SC - Russian Foods

[Jennifer D. Miller]

Hello to the list from Ilyana Barsova (Yana)

I am new to the list and new to researching historical recipes, but luckily
not new to cooking.  No professional experience, just years of cooking for
my family and friends.  My persona is Russian and I am trying to find
pre-1600 recipes for Russian food.

Does anyone know of sources for period Russian recipes?  The only recipes
(that I know of) even close to SCA-period are found in the _Domostroi_ (a
book on running a household, written in the mid to late 1600's), and they
are very few in number.  I am currently reading _Bread and Salt_, a book on
the history of Russian food.  There are mentions of various types of dishes
in various historical records, but no instructions on how to make anything. 

Beacause I am new to cooking research and in anticipation of not actually
finding any period recipes, how do people feel about using OOP recipes if
there just aren't any period ones to be found?  I can go through travel
accounts and list the types of food the Russians ate, but not what dishes
they made out of them.  That is, I know they ate fish and what types were
available, but how they seasoned it and cooked it, I haven't a clue.

What course of action would people recommend?  Shall I find out all the
foodstuffs available and considered edible by the Russians and using only
perid ingredients make dishes that are modernly Russian in flavor, or shall
I concentrate on the few dishes that I absolutely know were served in
period (even though I don't actually have any recipes)?  Has anyone on the
list served a Russian feast?  Any menu ideas?

I can tell you that I have looked at Stephen's Florigeum, and am a member
of the Slavic Interest Group (one of the founders), just to save time.  I
can read Russian reasonably well and can fake my way through Ukrainian.  I
seem to recall a mention of a cook's list archive?  I haven't looked there
yet (where is it?)

Also, if anyone needs any recipes for (modern) Russian foods, I have a very
good collection of Russian cookbooks in English and Russian.


Do svidania,
Yana

http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Oracle/6376/--Russian Research Page
http://vms.www.uwplatt.edu/~goldschp/slavic.html  Slavic Interest Group
jdmiller2 at students.wisc.edu
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