I must admit that in any books I am always interested in two implicit things: good phrases and culinary details. This happens unconsciously. Attention to catchphrases is absolutely understandable, because it’s part of my profession. It’s always nice to spy on and adopt someone’s find. For example, we open Mark Twain at random, and there: “Rats are as tall as a greyhound and just as skinny…” Isn’t it lovely? Of course, I’m talking about comparisons, not rats. Culinary interest is a more complicated thing. There’s a mix of several components.
First, ethnography and anthropology. A person’s diet and the food they cook are largely a function of place and time, as well as fashion and social status. No, I’m not talking about the stew of flamingo tongues at the Roman patrician feasts. But for the foreseeable future, oysters in Britain were considered “poor people’s food,” Chichikov habitually demanded piglet with horseradish in a roadside tavern, and my good friend from Vladivostok complained that she had to make Olivier’s New Year’s salad with crab legs, because there was still something to look for.
Secondly, the author’s own position on food is interesting. Take, for example, the wonderful Alexandre Dumas, the father. He’s the culinary genius of all time! He managed not only to write the most popular plays of that time, but also, after successful premieres, he organized a feast for the whole world, inviting both the troupe and the audience. And his famous culinary dictionary is the weight of a good pumpkin? I was given it once for the New Year, and now the bookshelf with books on similar subjects is permanently in danger of breaking. However, to appreciate Dumas’ gourmand tendencies, you need to reread his novels. The classic quote: “I respect old age, but not boiled or fried!” This is Porthos, whom Madame Coquenard tried to feed an elderly chicken at a dinner party. Athos holds the defense in the basement of the inn, filled with hams, cheeses, sausages and other snack food. Drinks were included in the assortment. As a child, I read these pages with delight, not knowing much about dietetics and varieties of raw ham. The only thing that bothered me was the lack of desserts.
And Nikolai Gogol? He describes each meal in the most meticulous way. Sobakevich “attached himself to the sturgeon and … in a quarter of an hour he reached it all”, in the “Inspector General” we read about the fish ryapushka and smelt, “they are such that you only salivate when you start eating.” And so it is in almost every work. Naturally, Gogol is not alone. If anyone is interested, open Anton Chekhov’s short story “The Siren”, but don’t do it before lunch – there is a risk of choking on the very saliva that another classic has already mentioned.
Since hedonistic authors can be quoted “from Romulus to the present day,” it’s time to move on to the “third” point. In my opinion, he is very interesting. Psychologists are convinced that in order to understand the condition and mood of another person, it is enough to copy his facial expression. For example, you look at a portrait of Rimsky-Korsakov, give your face the same concentrated expression, and suddenly something like the aria of a Varangian guest begins to sound in your mind. Or even the dramatic overture to “The Tsar’s Bride” is thundering.
But facial expressions are small things compared to the state of the stomach and the setting of taste buds. Isn’t it interesting to cook some kind of “grouse saute” mentioned at the beginning of Leo Tolstoy’s “War and Peace” in order to understand the worldview of the old Count Rostov? And the hungry and tortured Antoine Saint-Exupery, who got lost in the sky during a transatlantic night flight? He thought that if he did get to Casablanca, “the little bistros are already open at dawn.”… We will be served fresh bagels and coffee with milk.” Sorry, that’s the translation. Of course, he wasn’t referring to bagels, but croissants. The product seems to be accessible to everyone, but to experience its “taste like Antoine,” first mentally spend a night over the ocean at the wheel of a tiny airplane without a navigator and other bad excesses. And then feel free to grab a croissant. And make coffee with milk, of course.
Fourth, it’s my own habit. I really like to cook something “literary” from an experiment. Moreover, sometimes the recipe is almost clear or you can think it out a little. The classics of the genre are the so–called Pushkin cutlets. It is known that in 1831 Alexander Pushkin got married and rented a summer cottage in Tsarskoye Selo in the summer. Financially, the young people were saving money, so for lunch they often served minced beef patties mixed with a lot of chopped fresh herbs. Parsley, dill, green onion… Nikolai Gogol came to the Pushkin family on foot from Pavlovsk, where he served as a home teacher, and Vasily Zhukovsky, from whose words we all know this. Even a lady-in-waiting was constantly asking for a visit. Obviously, the heroes of this story were attracted primarily by communication, but no one canceled the signature dish. I tried to cook it, too, after all, a resident of Tsarskoye Selo, almost a neighbor. Success followed, and the home menu was enriched.
But with cutlets, at least the ingredients are clear, which is not always the case. I read from the same Gogol how Pulcheria Ivanovna invites us to the table: “And these are pies! These are cheese pies! It’s with Urdu!…” Wait, what’s Urda anyway? It sounds like an expletive. I start to search through all the sources for a long time and painfully, eventually I find the headline “Urdu pies”. I throw myself at the recipe like a cat at a butterfly and read: “Take half a kilogram of Urda…” What would you do in this place? That’s right, the search continued.
Urda is something like cheese, a briny, spicy cheese made from sheep’s or goat’s milk. At least, I managed to find such information. And I made the pies by adding more greens to the aforementioned urda (sorry, sheep’s cheese) to soften the taste. And I used ready-made puff pastry. And it turned out very well, Pulcheria Ivanovna and Afanasy Ivanovich would not grumble.
Sometimes literary and culinary discoveries happen completely by accident. One day, my colleagues from Ivanov took me to a microscopic village bakery in the village of Dunilovo near Kostroma. They knew where they were going and why: they were attracted by special pies. There were several cars parked near the entrance, and some well-loaded young lady, coming out of the door, enthusiastically barked with her mouth full.: Is this really the same unleavened egg pie that Korobochka treated Chichikov to? Like in “Dead Souls”: “They bend it well, and it doesn’t take much time”! Gogol’s Box went to arrange for the pie to be folded, and after tasting a piece, I rushed to the baker’s aunt for the recipe. Auntie was not surprised, but she said that no one could make the dough, although the recipe was simple. And she asked me to call her on Tuesday, because now it’s time for the customers and the pies to put in the oven. She wrote down her phone number on a piece of paper flour bag. I admit, I was thinking. Well, I’ll call you on Tuesday, and what will I say? “Hello, am I the crazy customer who interrupted your work on Sunday?” But I took a chance, dialed the “flour” number. “Ah, I remember you! Auntie replied good–naturedly. – I have the recipe, however, for 500 pieces, but you’ll figure it out there. The main thing is that the butter should be very, very warm, sour cream and cottage cheese should be very cold, and it should be kneaded very quickly. Take any filling – dried apricots, cabbage, apples, rice or green onions with egg. Just don’t do it with potatoes, otherwise eating such cold potato pies is like kissing a dead man!”
Are you interested in proportions? Here they are: 180 g of soft butter, 200 g of cold sour cream, 100 g of cold cottage cheese and 500 g of flour. Salt, baking soda or baking powder. Mix quickly, roll out thinly, and place in a hot oven. I did everything strictly according to the instructions. And now I even give these pies to my friends for the holidays. But I never bake with potatoes, and I don’t recommend it to you.
