[Sca-cooks] zakuskas

[Stephanie Ross]

<<Huh? We have lots of medieval illustrations of peasants. I'm sure there
are numerous differences. Among others that I can think of is the 19th
century use of cotton. A rather expensive and rare fabric in 
the Middle Ages.>>

No, no, Stefan, Russian peasants. You cannot compare Russian peasants to
medieval surf peasants. All peasant meant in Russia is that you are not of
noble blood. You could be very rich and successful and non-Christian and
still be of the peasant class. Peasant was a term that meant the common
people, what we call the middle class, the backbone of society. Cotton is
not a fabric that was commonly used in Russia until about the 1940's by the
peasantry. They were still weaving linen for their shirts and using
homespun wool for skirts and pants. I have a friend from Ukraine who sells
on Ebay, and she told me that the material I want for my plahtas (a term
which means blanket now, was a skirt) and panovas (a type of wrap-around
three-panel skirt common from Rus times) is becoming increasingly
impossible to find, because it became quite uncommon after the Revolution.
However, I have some actual photographs of this material, but grandmothers
stopped weaving it decades ago when communism brought in cheap cotton
cloth. You see, even after Peotr and Catherine the Great managed to
westernize the Russian nobility in the 17 and 1800's, life for the peasant
didn't change. They went on living their quiet lives in their spread out
villages that only interacted once or twice a year. I'm serious when I say
that there are still villages in the backwoods of Russia who still have not
been modernized and still wear their "peasant costumes" as daily wear.
Russians don't like change, because change has brought death and
destruction for them so often in the past. They are also a very stubborn
people and cling to their ways. Frankly I was amazed at how many dishes in
the Domostroi were still common in Russia today. Kasha is still a staple,
as are blini, rye bread, schi (cabbage soup), pirogs and piroshki, smoked
and pickled fish, pickles, caviar, mushrooms (oh how the Russians love
their mushrooms. They still go out in the woods to find them today and
fight over them). I think the liberal use of sour cream is the biggest
change in food since the Domostroi was written. Of course I am talking
about what mom cooked at home (v domi), not what is sold to tourists in big
cities, like Chicken Kiev and Beef Stroganoff. There are actually dates of
creation for those dishes and nobody ever cooked them at home. 

<<For a long time I remember being told that Middle Eastern food hadn't
changed since the Middle Ages. Counter-examples of this have been posted
here.>>

I wish I could get my hands on evidence of any history for Russian food,
either pro or con. So little is written in English it is impossible to find
reliable sources that don't cross-reference each other as sources. This is
a problem when researching medieval Russian clothes as well. I am not
emotionally attached to my ideas, so if someone comes along and refutes
them with documentation, I would be thrilled just to finally KNOW!

~Aislinn~
Et si omnes ego non.

"The care of human life and happiness and not their destruction is the
first and only legitimate object of good government." --Thomas Jefferson to
Maryland Republicans, 1809.