

The bigger, thicker and fatter your patties, the better, but it's especially good to stuff medium-sized patties, which are more common on the farm.
V.F. Odoevsky "Lectures of Mr. Poof"

Dessert

Then we went to the shore, always completely empty, bathed and lay in the sun until breakfast. After breakfast - white wine, nuts and fruit - in the sultry dusk of our hut under the tiled roof, hot, cheerful strips of light stretched through the through shutters.
I.A. Bunin "Dark alleys"

The hippo cut off a piece of pineapple, salted it, peppered it, ate it, and then sipped the second glass of alcohol so daringly that everyone applauded.
M.A. Bulgakov "The Master and Margarita"

You are a writer, - Bernovich tells him, - so describe what I eat today. And no comments, but only facts. In the morning - veal jelly, lax, testicles, coffee with milk. For lunch - pickle, cabbage rolls, marshmallows. For dinner - such as kulebyaki, vinaigrette, sour cream, apple strudel ... In the USSR they will read and be stunned. Maybe the Lenin Prize will be given for glasnost...
Sergey Dovlatov "Solo on Underwood"