Test Page

Testing...

There isn't much information out there about medieval Russian recipes. We know what foodstuffs were available to them, but not necessarily what they did with them. They ate lots of leavened bread, had many root vegetables available to them, notably turnips and beets, and many other grain products that could be cooked and eaten in the form of a frumenty or a grain-pudding. Fish were widely available in many varities. Being mainly a forest environment, Russians would have had access to many different game animals. Whether they ate them or not would be subject to tradition and religious rules about food.

Internal Pages

• Yana's article "Turnip Pudding"
• Cariadoc's recipe for Cabbage or Greens, with notes from Yana
• Nicolaa's article on the Food and Drink of the Rus'
• Predslava's article "If you are hungry..."
• Ideas and Menus for SCA Russian feasts

Planned Articles

• Dining: Serving, Utensils and Manners
• In The Kitchen
• Food Glossary
• Traditions and Religious Rules

External Pages (specifically SCA related, for other web resources, see below)

• Cooking and Food - articles from the SIG Newsletter, Slovo.
• A Russian Spice Chest: This is a list of spices and flavorings found in the Domostroi, a 16th century household manual.
• Russian Food and Russian Cookbooks: From the Florilegium section on the subject.
• Medieval Soups: A recipe from the Florilegium for a vegetarian borshch (spelled "borscht" in the file) served at an SCA lunch.
• Kvas: The Florilegium entry about the Russian beverage "kvas", a lightly fermented drink made from bread or grains.
• Food and Drink of Eastern Europe: Primarily Poland and Rus: By Jadwiga Zajaczkowa. Gives lists of ingredients, religious restrictions, and more. - BROKEN

Recommended Resources

• You can find these books and others in the food section of the Slavic Interest Group's online bibliography.

Chamberlain, Lesley. The Food and Cooking of Russia. New York: Penguin Books, 1983.

• Supposedly contains recipes that can be dated to period, along with historical notes.

Glants, Musya and Joyce Toomre, eds. Food in Russian History and Culture. Indiana University Press, Bloomington and Indianapolis. 1997.

• Contains two essays that could be useful, one is "Food in the Rus' Primary Chronicle" and the other is "Stovelore in Russian Folklife".

Pouncy, Carolyn Johnston, ed and trans. The Domostroi: Rules for Russian Households in the Time of Ivan the Terrible. Cornell University Press: Ithaca and London, 1994.> A period household book that contains some unredacted recipes that are probably just out of SCA period

Smith, R.E.F. and David Christian Bread and Salt: A Social and Economic History of Food and Drink in Russia. Cambridge University Press: Cambridge. 1984.

• No recipes as such, but good info about food culture in various parts of Russian history. Out of print

>

Modern Resources

• Unfortunately, these are not SCA period. However, all is not lost, modern Russian food is delicious!

Goldstein, Darra. A Taste of Russia. New York: Harper Perennial,??.

• Originally published in 1983 as A la Russe: Traditional Recipes from Russia, Georgia, Armenia, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and the other Soviet Republics. Apparently there is some period material here, but it is interspersed with a lot of out of period material.

Papashvily, Helen and George Papashvily. Russian Cooking. New York: Time-Life Books, 1969. Two volumes.

• The first volume contains color pictures, regional portraits and representational recipes, while the second wire-bound volume is strictly a recipe book.

Petrovskaya, Kira. Russian Cookbook. New York: Dover Books, 1982.

• Originally published in 1961 as Kyra's Secrets of Russian Cooking. Some tasty and easy-to-follow recipes.

Toomre, Joyce. Classic Russian Cooking: Elena Molokhovets' A gift to young housewives. Indiana University Press: IN, 1992. The original work was first published in 1870's and intended for the use of, as the title says, young housewives. Mostly Russo-French and traditional Russian recipes of the cuisine bourgeoise. Nice and informative book, even if it is out of SCA period.

Von Bremzen, Anya and John Welchman. Please to the Table. Workman Publishing: NY, 1990.

• No, that was not a typo. The title refers to a Russian way of saying "Let's eat!" Includes recipes from the former member countries of the Soviet Union.

Web sources

• Rus Cuisine A collection of Russian recipes. Has an email service where you can recieve a Russian recipe every two days. Good archive and a web-based discussion list.
• Various Russian Recipes - BROKEN
• Russian Cyber-Cuisine Tour - BROKEN
• Food in Russia: Modern, but nice info and an index of food terms in Russian - BROKEN
• Recipe Database from the Friends and Partners organization
• Vera's Kitchen: More modern Russian recipes - BROKEN
• Berkeley University's Russian Recipes: despite what you might think, they don't all involve Stolichnaya - BROKEN
• St Petersburg Bread Museum: You might have trouble connecting, be patient
• Morten's Recipe Collection: Some more Russian recipes - BROKEN
• Links to the Slavic Cuisine Sites - BROKEN
• Russian/Eurasian Food: More than just Russian cuisine - BROKEN

Discussion Groups

• These are groups that discuss modern Russian cooking. I belong to a number of them and while their discusions can be sporadic, they often contain lots of info on very tasty modern recipes. Check out their archives.Rus Cuisine - BROKEN -
• A web-based discussion list. Click on "Cuisine Forum."

Russian, Ukrainian and Georgian Food