SC - Russian Feast + Sour Cherry Soup RCP

[L Herr-Gelatt and J R Gelatt]

>
>Date: Sun, 1 Feb 1998 00:16:48 -0800
>From: david friedman <ddfr at best.com>
>Subject: Re: SC - Russian Feast + Sour Cherry Soup RCP
>
>At 8:40 PM -0600 1/31/98, L Herr-Gelatt and J R Gelatt wrote:
>>Hallo Folks! I just ran across my feast menu for the Russian feast I did a
>>while back. ...
>
>>"This feast has been culled from available Russian and Slavic books: Classic
>>Russian Cooking: Elena Molokhovet's Gift to young Housewives (early 1800s,
>>trans Joyce Toome, Indiana University Press, 1992), the earliest known or
>>surviving Russian cookbook, and also from A La Russe: A Cookbook of Russian
>>Hospitality, Dara Goldstein (Random House), The Food and Cooking of Eastern
>>Europe (Lesley Chamberlain, Penguin Books 1989), and lastly, The Food and
>>Cooking of Russia (Lesley Chamberlain, Penguin Books, 1982). In addition,
>>the presentation and course-order information and court-type food was culled
>>from Bread and Salt, and The Domostroi."
>
>I am curious why you didn't try to get recipes from Domostroi, which is the
>only thing in this list (and, so far as I know, the only source for Russian
>cooking) that is anywhere close to our period. It doesn't have very much,
>but there is quite a good cabbage recipe, as well as a few other things
>that we have not tried.
>
>While on the subject, what do you think the ingredient that the translator
>calls "sour cabbage soup" (or something close--I'm going by memory) really
>is? The context it appears in makes it sound like something more along the
>lines of alegar.
>
>David/Cariadoc
>http://www.best.com/~ddfr/
>

Well, although I am a Librarian NOW, I was not one then (it was quite some
time ago). I got the books through inter-library loan. Some of them came
from very far away, and had to be returned very quickly---since the
circuitous route we had to take to get them in this rural place ate into our
valuable research time. Unfortunately, although I live within 1-3 hour
travelling distance of several universities, none of them have a really
excellent historical section, nor a terribly wonderful cooking-related or
History of Food section, so I was completely dependant upon books I had in
my posession for only two weeks.

I was additonally hampered by an autocrat who had definate ideas about what
was acceptable food for the masses, and was VERY nervous about the event in
general. So Kraut and Cabbage was OUT by command of the Young Squire running
the shebang.

It's a shame, really, because if I had all the time in the world, I would
have made a fiercer run at it. I wanted to make a recipe I found for dark
rye bread which was contained/baked in cabbage leaves, and I wanted to make
a recipe for ham cooked in hay (didn't think the Boyscouts would appreciate
baking hay in their ancient gas-fired pizza oven!). 

Given the high incedence of sour foods/pickling in the Russian diet, I'd
have to agree about the "sour cabbage soup". Some words in Russain are
untranslatable into English, I gather, so "soup"  (or whatever the name) may
have been a variant of some other meaning in Russian (much like "stew" in a
Russain recipe, translated to English, can mean any sort of stove-top
cooking with any amount of liquid, at any heat). I am assuming the substance
was a byproduct of another process (ie: the liquid of fermented cabbages of
some sort, whether or not it was sauerkraut, or some sort of pickle
by-product). A lot of the special or celebratory foods were more sour, or
sweet than we see in common use in Europe around that time. I'd like to have
a chat with some  modern Russian cooks, though, to see if there is a current
"peasant" ingredient that has a similar foundation. 

While researching, I posted to several Russian bulletin boards and
newsgroups, for help/information/direction but no one would answer me. But I
don't speak Russian, and don't posess a translation program, so it isn't
that surprising. I got the most help and directional advice from the SCA, as
always!

Aoife

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