[Sca-cooks] zakuskas

[Stephanie Ross]

Ok Jadwiega, here is what I served at the Judge's Luncheon. Smoked
whitefish, smoked salmon, kippered herring, smoked oysters, red and black
caviar, 2 kinds of Polish sausage that I didn't get the name of, sour
cream, cocktail pumpernickel, cocktail rye and small wheat toasts, kotleti
(beef meatballs in a sour cream gravy), kurnik (a chicken pie with rice and
sour cream), pickled cucumbers, three kinds of piroshki - mushroom and
hard-boiled egg, cabbage, and beef and rice in sour cream, cheddar cheese
cubes, homemade kalach bread, homemade pickled beets (Polish style with
onions), pickled mushroom with fresh dill, and a modern version of Russian
pickled eggs made with fresh dill and juniper berries, vatrushki
(curd-cheese tartlets), Russian teacake cookies, and some Polish honey
cookies I picked up at the deli when I bought the sausage. For drinks I
served cranberry/raspberry juice and hot tea with cherry, raspberry or
blackberry preserves to go in it. I wanted to make blini but I ran out of
time because I also served breakfast that day and helped put together
luncheon for the populace that was done for donations. The feastcrat
refused to do breakfast or lunch or allow me to use any equipment in the
kitchen for my luncheon. Her feast was spectacular, but the whole thing
pissed me off because it was all about making herself look good and not
about feeding people. Different philosophies I guess. The autocrat
requested breakfast so that the event workers could eat. The feastcrat gave
me $20 for my breakfast budget. I served portable food so that the populace
could vacate the feasthall quickly (we close the feasthall during judging)
that included hard boiled eggs, breakfast sausage links, homemade honey
cake, and for the more adventurous, kasha with onions and ham. Some sweet
and some protein for those of us who are hypoglycemic and need protein
first thing in the morning.

Most everything I served was mentioned somewhere in the Domostroi. While
there are no recipes, the book gives good descriptions of dishes and many
are still considered traditional fare in Russia today, like vatroushki
(described as "sweet pies stuffed with cheese"), pirogs (big meat pies,
like Elizabethan coffins) and piroshkis (little meat pies), pancakes which
must be blini (I wish I could talk to Pouncy and find out what the original
word was in the manuscript), kasha, schi (cabbage soup) and cheese blintzes.

Smoked fish p.164, smoked salmon p.191, herring p.195, rye bread p.161,
chicken p.190, pickled beets p.154, pickled cucumbers in brine p.175,
mushrooms p.165, caviar p.165, sausages p.193, piroshki p.161, pirogs
p.162, chicken pie p.192, making berry juices p.198 with cranberry juice
p.176 and raspberry juice p.152 being mentioned specifically. Sour cream is
only mentioned in a footnote on p.192, I couldn't find it anywhere else. I
wonder if its use became widespread after French cuisine became
fashionable. They used cottage cheese p.203 alot, and sour cream is a step
to making cheese. Kasha with ham and onions is specifically mentioned on
p.161.

Other books I referenced:
The Food and Cooking of Russia - Lesley Chamberlain
Food in Russian History and Culture - Glants and Toomre
Food and Drink in Medieval Poland - Maria Dembinska (has a reference to
sour cream)
The Best of Russian Cooking - Princess Alexandra Kropotkin (used for
descriptions of modern zakushka table dishes and recipes)

See, you got me started, are you sorry yet?! 
~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.