Cabbage and Caviar

A major, comprehensive history of Russian food.

When people think of Russian food they generally think either of opulent luxury, signified above all by caviar, or of poverty and hunger of cabbage and potatoes and porridge. Both of these visions have a basis in reality, but both of them are incomplete. The history of food and drink in Russia includes hunger and it includes plenty, it includes scarcity and, for some, at least, abundance. It includes dishes that came out of the northern, forested regions and ones that incorporate foods from the wider Russian Empire and later from the Soviet Union. Cabbage and Caviar places Russian food and drink in the context of Russian history, and shows off the incredible (and largely unknown) variety of Russian food.

Autorentext
Alison K. Smith is Professor and Chair of the Department of History at the University of Toronto. She is the author of Recipes for Russia: Food and Nationhood under the Tsars (2008) and For the Common Good and Their Own Well-Being: Social Estates in Imperial Russia (2014).

Klappentext

When people think of Russian food, they generally think either of the opulent luxury of the tsarist aristocracy or of post-Soviet elites, signified above all by caviar, or on the other hand of poverty and hunger--of cabbage and potatoes and porridge. Both of these visions have a basis in reality, but both are incomplete. The history of food and drink in Russia includes fasts and feasts, scarcity and, for some, at least, abundance. It includes dishes that came out of the northern, forested regions and ones that incorporate foods from the wider Russian Empire and later from the Soviet Union. Cabbage and Caviar places Russian food and drink in the context of Russian history and shows off the incredible (and largely unknown) variety of Russian food.

Zusammenfassung
A major, comprehensive history of Russian food.