Russian Colonial Food

Angelika Regossi

Description

Want to learn about Russia's "colonies"? Or how the Soviet mafia was born? Or the start of Avant-Garde Art under the communists? The book reveals these and other less-known stories about the history and life in the USSR. The Union or better to say the communist empire, was founded 100 years ago on December 30, 1922, and survived a long 70 years.The author managed to escape this "communist paradise" and shares with you long-kept secrets about her years in the Soviet Union. The book contains 15 stories that include well-researched historical facts about the lives of different people during key times in the USSR, at the time the biggest country that has ever existed. Some territories may come as a surprise, like "Jewish Soviet California" or "Jewish Soviet Palestine". Other places may be better known to the wider public, but the author reveals astonishing facts and simply explains complicated issues. Written sometimes with humour, sometimes with tears in her eyes, the author's stories are full of unexpected information and easy to read for both youngsters and adults.The book also includes 31 recipes of authentic, disappearing dishes from each of the USSR's republics. Some of them are really tasty! But all are made from basic and cheap ingredients and can be quickly prepared for all occasions, whether everyday eating, parties, or cosy gatherings. With this book, you can enjoy both exciting, informative stories and good, unusual cuisine.

Sujets

• Sociologie, société et politique

Informations

• Publié par: Austin Macauley Publishers Ltd
• Date de parution: 30 novembre 2022
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781398460362
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

R ussian C olonial F ood
Cooking and Politics. Journey through the dissolved Communist Empire
Angelika Regossi
Austin Macauley Publishers
2022-11-30
Russian Colonial Food About the Author Dedication Copyright Information © Introduction Stories Russia: Jews and Nicknames Kazakhstan: Home for Nuclear Tests Ukraine: Art to Survive Turkmenia: Closed People Uzbekistan: A Shelter on The Silk Road Byelorussia: The Land of Potatoes Kirgizia: Horse Lovers of 40 Clans of Manas Tadjikia: Front Line of Afghanistan Azerbaijan: Oil Country Gruzija: Where Soviet Mafia Was Born Litva: Friends and Rebels Latvia: Milking Cow Estonia: Little West Moldavia: The Poorest in The Line Armenia: Road to The Monastery In the First Christian State Recipes Russia Kvass ‘Petrovsky’ (Bread Drink) Russia Okroshka Kazakhstan Kurysh Sorpa Kazakhstan Rahat Cake Ukraine Baked Bell Peppers Ukraine Cake from Beans Turkmenia Fitchie Turkmenia Yyshtykma Uzbekistan Halva Uzbekistan Plov Byelorussia Potato Babka Byelorussia Zhur Village Style Kirgizia Kuurma Chaj Kirgizia Susamyr Kirgizia Zhansak Tadjikia Baursak Tadjikia Kulcha Azerbaijan Dolma ‘Uch Badji’ Azerbaijan Kyukyu Omelette Gruzija Satsivi Gruzija Tapaka Chicks Litva Zematiskas Kashtinis Litva Zeppelins Latvia Buberts Latvia Sklandrausis Estonia Syir Estonia Turbakook Moldavia Memeligutse (mamalyga) Moldavia Pastroma Armenia Ghapama Armenia Yerevan Gata
About the Author
Angelika Regossi was a Central and East Europe news reporter for BBC radio (British Broadcasting Corporation) during the transition time from communism to capitalism. In addition, she was freelancing for RFI (Radio France International), DW (Deutsche Welle) and worked as a TV producer for Belgium VRT, German Spiegel, Dutch NOS, USA the Voice of America and others.
Regossi travelled extensively through the region during the historical changes and covered the Balkan wars, overthrow of Slobodan Milosevic—the President of ex-Yugoslavia, expansion of NATO and European Union. She also reported from other parts of the world, including referendum for independence in Canada, civil war in Burma, persecutions in Laos, wars in Iraq and Georgia.
Angelika Regossi was born on 21 April 1964 in Transcarpathia, the westernmost point of Ukraine. She began writing at an early age amid difficulties with communist authorities, who persecuted her grandfather in labour camp in Siberia. With no communists in her family, she had little chance to discover herself in the autocratic USSR. Therefore, in autumn 1989, she moved to neighbouring Hungary where communism just collapsed. After finishing her reporter’s job for BBC in 2015, Regossi moved to the Netherlands.
Angelika Regossi has a university degree and speaks several languages: English, Dutch, Hungarian, Russian, Ukrainian, Slovak and other Slavic languages. Her hobbies are gardening, bridge cards game and, of course, traveling.
Regossi is the founder of Slow Food Community in remote Hungarian Tolna region where she owns a boutique hotel, ‘Farmotel Stefania’.
Dedication
To my husband Dr. Johannes Arkenbout who cooked while I wrote this book about cooking and politics.
Copyright Information ©
Angelika Regossi 2022
The right of Angelika Regossi to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by the author in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers.
Any person who commits any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.
A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.
ISBN 9781398460355 (Paperback)
ISBN 9781398460362 (ePub e-book)
www.austinmacauley.com
First Published 2022
Austin Macauley Publishers Ltd ®
1 Canada Square
Canary Wharf
London
E14 5AA
Introduction
The USSR, or Soviet Union, was a huge Communist Empire, big like a continent. It stretched in Eurasia and occupied 17% of the earth. Formed from 15 Soviet Socialist republics, it also included many autonomous republics and regions.
In the 1917 Revolution, communists forcefully took over this huge territory from Russian Tzar—a supreme ruler of then Russian Empire. And after 5 years, in 1922, they announced a new state—the USSR—which became even bigger than the Russian Empire, because communists seized additional neighbouring territories. The USSR existed for 70 years till 1992.
Russian Tzar and communists ruled from the capital Moscow, which is also the capital of Russia. Big and powerful, Russia was the centre of both: Russian Tzar Empire and Communist Empire.
About 250 million people of 150 different nationalities lived in the USSR. But they were in the shadow of the Russian nation, because both the Empires were controlled by dominating Russians. They oppressed local people of different nationalities and ethnicities, who were on their lands since ancient times.
“Russia once colonised its neighbours and then communists took over,” told me Otto von Habsburg in a private conversation in Budapest (Hungary), in the middle of 1990-ies, where we met.
Otto von Habsburg was the last crown prince, son of emperor of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, which dissolved at the end of 1918, before the USSR was created. Sure, he knew much about empires.
Communists believed in utopic society of peasants and workers, where all are equal: no rich or poor, everybody works and gets the same. They ruled very cruelly, killed millions of innocent people or sent them to labour prison-camps.
From the beginning, the Soviet Union had political and economic problems: dictatorship with lack of food and goods. Their problems were increasing from year to year and the communists could not control the situation in their super huge Empire. The system was collapsing. In December 31, 1991, communists declared the end of the USSR. Exactly in the New Year midnight, to the sound of Kremlin Chimes – the main clock of the Empire.
But the USSR did not disappear next day: it was dying slowly, in the agony, another decade. When came political chaos, civil wars and appeared new class from ex-communists, their allies and those who took the risks. The class of newly very rich people and rest – became newly poor, with huge gap in between, almost no middle class. Something opposite to what communists preached in “equal for all” USSR.
From January 01, 1992 the huge territory of Soviet Union saw new era: the decolonisation of seized countries. One after another, ex-soviet territories announced independence and creation of new states, so-called ‘Parade of Sovereignty’.
Something similar had happened a few decades earlier in other parts of the world when Latin America, Africa and Asia became independent from colonial rulers of Belgium, the Netherlands, Spain, Great Britain, etc. The difference was that, not many people knew that Russia and communists also had colonies. That’s why, 15 new countries came as a surprise.
After declaring independence ex-communist states had many tasks to do. First, they were busy with creating a new constitution, new government, flag, hymn, money, re-drawing the borders, some named new capitals, changed towns and streets names, got rid of communist past and symbols. Then came questions of their identity: who they are? where they came from and where they would go? During double colonisation, many nations started to lose their true history and national language, songs, fairy tales and…cuisine.
Culinary skills in the USSR were not valued, because communists had other priorities: to build utopic communism on 17% of the earth and spread it all over the world and fine cooking, preserving the national cuisine of people in the Empire ‘was a remnant of the bourgeois past’, a class against whom communists fought in 1917 in a bloody Proletariat Revolution. Communists wanted new type of human being: ‘builders of communism’, soviet people with no nationality, identity, history and national cuisine.
Sometimes ‘builders of communism’ faced famine: like in Povolzhye in 1921-1922, Ukraine in 1932-1933, Moldova 1946-1947 and other less known tragedies, when millions of people died. Because of repressive policies and mismanagement, there was often lack of food. So, ‘builders of communism’ were often hungry and undernourished, they ate not for pleasure, but to satisfy hunger, while working on this huge construction site of ‘building communism on 17% of the earth’.
Lack of food and cooking skills were among the reasons why national cuisine of many nations in the USSR started to disappear. National dishes, cooked from a minimum product by unskilled cooks, were altered so much, that often Georgians, Russians and Uzbeks could not recognise them.
For example, roasted Tapaka Chiks (from Georgia), soup Okroshka (from Russia) or rice dish Plov (from Uzbekistan)—were massively served in workers canteens and few restaurants all over in the USSR, but they were far away from the originals.
Today, we watch how authentic national recipes, long cooked by grandma’s, are dying together with the old generation in the ex-USSR. Where 70 years national cuisine was neglected and now, because of globalisation, people’s business or may be laziness, foods that are ready-to go and fast-food meals have become more popular.
The Renaissance of the national cuisine of new countries from ex-USSR has just started. Thirty years have passed since the collapse of the USSR. The dust of this ‘big fall’ is almost settled, but new countries are still searching for their identity and re-discovering their national cuisines.
This book is an intention to help some of the new 15 ex-communist countries to find their place on the world’s culinary map. It contains 30 authentic recipes of 15 soviet r