Gastronomic Reforms Under Peter the Great. Toward A

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Gastronomic Reforms under Peter the Great. Toward a Cultural History of Russian Food Author(s): Darra Goldstein Reviewed work(s): Source: Jahrbücher für Geschichte Osteuropas, Neue Folge, Bd. 48, H. 4 (2000), pp. 481-510 Published by: Franz Steiner Verlag Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/41050633 . Accessed: 26/09/2012 10:57

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Darra Goldstein,Williamstown, MA

GastronomicReforms under Peter the Great. Toward a CulturalHistory of Russian Food*

Despite the considerableresearch that has been done on the eighteenthcentury in Russia, thereis stilllittle documentation on theevolution of cuisine.Few worksdeem food important enoughto warrantcritical attention, overlooking it as a valuable source of information.Yet thehistory of theworld encompasses much more thanthe biographyof greatmen (to invert Thomas Carlyle's famousmaxim), and food studiescan reveal a bounteousamount about the cultural,social, and politicallife of a nation.However, since the firstRussian cookbook was publishedonly towardthe end of theeighteenth century, cookbooks cannotserve as a source of informationas theydo forother cuisines, notablyFrench, Italian, Spanish, and English. For Russia, monasteryrecord books and Churchdocuments can provideimportant information about theavailability of produce and thesequence of feastand fastdays throughoutthe year. But apartfrom scattered archival documents,there is a dearthof reliable sources. The most useful materialsprove to be memoirsand diaries of both domestic and foreignobservers. For foods of the immediatepre-Petrine period, an excellentsource is the "Knigi vo ves' god v stol estvy podavat'," conceived as a supplementto the Domostroi, which itself provides useful informationabout the preparation,storage, and servingof food. The Knigi representa listingof the differentfoodstuffs appropriate for eating during feast and fastdays and include instructionsfor making various fermentedbeverages and preparingvegetables and fruits.They also contain the invaluable "Rospisi kushan'iu boiarina Borisa Ivanovicha Morozova," which details the foods available to wealthyseventeenth-century Russians.1 Anotheruseful source is the descriptionof Muscovy leftby GrigoriiKotoshikhin, clerk to Tsar Aleksei Mikhailovich beforeturning traitor. His "O Rossii v tsarstvovaniiAlekseia Mikhailovicha" provides copious informationon food at court,particularly the Russian institutionof podacha and table service duringroyal feasts.His work is also helpfulfor the informationit provides on foodstuffsin the economy.2 A differentsort of insightinto Muscovite foodwaysis providedby theaccounts of foreign travelers,which vary in theirreliability. More oftenthan not we learn as much about the gastronomicand culturalpreferences of the travelersas we do about the Russian foodways. The chief problem is thatthe foreigntravel generallynote only the elements of Russian cuisine and table service thatseem exotic; anythingremotely familiar is deemed unworth mention. We can learn, for instance, that over one hundred dishes, in several different courses,were servedat a feastbut remainfrustrated not to findout exactlywhat these dishes * I am gratefulto Max Okenfussof Washington University for his many insightful comments on this essay. Knigi vo ves' god v stol estvypodavat' [dopolneniek Domostroiublagoveshchenskago popa Sil'vestra],in: Vremennikimperatorskogo moskovskogo obshchestva istorii i drevnosteirossiiskikh. Kn. 6 red.Iv. Moskvav un. 1850, 7-44. 2 (pod Zabelina). tip., pp. GrigoriiKotoshikhin O Rossiiv tsarstvovaniiAlekseia Mikhailovicha. Text and Commentary. Ed. by A. E. Pennington.Oxford 1980.

Jahrbücherfür Geschichte Osteuropas 48 (2000) H 4 e FranzSteiner Verlag Wiesbaden GmbH, Sitz Stuttgart/Germany 482 Darra Goldstein were - beyond the factthat they were heavilyseasoned withgarlic. Of the foreignreporters, the best is Adam Olearius, a German scholar who travelledto Russia on an embassy from Holstein in 1647 and keenly observed Russian customs.3 Primaryaccounts from the Petrine era are highlyentertaining, and the carefulreader can finda good deal of informationabout theway people ate, even if this informationis offered only in passing. Given Peter's predilections,the cultureof drinkingis accorded far more space than the cultureof eating,but even so, the diaries of the envoys JustJuel, Friedrich ChristianWeber, and Johann-GeorgKorb all offerinsight into the foods, table settings,and etiquetteof Peter's reign.Like mostaccounts by foreigners,these works are oftenmarred by thecultural prejudices of theirauthors, specifically the aversion theyfrequently felt toward Russian food.4 In his treatise"On the Corruptionof Morals in Russia," Prince Mikhail Shcherbatovcited numerous instances of the ways in which the traditionalfoods and eating patternsof Russia had changedover thecourse of theeighteenth century. But Shcherbatov's conservative agenda oftenkeeps his pronouncementsfrom being trustworthy.5The best secondarysources are descriptiveRussian histories,such as Tereshchenko's comprehensive "Byt russkagonaroda," Kostomarov's "Domashniaia zhizn' i nravyvelikorusskogo naroda," Kliuchevskii'smonumental "Kurs russkoiistorii," and Pyliaev's "Staroe zhit'e". All of these worksoffer focussed discussions of traditionalRussian foodways,though unfortunately they rarelycite originalsources.6 Western secondary works are the disappointingexception here. For instance,Lindsey Hughes' comprehensivework on thePetrine era is excellentin everyother respect, but it fails to tellus anythingabout eighteenth-centuryeating habits or about thesignificant changes that occurred in Russian gastronomyunder Peter the Great. (Hughes does, however, devote considerablespace to Peter's drinkinghabits.)7 Smith and Christian'simportant "Bread and Salt" is helpfulfor understanding social backgroundand the economic challenges Russia faced over thecenturies, but it does not offerany sense of theaesthetic or culturalaspects of eating.8From Anthony Cross we can glean interestingtidbits about the consumptionof beer and ale in Russia, but he does not treatfoodstuffs in any depth,like Hughes paying attention to drinkrather than food,9 and Simon Dixon's recent"The Modernisationof Russia" does 3 The Travelsof Oleariusin Seventeenth-CenturyRussia. Trans,and ed. by Samuel H. Baron. Stanford1967. 'A « • « • -a- w • • « « « • • ■ v^ . * • « r « mm/' s'. « « ^ m « 1 * *" 4 f' f' f' y 11 Zapiski lusta lulia, datskagoposlannika pn rare veiikom [1 /uy-i i j. Moskva, univ. up. iöw tau subsequentquotations from lusta lui' are takenfrom the notes publishe in: Russkii arkhiv [1892] nos. 3 and 5; Friedrich Christian Weber The PresentState of Russia. Vol. 1-2. London 1722-23, reprint New York 1968; Johann-Georg Korb Diary of an AustrianSecretary of Legation at the Court of Peter the Great. Trans, and ed. by The Count MacDonnell. London 1863, reprintLondon 1968. 5 Mikhail Shcherbatov O povrezhdenii nravov v Rossii, in: On the Corruptionof Morals in Russia. Ed. and trans,with an introductionand notes by A. Lentin. Cambridge 1969. A. V. Tereshchenko Byt russkago naroda: narodnost , zhihshcha, domovodstvo, obraz zhizni, muzyka,svad'by, vremiachislenie,kreshchenie i pr. i pr. Tom 1-7. S.-Peterburg,tip. Ministravnutren- nykhdel, 1848; N. I. Kostomarov Domashniaia zhizn' i nravyvelikorusskogo naroda: utvar', odezh- da, pishcha i pife, zdorov'e i bolezni, nravy,obriady, priem gostei, in: Istoricheskiemonografii i issle- dovaniia. Tom 19. S.-Peterburg1887, pp. 3-314, reprintMoskva 1993; V. O. Kliuchevskii Istoriia russkogo byta: Chteniia v shkole i doma (1867), reprintMoskva 1995 (the original publication appeared as a supplementto the Russian translationof P. Kirchman's Istoriiaobshchestvennogo i chast- nogo byta); M. I. Pyliaev Staroe zhit'e: ocherki i razskazy. S.-Peterburg,tip. A. S. Suvorina, 1897. 7 Lindsey Hughes Russia in the Age of Peterthe Great. New Haven 1998. 8 R. E. F. Smith, David Christian Bread and Salt: A Social and Economic History of Food and Drink in Russia. Cambridge 1984. 9 Anthony Cross By the Banks of theNeva: Chaptersfrom the Lives and Careers of the Britishin Eighteenth-CenturyRussia. Cambridge 1997. GastronomieReforms under Peter the Great 483

not mentionfood at all.10Nevertheless, it is possible to stitchtogether the observati all of these sources intoportraits of certainmajor events. At the birth of Peter the First in 1672, a wondrous display of molded sugar-paste confectionsconcluded thecelebratory dinner prepared for Peter's proud father,Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich. The sugar conceits included "a cinnamonspice cake (kovrizhka)made with sugar1111 in the shape of theMuscovy coat of arms;a large,cone-shaped cinnamon spice cake decoratedwith colors, weighing 2 puds 20 pounds;1121large, molded sugar confections shaped like eagles with the royal orb, one whiteand theother red/131 each weighing1 M2puds' a 2-pudswan of moldedsugar; a 'w'ï-pudsugar duck;a 10-pud sugar parrot and an S-pudsugar dove; a sugarKremlin with infantry, calvary andtwo towers, with eagles soaring above them, and the city molded into a squaresurrounded bycannons; two large 15-pound horns made of sugar and flavored with cinnamon, one redand theother white; two large marzipan confections made with sugar, one bakedin 5 rounds,the othercast;[ul two candy spires, one red and one white,each weighing12 pounds;40 dishesof sugardecorations depicting infantry and cavalry and other figures, half a poundon each plate; 30 dishesof various fruit-flavored hard candies, 3/4 pound on each plate; 10 platesof crystal sugarwith spices, a poundon eachplate; a halfchest of frosted fruits/151 candied rind, lemons, 10 Simon Dixon The Modernisationof Russia 1676-1825. Cambridge1999; Even theclosely- focussedStudy Group on Eighteenth-centuryRussia has not looked at the era through the prism of food studies. 11 The kovrizhkais a typeof prianik or gingerbreadmade fromthe earliest times in Russia. The traditionalsweetener is honey;the fact that the description notes the use ofsugar emphasizes the cake's extravagance. A pud (pood) is equal to roughly36 Americanpounds. The old Russianpound equalled 409 grams,somewhat less thanthe American pound, which weighs in at approximately454 grams. Krasnyior "red"sugar refers to sugarthat has been coloredred. Cochineal was introducedto Europein thelate sixteenth century, so itmay well have been known at the Russian court. When mixed withalum and tartaricacid, cochineal yields a brilliantcarmine red, which would have appealedto Russiansensibilities. (Cf. theetymological closeness of krasnyi'red' and krasivyi'beautiful'; the originalmeaning of the modern word for "red" was "beautiful"[hence, Red Square]).Vasilii Levshin mentionscochineal as a coloringagent in his comprehensivedictionary of Russian food (V. A. LevshinSlovar' povarennyi, konditerskii i distillatorskii. Tom 3, chast'2. S.-Peterburg1795, p. 94.) It is possible,however, and notunlikely, that early Russian confectioners used nativecolorants such as cranberry,raspberry, cherry or barberryjuice to achievea redcolor. For more on sugarartistry see Laura Mason Sugar-Plumsand Sherbet: The Prehistoryof Sweets.Devon, England 1998, especially pp. 137-150 and 195-199. 1 The Russianreads: "dva bol'shikh sakharnykh martsipana: odin na piatikrugakh, a drugoileden- tsovyi."Regular marzipan was madeby heating together 1 Russian pound of groundalmonds with 1/2 cup of rosewater.A poundof sugarwas graduallyadded until the mixture thickened, at whichpoint it was removedfrom the heat, dusted with flour, and moldedinto various shapes. The "fiverounds" hererefer to thecircular forms into which the marzipan was moldedto resemblea flower."Cast" (ledentsovyi)marzipan was madesomewhat differently. Ground almonds, rosewater and sugarwere quicklymixed together and placed in molds,which were then sandwiched between two iron sheets and setin the stove to bake.As themolds heated up, the sugar melted and castthe marzipan into the shape ofthe molds. I am gratefulto Tatiana Tokareva for her detailed elucidation of this, and other,problem- aticpassages in thiscitation. 15 The Russiansmokva here refers not to figs,as in currentusage, but to sugar-frosted fruits, such as grapes,gooseberries, lingonberries or currants.The fruitswere left on thevine or stalkand soakedin a thinsyrup, then dusted with fine sugar and driedin a warmstove. The resultingconfections were crystallineand sparkling. 484 Darra Goldstein

nutmegand bitter oranges,1161 pitted dried apricots and peaches,ginger in syrup,watermelon, melon,and otherfruits - in all therewere 120 disheson thetable." Such regalement reflected the standards of Muscovite hospitality,which dictated the preparationof elaborateconfections for all guestsinvited to royalevents. At the end of these feasts,guests were given additionalconfectionary to bringhome, the amountdetermined by each person's rank and the degree of his favor before the Tsar.18 This podacha or presentationmarked one's statusat courtand was a ritualizedaspect of Russian hospitality. Couriers delivered thepodacha to anyone unable to attendthe festivities.19 Althoughthe tsars' expendituresnotoriously bore littlerelation to any financialreality, the cost of theseconfections must have been astronomical.Russia's firstsugar refinerydid not begin productionuntil the early 1720s;20before then all processed sugar had to be imported, 16 The Russian iablok mushkatnykhi pomerantsovykh refers, respectively, to the freshfruit of the nutmeg before it is dried and to the bitter,or Seville, orange. Nutmeg was broughtto Russia by the Dutch, who had a monopolyon thenutmeg trade in the 17thcentury; bitter oranges were importedfrom theirnative China. Along with lemons, the nutmegand bitteroranges were likely placed on the table fortheir fragrance and beauty.The sixteenth-centuryPortuguese physician Garcia da Orta,who worked in Goa, wrote that"[i]t is the loveliest sightin the world to see the nutmegtrees laden with theirripe golden fruit[. . .]" (Garcia da Orta Colloquies on the Simples & Drugs of India. London 1913, p. 32). 17 Tereshchenko Byt russkagonaroda, vol. 3, pp. 264-265. Tereshchenkodid not providea source. Pyliaev offereda slightlydifferent description in his Staroe zhit'e p. 4, citing Opyt trudovVol'nogo rossiiskago sobraniia pri Imperatorskommoskovskom universitete,ch. 4, p. 158. In Semnadtsat' pervykhlet v zhizni imperatoraPetra velikago 1672-1689, M. P. Pogodin also brieflydescribed the sugar confectionsand stated thatthe dinnertook place in the Faceted Palace on June29, following Peter's baptismand christening.See M. P. Pogodin Semnadtsat'pervykh let. Moskva, tip. V. M. Frish, 1875, p. 8. 18 The numberof dishes served at feastsalso reflectedthe Tsar's favor,as Johann-GeorgKorb reported:"A Czar's entertainmentwas given to the representativesof Poland and Denmark.The Pole got twenty-fivedishes, the Dane only twenty-two,and bothhad six gallons of drinkablesof various kinds. It seems the ministrywanted to cut shortthe controversyabout prerogativewhich the Dane had moved againstthe Pole. For the Pole was honouredwith the firstentertainment, and the greaternumber of the viands battledin his favourtoo. The Dane foundit verysour of digestionto be held inferiorto the Pole: he could not endure thatothers should have made such a distinctionas was made in the differenceof thisentertainment." (Korb Diary of an AustrianSecretary of Legation,vol. 1, pp. 171-172). Elsewhere Korb noted: "A Czar's entertainmentgiven to the Brandenburgher.He was more honoured than the - Pole or the Dane, forthe table was laid with fiftydishes and twenty-fourjars of drinkables a token to the othershow much less theyare liked." Ibidem, vol. 1, p. 240. In this way the Russian tsars used food as a political tool. 19 See, forinstance, the account of Sir Thomas Randolph, who afteran audience with Tsar Ivan the Terriblewas the beneficiaryof the followingpodacha: "Withinone hourafter, in comes to my lodging a duke richlyappareled accompanied withfifty persons, each of themcarrying a silver dish with meat and covered withsilver. The duke firstdelivered twentyloaves of bread of the emperor's own eating, havingtasted the same, and deliverethevery dish into my hands and tastedof every kind of drinkthat he brought."Sir Thomas Randolph A Mission to Muscovy, in: Rude & Barbarous Kingdom. Ed. by Lloyd E. Berry and Robert O. Crummey.Madison 1968, p. 69. This account was firstpublished in 1589 in: Richard Hakluyt The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques,and Discoveries of the EnglishNation. 12 vols. Glasgow 1903-1905, herevol. 1. See also the detailed account by the French- man Margaret, who described a processional that made its way throughthe streets of Moscow. CapitaineMargaret Estâtde l'empire de Russie et Grande Duché de Moscovie. Paris 1607, pp. 32- 33, cited in: Smith, Christian Bread and Salt p. 1 17. 20 In 1718 the Moscow merchantPavel Vestov (Westhoff) was commissioned to build a sugar refinerynear Moscow but chose to build it in Petersburginstead. To enable Vestov's refineryto work withoutcompetition, the governmentforbade the importof refinedsugar; in return,the refineryhad to promise to produce sugar equal in quality to the importedproduct and to sell it at a price advanta- geous to consumers. As long as native productionfully supplied the domestic market,this sort of protectionismfrom foreign competition was common underPeter I. See V. G. Geiman Manifakturnye predpriiatiiaPeterburga, in: PeterburgPetrovskogo vremeni.Ed. by A. V. Predtechenskii.Leningrad 1948, pp. 69-70. Geiman named 1720 as the date when sugar productionbegan in Russia; Smith and GastronomieReforms under Peter the Great 485 chiefly throughthe far northernport of Archangel on the White Sea. The journey from Archangel to Moscow, covering nearly 1,000 miles by riverand land, could take several weeks, dependingon theweather.21 After the riversbecame navigable in late spring,barges could easily sail down theDvina and Sukhona Rivers to the town of Vologda. But therethe route to Moscow continued overland, and the Russian roads of late spring were often impassable due to mud. If merchantswaited forthe roads to dryout, the water level in the riverssometimes dropped low enough to make passage extremelyslow. It is not surprising, then, that most Russians had never even tasted sugar, particularlysince Russia's native sweetener,wild honey,was so widely available. Even those who had tastedsugar remained suspicious,as it was rumoredto be refinedwith blood and thereforeunsuitable for fast days.22 Orthodox Russians took fastingvery seriously,dividing the year into feast(skoromnyi) and fast (postnyi) days, the sequence of which they strictlyobserved. No meat or dairy productswere allowed on fastdays, which added up to nearlytwo hundreddays a year. For mostof thepopulation this meant a dietbased on grains,hearty vegetables, and occasionally fish.The odor of the latter,sold salted and pickled at market,could oftenbe detectedfrom a great distance, as foreign visitors to Russia complained. Friedrich Christian Weber marvelled that the Russian folk preferredsalted fish to fresh,even eating it "raw out of barrels" or boiled, with the pickling liquid servingas a kind of soup to sop up withbread. Weber explained theirtaste forthis pungent fish as follows: "To this they are obliged by frequentFasts, whichmake above thirtyWeeks in theYear, in whichtime they dare not taste neitherFlesh nor whatcomes of Flesh, as Eggs, Milk, Butter,Cheese, and the like, but must live upon Fish, and Linseed-Oyl insteadof Butter."23For the well-to-do,however, fastdays did not mean eitherdeprivation or stinkyfish. A mid-seventeenth-centurystate dinnergiven for the English ambassador Carlisle lasted foreight hours,with no less than five hundred dishes served,not one made withmeat products. For thedinner's finale three small treeswere broughtto table,each covered withgilded cakes, whichCarlisle and theboyars plucked from the branches and ate fordessert.24 If the rarestgoods were reservedfor the royal table, the nobilitynevertheless enjoyed a wide varietyof foods. Their dietexisted on a plane vastlysuperior to thatof themasses, who had to contentthemselves largely with gruel and coarse rye bread, supplementedby root vegetables and foragedfoods in season. This basic diet remainedvirtually unchanged well intothe twentieth century; apart from the introductionand late acceptance of the potato,the peasanttable was hardlyaffected by theimportation of new productsand culinarymodes into Russia. Therefore this essay examines the tables of the well-to-do, where the greatest gastronomicchanges occurred.

Christiangave the date as 1723,citing the Russian historians Solov'ev and Liubomirov; see: Breadand Salt p. 177. 21 In July1568 it took Sir ThomasRandolph five weeks to traveldown theDvina Riverfrom to See Randolph A Missionto 67. Kholmogory22 Vologda. Muscovyp. See TereshchenkoByt russkago naroda p. 272. Oleariusreported that "a foreignmerchant named Bock toldthe Patriarch that eggwhite was usedto purifysugar," thus making it skoromnyi. See The Travelsof Olearius p. 270. TsarAlexei Mikhailovich's British physician, Samuel Collins, also noted a proscriptionagainst sugar on fastdays. Samuel Collins The presentstate of Russia,in a letterto a friendat London;written by an eminentperson residing at theGreat Tsars court at Moscow forthe spaceof nine years. London 1671. Evenwell intothe nineteenth century some peasants believed that sugarwas made fromanimal (especially dog) bones.See S. V. Maksimov Krestnaiasila. Sobranie sochinenii.Tom 17. S.-Peterburg,n.d. [c. 1900],p. 85, citedin: Leonid Heretz The Practiceand Significanceof Fastingin RussianPeasant Culture at theTurn of theCentury, in: Food in Russian Historyand Culture.Ed. by MusyaGiants and JoyceToomre. Bloomington 1997, p. 72. 23 Weber The PresentState of Russia,vol. 1,pp. 343-344. 24 Tereshchenko Bytrusskago naroda pp. 259-261. 486 Darra Goldstein

For those who could affordit, even the fast-daydiet proved ample and varied. This we know from an inventoryof the foods served on Palm Sunday, 1656, to Boyar Boris IvanovichMorozov, head of theTreasury under Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich.Morozov's ability to procurethe finest products does not seem to have been affectedby the losses he suffered duringthe 1648 uprisingagainst the highersalt tax levied by his department.Breaking into Morozov's house, the mob had headed straightfor his cellars, where theydrank barrels of mead and vodka. What theywere unable to drink,they smashed, carousing knee-deep in liquor.When Morozov's house caught fire,many brawlersperished as the alcohol went up in flames.25But Morozov recoveredhis wealthquickly enough, and eightyears laterenjoyed the followingmeal: "Fine wheatbread, cabbage with herring, pressed caviar, black caviar, red cisco roe,dried backboneof sturgeon(yiziza) withhorseradish, steamed herring, boned saltedpike with horseradish.Sterlet steaks,[2

whitefishwith sauce, Ladoga whitefish(lodoga) withhorseradish, soup withfish belly and tongue.2 fishbellies, 2 sturgeonsteaks. For the derzhal'niki^ cabbagewith herring, dried backboneof sturgeon, sturgeon (osetr) with cucumbers, buckwheat groats with fish, perch soup (ukha' slow-risenpies. Whitefish,Ladoga whitefish,five servings.For the servants,six servings.For each serving,20 belugaand osetrsteaks." This menu reflectsthe refinement of theRussian palate,at least as faras fishwas concerned. Not only did affluentRussians enjoy a varietyof fish,they also appreciated parts of the anatomythat our own societygenerally discards, such as the entrailsand the backbone. Our Americanappreciation for caviar, the female's eggs, reveals our culturalpreferences; we eat it withaplomb, even ostentation,yet we shyaway fromthe disconcertingly creamy milt, the seminal secretionof the male fish. This connoisseurship was not always apparent to foreignvisitors to Muscovy, who generallycomplained about the food theyencountered. The irrepressiblePolish nobleman and adventurerJan Chryzostom Pasek, invitedto the Tsar's table in 1662, put a humorous spin on the Russians' unfamiliardining practices: "[...] The nextday an imperialbanquet was to takeplace; thatevening Mikhailo Afanasovich, theson ofthat lord of the table, and anotherboyar, came to me witha speech:"Tsar, Osudar, VelikiiBiloei i ChornyeiRusi Samoderzhtsai Obladatel,tebe sterpriatela swoigoprosit zaiutra na biluzhnyekoleno i na lebedyekhuzno' ['The Tsar,Grand Monarch of Whiteand BlackRuthenia {part of Muscovy}, absolute ruler and sovereign lord, invites you, as hisfriend, fortomorrow for knee of belugaand rump of swan']. I beingunfamiliar with that etiquette of theirs,sulked; think I to myself,what practice is this, to go invitingsomeone for a KNEE and an ARSE, and I did notyet know what a belugawas. Rightthen, I wantedto exclaim:Tell himto eat arsehimself; then I restrainedmyself. Nemo sapiens,nisipatiens [He whois notpatient, is notwise]. I repliedthat I thankhis lordshipthe tsarfor the gracious invitation to his banquet, but being an ordinarysoldier, I am loathto feed on delicacies;though I'll makemy appearance, I'll findsomething else to eat there,and those celebrateddainties I leaveto thegentlemen envoys. The interpreterhaving seen how I frowned on it, says: 'Be not upset,Your Honor,for this is a customof our people,just as in your country,gentlemen invite one anotherfor boiled beef, even though hazelhens be foundthere too,and many other such game, so withus itis forrump of swan, though there be manydishes; and whenwe mentionboth rump of swan and kneeof belugait is to signifyan illustrious banquet.' I inquiredthen: 'What is thisbeluga anyway, and whatis so specialabout its knees?' He said thatit's a largerriver fish, and thatone spotnear the gills has so finea flavor,no otherfish is as tasty,and the rest tastes like sturgeon; that piece being round, which they cut from the fish andbring round to the table, they call a knee.I also madeinquiry about why they invite guests fora rump- whynot a head,or a wing,or a breast?He said thatthis piece is thetastiest part ofa swan.At this, I observedit would be betterto inviteone fora wholeswan rather than the rumpalone; in ourcountry the rump of a fatcapon is also rathersavory, but we don'tinvite anyonefor the rump, but in generalfor the capon. Said he,it's thecustom."39 If Pasek's tale implicitlyreveals Russian epicurism,other foreign visitors were less amused by local tastes. On a 1689 visit to Muscovy, the envoy Foy de la Neuville declared with a Frenchman's absolute disdain thatthe Russians "eat and drinkextremely badly" and are "gluttons" to boot.40He went on to describe a podacha sent fromthe table of the then 37 Derzhal'nikiwere poor nobility living under the patronage of theirwealthier relatives, usually in thesame house. 38 Rospisi kushan'iuboiarina Borisa IvanovichaMorozova, in: Knigi vo ves' god v stol estvy podavat',pp. 33-34 (see note1). Memoirsof the Polish Baroque: The Writingsof Jan Chryzostom Pasek, A Squireof the Common- wealthof Poland and Lithuania. Ed., trans., with an introd.and notesby Catherine S. Leach. Berkeley 1976,pp. 139-140. 40 Foy de la Neuville A Curiousand New Accountof Muscovyin theYear 1689 (translationof Relationcurieuse et nouvelle de Moscovie[1698]). Ed. andintrod. by Lindsey Hughes and trans,from theFrench by J. A. Cutshall.London 1994, p. 57. 488 Darra Goldstein seventeen-year-oldTsar Peterthe First,consisting of "a forty-poundpiece of smoked beef, several dishes offish cooked in nut oil, half a pig, a dozen half-cookedpies made of meat, garlic and saffron,and threebig flagons of vodka, Spanish wine and mead."41Neuville commentedthat "[i]t is easy to judge fromthe list of these dishes thatthe greatestpleasure I found in this sumptuous feast was the honour that was being done me." Unwilling to prevaricatewhen asked how he had enjoyed themeal, Neuville confessedthat "unfortunately French cooks had so spoiled my taste thatI could eat no othercooking." Yet several days later he admittedto being "veryproperly entertained" at Andrei ArtamonovichMatveev's house, havingenjoyed a Lentenmeal consistingentirely of Caspian Sea and Volga River fish thathad been transportedlive to Moscow.42 The year-roundfurnishing of theTsar's table withfish from distant waters had earlierbeen describedby GrigoriiKotoshikhin, under-secretary (before turningtraitor ) to Tsar Aleksei Mikhailovich. Fisheries in Nizhnii Novgorod, Kazan, and Astrakhanon the Volga, as well as on theTerek River in theCaucasus, providedvarious types of sturgeon(beluga and osetr). The fishwas hauled to Moscow whole or in pieces, saltedor brinedin barrels;the backs and bellies were generallydried and jerked. Sterletwas salted in barrelsand transportedalong withburbot roe, sturgeonliver, fine caviar (bothbeluga and osetra),blocks of pressedcaviar, driedsturgeon backbone (visiga), and stripsof dried whitesalmon. From Velikii Novgorod and Lake Ladoga came whitefish,Ladoga whitefish,and whitefishcaviar; fromVologda, - Archangel and the Kolsk peninsula near Murmansk salmon (losos ') and salted salmon (semga). Freshsturgeon, white salmon, sterlet,salmon, pike, bream,pike-perch, perch, and many othersorts of excellent fishwere caught forthe Tsar's table in the riversand ponds around Moscow.43 Russian courtiersheartily enjoyed the abundant fish and fish products; by measuring Russian eating habits against the standards of French practice Neuville revealed his superficialunderstanding of Russian culture.What he identifiedas gluttonywas, in fact,the obverse of the"Waste Not WantNot" mentalityruling certain segments of Westernculture. When it came to regalement, wastefulness was not a consideration for the Russian aristocracy.Frugality among the nobilitywould hardly allay the deprivationsof a poor country,and Muscovite Russia had littlesense of the egalitarianismthat was beginningto brew faintlyin WesternEurope. Instead,the aristocratictemperament ran to extremes,with apparentlytotal disregardfor restraint. The strictOrthodox pattern of feastingand fasting caused wealthyRussians to indulgeto theutmost when theycould, experiencingglee at their wantonness.No doubtpart of theirpleasure lay in an awarenessof the scarcitythat prevailed just beyond theirmansion walls; thisunfortunate attribute of human characteronly seemed to increase theirdelight in excess. When meat-eatingwas allowed, the wealthy piled theirtables high with "rumps" in additionto "knees." Pickled or saltedbeef, ham, sucklingpig, elk, boar, lamb, and rabbitall appeared on thetable. Swan was consideredthe most luxurious of birds,though the nobility 41 Ibidem p. 12. All of the followingquotes fromNeuville are fromthis passage. 42 The Danish envoy JustJuel found a fast-daymeal offish farless palatable: "I have never eaten such a bad meal in my life. Since it was a fast day, there was nothing on the table but sturgeon (osetrina), sterletand other types of fish unknown in Denmark, stinkingof blubber (vorvan '). In addition, all of the dishes were seasoned with pepper and onion." Sturgeon and sterletare both very oily fish, hence Juel's aversion. Zapiski Iusta Iulia, datskago poslannika pri russkom dvore ( 1709- 171 1), in: Russkii arkhiv(1892) no. 3, p. 282. 43 Kotoshikhin O Rossii v tsarstvovanieAlekseja Mikhajlovichap. 92. Kotoshikhin s contempora- neous description refutesPrince M. M. Shcherbatov's later insistencethat before Peter the Great's reforms,the Russian tsarsate verysimply. See Shcherbatov's descriptionoffish in: Idem O povrezhdenii nravov v Rossii p. 121. GastronomieReforms under Peter the Great 489 also feastedon peacock, crane,heron, black grouse, hazel hen, partridge,lark, goose, duck, and chicken.Veal was rarelyconsumed, and capons, in contrastto theirpopularity in Poland, were virtuallyunknown.44 During the Christmasseason in Moscow food was particularly abundant: "[A]llthe markets and public thoroughfares are to be seenplenished to overflowingwith flesh meats.Here you have an incrediblemultitude of geese; in anotherplace such storeof pigs, readykilled, that you would think it enough to lastthe whole year; the number of oxen killed is inproportion; fowl of every kind looked as ifthey had flown together from all Muscovy,and everypart thereof, into this one city.It wouldbe uselessto attemptnaming all thevarieties; everythingthat one couldwish for was to be had."45 Because Christmasfeasting followed on theheels of theforty-day Filippov fast,such bounty appeared all the more plentiful. Hot and cold soups, noodle dishes, roasts,and sauces were seasoned with onion, garlic, pepper,saffron, and sometimessavory.46 Foreign visitors complained that so much garlic and onion made theirhosts' breathsmell bad, but thanksto theirrich stores of vitaminsthese pungent vegetables helped to keep the populace healthy. The Danish envoy Just Juel implicitlyacknowledged garlic's nutritionalvalue even as he complained about its use. Naming thethree "doctors" Russians turnedto regardlessof theirhealth - the Russian bath (bania), vodka, and garlic - he elaborated on the latter:"the third[doctor] is garlic, which theRussians not only use as a seasoningon all of theirfoods, theyalso eat it raw duringthe day. As a resultthey smell bad, and the foreignervisiting Russia forthe firsttime who is unaccustomed to the smell is definitelynot in any shape to spend time in their rooms, especially where there's a crowd."47 Anotheredible misunderstoodby outsidersbut prized by Russians was the mushroom.48 Weber was as criticalof thisfood choice as he had been of salt fish,going so faras to deem mushroomsharmful: "In Autumnthey gather [mushrooms] in greatQuantities, and withoutpicking them, pickle themin Barrels,and carry them to Marketwith the Pickle, and so thecommon People eat them withoutfurther Ceremony. This is a Diet veryhard to be digested;but as thesevere Fasts in Russiaallow few of the wholesomest Provisions, the Natives are obliged to takeup withsuch Food, and to aid Digestionwith Brandy, their usual stomachickEssence. The Czarina- Dowager,Relict of the late Czar Alexius,dying in theYear 1715,during Lent, her Body was opened,and it was found,that her Indisposition was chieflyoccasioned by eating too muchof thosepickled Mushrooms, out of Devotionof strictlyobserving her Fast."49 Especially appealing to Russian taste was the combinationof sweet and sour so typical of medieval foods throughoutEurope. Rich, dark swan meat was oftenserved withvinegar or 44 Ibidemp. 120.All Englishtranslations ofShcherbatov's work are taken from this edition. Regarding theRussians' dislike for veal, Olearius wrote that the False Dimitri(1605-06) was recognizedas an imposterbecause he "himselfordered the cook to prepare veal and otherdishes that the Russians, who considerthem loathsome, do noteat." (The Travelsof Olearius p. 186). AndNeuville stated that "[the Russians]eat no veal becauseof a scruplewhich is too infamousto name...,"in: Neuville A Curious andNew Accountof Muscovy p. 57. 1have been unable to determine just what that "infamous scruple" is. 45 Korb of an Austrian of vol. 1, 217. 46 Diary Secretary Legation, p. Knigivo ves' god v stolestvy podavat' p. III. 47Zaoiski Iusta Iulia d. 297. 48 On thecultural differences between Russians and theEnglish in termsof theirattitudes toward mushroomssee Valentina andGordon Wasson Mushrooms,Russia, and History. New York 1957. Weber The PresentState of Russia,vol. 1, p. 333. It shouldbe notedthat Natalia Kinllovna Naryshkina,Peter the Great's mother, was sixty-threewhen she died,a ripeenough age forher era. 490 Darra Goldstein a combinationof sour milk,pickles, and prunes.50The sweet and sour themewas played out in the dessertcourse as well, with"dates, gingerjam, Persian fruits,salted cucumbers,raw green peas in the pod and raw carrots"all served together.51 One of the earliestRussian garnishesfor meat, onion vzvar,rivals the confitsoffered at today's trendiestrestaurants.52 Onions and pepperwere deemed particularlycompatible with caviar, as in the Muscovite dish kal'ia, forwhich pressed caviar was cut into thinrounds. Chopped onion, pepper,pickles, pickle brine,and waterwere added, thenthe mixturewas steamed in an earthenwarepot in the greatRussian stove, withadditional pepper added on serving.Commenting on a seventeenth-centuryembassy to Tsar Mikhail Fedorovich's court, the German scholar Adam Olearius described eating freshcaviar, too, with pepper and onions. He notedthat vinegar and butterwere sometimesused to dress caviar in place of the pepper and onions, but he preferredlemon juice, deeming it a betterappetite stimulant. Olearius also mentioneda dish preparedespecially forhangovers, called, like the hangover itself,pokhmeVe. Cold roast lamb was cut into small pieces, "like cubes, but thinnerand broader,"then mixed withpepper and cucumberssimilarly sliced. Over this,"equal partsof vinegar and cucumberjuice" were poured. "The [Russians] eat this with a spoon," wrote Olearius,"and afterwardsa drinktastes good again."53PokhmeVe is evidence of the Russian - - urge to excess, as it was devised primarilyto enable even encourage furtherdrinking. This hangover remedy likely evolved into the popular soup rassol'nik, now made with kidneysand pickle brine. Hangovers were already a significantproblem in the seventeenthcentury. Contrary to popularperception, vodka - knownsimply as vino54or wine untilthe mid-nineteenth century - was not theRussians' drinkof choice foreither imbibing or inebriation.They farpreferred mead, which theybrewed fromhoney.55 Travelers wrote of "great pools" and "lakes" of honey;56Russia's forestscontained so many swarms of wild bees thatpassage could be dangerous.Such immensewild hives gave rise to legend.One oft-repeatedstory, invoked as factrather than tall tale,told of a man who accidentallyfell into a honey-filledhive and was unable to extricatehimself from the stickysubstance. He remainedthere for two days until, to his good fortune,a bear appeared. When the bear began to climb into the hive to feaston the sweet honey,the man grabbedhis tail and shouted,at whichthe startled bear bolted from the hive, pulling the man out along withhim.57 50 Sigismundvon HerbersteinNotes upon Russia: Being a Translationof theEarliest Account of thatCountry, entitled Rerum Moscoviticarum Commentarii. Trans, and ed. by R. H. Major.Vol. 1-2. New York,n.d. Vol. 2, 130. 51 p. ZapiskiIusta Iulia p. 277. 52 To makevzvar, slices of onion are moistened with vinegar and sweetenedwith honey, then sprin- kledliberally with pepper. The onionsare cooked slowly until caramelized. The informationabout caviar and pommel e is tromIne 1ravels ot Uleanusp. lob. 54 Technically,vodka is khlebnoevino, or "winemade from grain," whereas regular wine is vino- gradnoe,"made from grapes," and oftenreferred to asfrantsuzskoe,"French." 55 The Russianwords for "honey" and "mead"are identical:mëd. 56 Herberstein Notesupon Russia, vol. 2, p. 204. 57 This story,attributed to a certainDemetrius, ambassador of theDuke of Muscovy,was first reportedby Herberstein (Notes upon Russia, vol. 2, p. 204). Itwas repeatedby Tereshchenko in: Byt russkagonaroda pp. 202-203, and by thehistorian I. G. Pryzhov Istoriiakabakov v Rossii v sviazi s istorieirusskago naroda [1868] ReprintMoskva 1991,p. 14. Bearscaused considerable fear in the earlyRussians. By callingthe bear medved' or "honey-eater,"they avoided naming him directly (as Jahwehrefers indirectly to God). Thisancient fear eventually led theRussians to appropriatethe bear as a culturalsymbol. By domesticatingthe bear in storieslike Demetrius', they could identify with his desires- particularlyhis irrepressible urge to take whatever he wants- and thusneutralize their terror. GastronomieReforms under Peter the Great 49 1

This story, however apocryphal, does reveal the abundance of wild honey,58which yielded, freeof charge, the primaryingredient for mead. The Russians learned to prepare mead with considerable artistry,flavoring it with the juice of raspberries,blackberries, cherries,black currants,or gooseberries.Sir JeromeBowes, on a sixteenth-centurymission to Moscow, tastedseveral extraordinaryvarieties of mead, includingraspberry, cherry, sweet mead, whitemead, and a mead made fromscalded honey (obarnyi).59Even greatervariety was found in the cellars of Tsar Aleksei Mikhailovich, including meads imbued with raspberries,black currants,wild strawberries,rock bramble (Rubus saxatilis), bird-cherries, apples, cherries,pears and plums.60 Early Russians understood the conditions necessary for properlyaging their favorite beverages, as described in thisold Russian bylina or song-poem: "KaK BOflOHKHcjiaaKHe, Mew cTOHJiwe noBeineHbi b norpeôa rjryôoKoeb ôoHicaxcopoKOBicax, Eohkh BHCflTHa uenax Ha xejie3Hbix, Tyaa noBeuieHbiBerpu öybiHbie; rioBeiOTBerpbi 6yfttu>ie b hhctomnone, rioìtayr KaKBO3^yxH no norpe6aM,- H 3aroroH)T 6ohkh, KaKne6ejw, KaK jieöe^H Ha thxhx Ha 3aBo;wx: TaK OTToro He 3aTXHyrcflboäohkh cjia^KHe, Bo^ohkh cjiaaKHfl,h Mew CTOiiJibie; - KaK napy nbeiiib apyroñ xonercH, flpyroHnbeuib - no TpeTbenayiua ropHT."61

Sweetdear vodkas, aged meads Arehung in deep cellarsin forty-bucketbarrels,1621 The barrelshang on ironchains, The wildwinds are hung there, too; The wildwinds will blow in theopen field, Airwill flowthrough the cellars, - Andthe barrels will cacklelike swans, Like swansin quietbackwaters; Thusthe sweet dear vodkas will not grow musty, The sweetdear vodkas, and aged meads; You drinka cup - youwant another, You drinkanother - yoursoul burnsfor a third. In themonasteries, monks perfected the art of brewingkvas, a kind of small beer which, like mead, was prepared in many flavors.Most oftenrye and malt were leftto fermentinto a slightly alcoholic drink,but fruitsand vegetables could also serve as the basis for kvas (cranberrieswere especially favored). Dried herbs such as mint,sage, and St. John's wort providedadditional tang. Beer and ale were also known,though the Russians never devoted as much care to theirpreparation. This may partlybe due to superstition:Tsar Mikhail Fedorovich(1613-45) forbadethe importation of hops fromLithuania, fearing that witches 58 Writingof trade during the time of Peterthe Great, Korb noted: "Such a profusionof honey,that thougha greatquantity be consumedby the natives in drink,a considerableamount is exportedevery yearinto the neighbouring countries." (Korb Diaryof an AustrianSecretary of Legation,vol. 2, p. 170). Hakluyt The PrincipalNavigations pp. 493-494, citedin: Smith,Christian Breadand Salt p. 102. KotoshikhinO Rossiiv tsarstvovanieAlekseja Mikhajlovicha p. 89. Fromthe bylina "O DiukeStepanoviche," in: Pesni sobrannye P. M. Rybnikovym.Tom 1: Byliny. Petrozavodsk1989, pp. 159-169.The slightlydifferent version cited here is fromIstoriia kabakov v Rossii 10. 62 p. A bucketor vedròwas equal to almostthree gallons. 492 Darra Goldstein andwizards had infected them with disease in an attemptto visitdevastation upon Russia.63 This"disease" was likelyintoxication, since beer brewed from hops was generallyhigher in alcoholthan the native Russian mead and kvas. Nevertheless, when Olearius arrived at the Russiancourt in 1634,he foundthe range of beverages surprisingly extensive. His embassy was presentedwith twenty-two different kinds of drinks,including wine, beer, mead, and vodka,"each one moredelicious than the next." The drinkswere presented grandly, with thirty-twomen bearing the barrels aloft in single-fileprocession.64 Protocol demanded that a differentbeverage and a differentdrinking vessel be used foreach toast,resulting in a granddisplay;65 drinking vessels came in so manyshapes and sizes thateven a glass slipper was sometimesused - arguablya morepractical use thanthe mere decoration of a princess's foot.Russians then (and now) did not subscribe to Westernwisdom regarding the danger of mixingdifferent kinds of spirits. Vodkahad been introduced in the late fourteenth century, and ever since then the Russians had showna distressingproclivity for the strong spirits - so muchso, thatvodka eventually surpassedmead in popularity.Both the Church Council of 1551 and theDomostroi (the sixteenth-centurymanual for Russian households) railed against the korchmy, the earliest publicdrinking establishments, where drunkenness prevailed.66 The firsttaverns or kabaki hadbeen set up by Ivan theTerrible for the sole benefitof his eliteguards, the oprichnina; incontrast, the common people were permitted to drinkonly on themajor holidays,67 and any infractioncould lead to arrestand imprisonment.For thenext century the royal attitude towardvodka vacillatedbetween strict and lax, withIvan's son Tsar Fedor Ivanovich orderingall kabakidestroyed, and his successor Boris Godunov reinstating them. By theend ofthe seventeenth century, a system oîotkup was inplace, which allowed private individuals (usuallythe clergy or boyars) to runthe taverns and profit from them, as longas theygave a percentageof their income to thegovernment. This system led to rampantcorruption and highpublic discontent, periodically expressed in "tavern revolts" (kabatskie bunty). Such was thesituation when Peter the Great ascended the throne. In additionto flavoringtheir traditional alcoholic beverages with fruit, the Russians enjoyedfruits fresh in season. Cherries,pears, plums, and apples were all cultivatedin Russia.One exquisitesort of apple had translucent flesh. Held up to thesun, the seeds could be seen rightthrough the skin.68Raspberries, strawberries, currants, cranberries, lingon 63 N. I. Kovalev Éntsiklopediiagurmana: O produktakhi bliudakh,posude i utvari,ikh nazvaniiakh i istorii.S.-Peterburg 1996, p. 285. 04 The Travels of Olearius p. 58. 65 Zapiski Iusta Iulia pp. 283-284. Pryzhov Istoriia kabakov v Rossii p. 38. 67 Herbersteinmaintained that on holidays the common people "abstain fromlabor, not fordivine worship,but ratherfor the sake of the drink."(Herberstein Notes upon Russia, vol. 1, p. 80.) 68 The Travels of Olearius p. 121. Olearius continued,"However, although they are of excellent appearance and taste,they cannot be stored long, unlike German apples, because of theirextremely highwater content." Korb also mentionedthe apple in his account, as follows: "Muscovy produces in profusionmost beautifultransparent apples, which many of the warmestcountries might envy, and which they call Nolivas" (Korb Diary of an AustrianSecretary of Legation, vol. 2, p. 222). Weber wrotethat ". . .a sortof Apples, in theirLanguage Natevi, many of which weigh ten Oounces [sic], are transparentthat the Kernel shinesthrough, and have a Taste like Pippins." (Idem The PresentState of Russia, vol. 1, p. 333). Finally,Elizabeth Justice noted the transparentapple in her laterdescription of Russia: ". . .theyhave an Apple, which is called a TransparentApple; and when it is ripe, is so clear, that you may see the Kernels throughit: The Taste is superiorto any Apple I ever met with in Eng- land." (Elizabeth Justice A Voyage to Russia. York 1739, p. 35). This apple that so astounded foreign visitors across the centuries is probably the "Yellow Transparent"that still grows wild in Kazakhstan. USDA horticulturalistPhilip Forsline sampled this apple on a seed-collecting trip to Kazakhstan in 1995 and notedthat "Flesh flavoris aromatic.Bruises easily. Fruitsize is largerthan 50 GastronomicReforms under Peter the Great 493

berries,and cloudberriesgrew in abundance. Extremelysweet watermelonswere grown in southernRussia near Astrakhanat the mouthof the Volga, with flesh"a yellowish White, like the Colour of a Pine-Apple" or "of a beautifulRose Colour." These melons, "full of Juice, [had] a very exquisite Taste, [which] cool[ed] as well as quenche[d] Drought; and neversurfeit[ed]."69 Numerous travelersreported on the existence of a fabulous melon that grew in the shape of a lamb and consumed the grass beneath it,turning itself as needed to find more pasture. When ripe, the melon reputedlyhad a "furryskin like thatof a lamb," which could be dressed and used as fur,the finishedhide similarto the crinklycoat of the Astrakhanlamb. The mythicalproperties ascribed to thismelon were so greatthat it was said even to trapwolves, the only animal thatwould eat its flesh.70 Muscovy seemed so exotic to earlyvisitors that tales of strangecreatures frequently arose. Even thereliable Sigismund von Herbersteincould not resistdescribing a humanoidfish said to live "in theriver Tachnin," thoughhe stronglydisclaimed the likelihood of its existence. "Reluctant to omit anything,"he told of "a certainfish, with a head, eyes, nose, mouth, hands,feet, and in otherrespects almost entirely resembling a man,but withoutvoice, which, like other fish,affords excellent food."71Fish of all varietieswere certainlyabundant, and many of them did indeed look strange,such as the huge beluga sturgeon which often exceeded nine feetin length,72and which was killed only forits roe. The English physician Samuel Collins found this lack of frugalityregrettable, as his Puritanpeers would have: "[...]'tis pitty,seeing this Fish is one of the greatestDainties thatcomes out of the watry Element,especially his belly, which surpasses the marrowof Oxen."73 Tales of a differentsort were toldby theRussian folkthemselves, whose storiesfrequently revolvedaround the most immediatesymbol of theirdomestic life: the stove. Whetherfood was prepared for a royal feast or a simple peasant meal, it was invariablycooked in this masonrybehemoth, massive enough to occupy one fourthof a peasant cottage. Not just in fairytales, but in daily life,too, this stove was the locus of magical transformation.For it could do everything- bake, roast, fry,steam, and braise - and its gradually falling temperaturesmade it extremelyadaptable to the preparationof differentfoods. In fact,the Russian stove's special characteristicsdetermined the nature of the indigenouscuisine. When newly fired and extremelyhot, thepod or hearthwas perfectfor baking pies and breads. Afterthe temperature began to fall, soups, stews, and graindishes could bake slowly in the diminishingheat of the oven, which imparteda special flavor.Large pieces of meat were eitherroasted at high heat or slowly braised. Even blini, which today we associate with ' stovetopcooking, were baked (the Russians still say pech [bake] bliny).All sortsof dairy products,both culturedand fresh,were preparedusing any residual oven heat. But despite its wonderfulcooking properties,the Russian stove should not be overly romanticized.

mm.Very blemish free, almost ,Yellow Transparent' color." See theUSDA web sitehttp://www.ars- grin.gov/gen/apple.html,queryon PI 588859.The YellowTransparent was introducedinto the United Statesfrom Russia in 1870 byUSDA plantexplorers and subsequentlybecame very popular in home gardensin theSouth, although as Oleariushad notedseveral centuries earlier, it was too fragileto becomecommercially viable. See Slow,April- June 1999, p. 127. CaptainJohn Perry The Stateof RussiaUnder the Present Czar. London1716, reprint London 1967,pp. 94-95. The Travelsof Oleariusp. 122; Collinsalso mentionedthis strange plant but considered tales of its existenceto be "fables,which have not the least shadow of truth."(Collins The presentstate of Russiap. 85). Herberstein Notes Russia,vol. 2, 41-42. 72 Upon pp. As recentlyas 1998Caspian fishermen caught a thirty-year-oldbeluga weighing 1000 poundsand measuringthree and one-halfyards in length.It contained1 10 poundsof caviar.AFP on-linenews service,November 16, 1998. 73 Collins The presentstate of Russiap. 134. 494 Darra Goldstein

Prosperousfamilies could afford a stovepipe to carrythe pernicious carbon fumes out of theircottages, while the wealthiest households often had separateoutdoor kitchens in order to keep fireand fumesat bay. In mostdwellings, however (the so-called chernye izby or "blackcottages"), smoke from the stove simply hung in theair. Thus the stove undoubtedly shortenedthe commonfolk's lives even as it providedsustenance. Nevertheless, they generallyadored the matushka-pech ', the life-giving mother stove.74

Food and Drinkunder Peter the Great

PeterI ascended the thronein 1689, and as is well known,his reformsaffected virtually everyaspect of Russian life.Men and women were instructedto dress in European fashions, the women in décolletage. Men had to shave theirbeards. Upper-class women were freed fromthe secluded teremand allowed into male company. As the sexes mixed freely,the etiquette of upper-class dining changed dramatically,at least on the surface. Peter's institutionof theassembly (assembleia), a social gatheringsimilar to a ball, forcedmen and women to mingle and even eat at the same table.75To ensure proper etiquette,Peter had posted strictlydefined rules of conduct;76if the rules were breached,the social penaltycould be quite severe.77 74 The greatoven had furtheruses. Much as theFinns traditionally used thesauna, the Russian peasantssometimes bathed and even gave birth in the pech '. Weberdescribed a sortof humanroasting in it:"There is a fourthsort of Bathingwhich is theirmost powerful Remedy in thegreatest Distem- pers:They cause an Ovento be heatedas usual,and when the Heat is somewhatabated (yet still so hot thatI was notable to holdmy Hand on theBottom above a quarterof a Minute)five or six Russians, moreor less,creep into it, and havingstretched themselves out at theirfull length, their Companion who waitswithout, shuts the Hole so fast,that they can hardlybreath [sic] within:When they can endureit no longerthey call, upon which he thatis uponthe Watch lets the Sick comeout again, who afterhaving breathed some fresh Air, creep into the Oven again, and repeatthis Operation till they are almostroasted, and coming out, their Bodies being ruddy like a Piece of redCloth, throw themselves, inthe Summertime into the Water, or in Winter in which they love best, into the Snow, with which they arecovered all over,leaving only the Nose andEyes open, and so theylie buriedfor two or three Hours accordingto thestate of theDistemper; this they count an excellentmethod for the recovery of their Health."(Weber The PresentState of Russia,vol. 1,pp. 32-33). 75 Concerningthe change in women's status under Peter the Great, Captain John Perry wrote: "It had beenalways the Custom oí Russia,at all Entertainments,forthe Women not to be admittedinto the Sightor Conversation with men; the very Houses of all Men ofany Quality or Fashion, were built with an Entrancefor the Women a-part, and they used to be keptup separatein an Apartmentby themselves; onlyit was sometimesthe Custom for the Master of the House, upon the Arrival of anyGuest whom he hada Mindto Honour,to bringout his Wifethe Back wayfrom her Apartment, attended with the Companyof her Maids, to be saluted,and to presenta Dramof Brandyround to thewhole Company; whichbeing done, they used to retireback to theirown Apartment, and wereto be seenno more.But theCzar beingnot only willing to introducethe English Habits, but to makethem more particularly pleasingto theRuss ladies,made an Order,that from thenceforward, at all Weddings,and at other publicEntertainments, theWomen as well as theMen, should be invited,but in an Englishfashioned Dress; and thatthey should be entertainedin thesame Room withthe Men, like as he had seen in foreignCountries; and thatthe Evenings should be concludedwith Music and Dancing,at whichhe himselfoften used to be presentwith most of the Nobility and Ladies aboutCourt." (Perry The State of Russiapp. 198-199. 76 See Peter'sLaw on Assembliesin: Polnoe sobranie zakonov rossiiskoi imperii. Vol. 5. St. Peters- burg1830. No. 3241,p. 597-598. Citedin: LindseyHughes Russiain theAge of Peterthe Great p. 267. PrinceMikhail Shcherbatov commented on thislaw in: IdemO povrezhdeniinravov v Rossiip. 142. 77 Well-versedin theways of SaintPetersburg society, Russia's greatpoet AleksandrPushkin describedan assemblyin historical detail in his unfinished novel, "The Blackamoor of Peter the Great." (A. S. Pushkin"Arap Petra velikogo" [1828], in: Idem Sochineniia.Tom 3. Moskva 1971,p. 206.) On a visitto Russiafrom Paris, the nobleman and dandy Korsakov is invitedto an assembly,where he sees a beautifulyoung girl. He immediatelyasks herto dancethe minuet, thereby transgressing the GastronomieReforms under Peter the Great 495

Because many people were unsureof how to conduct themselveswhen diningpublicly, the need arose to educate them in proper decorum. Thus, in 1717, Peter commissioned a handbook,The Honorable Mirrorfor Youth, aimed at young men enteringinto society. The book actuallyrepresented a partialtranslation of Erasmus's De civilitatemorum puerilium.78 Nearly two hundredyears had passed since its publication in 1530; the Russians had not previouslyfelt the need forthis sortof secular etiquettemanual.79 Following Erasmus, The Honorable Mirror for Youth contained the following recommendationsfor good table manners: "Situp straightand don't grab food until offered, don't eat like a pig,and don't blow intosoup so thatit sprayseverywhere, don't wheeze while you eat, don't be the firstto drink,be moderate,avoid drunkenness,drink and eat onlyas muchas youneed, don't take food until it'sbeen offered several times, then take a portionand givethe rest to someoneelse and thank him.Don't leaveyour hands resting a longtime on theplate, don't shake your legs all around, whenyou drinkdon't wipe yourlips with your hand but with a towel,and don'tdrink until you'veswallowed your food, don't lick your fingers and don'tgnaw bones, but cut them with a knife,don't clean your teeth with a knifebut with a toothpick,and cover your mouth with one handwhile you clean them, don't cut bread while holding it against your chest,1801 eat whatis in frontof you and don't grab elsewhere, and if you want to put something in frontof someone else,don't take it with your fingers like some people are now accustomed to do. Don't smack yourlips over food,like pigs,and don't scratchyour head, don't speak withfood in your mouth,because that's what peasants do. It's notproper to sneezefrequently, blow yournose, andcough. When you eat an eggcut some bread first and be carefulthat [the egg] doesn'tdrip and eat it quickly.Don't crackthe egg shell,and whileyou're eating the egg, don't drink, meanwhiledon't soil the tablecloth, and don'tlick your fingers, don't make a fenceof bones, breadcrusts, etc. around your plate. When you've finished eating thank God, washyour hands and face,and rinseyour mouth."81 By refininghis people's table manners,Peter hoped also to civilize themby controllingtheir behavior.Consequently he introducedother commensal reforms.Until Peter's reign,tables had been covered withshort cloths, the edges of which were used to wipe hands and mouth while eating.82Peter introduced napkins from Holland. Before Peter's time, even at ceremonialdinners, plates had been given to individualguests only as a mark of the highest honor. At othermeals, includingrelatively formal ones, each dinerhad his own spoon for eatingout of a communalwooden or clay bowl. Under Peter,the communal bowl gave way to individualbowls, and at themost refined tables, to individualplates. As forcutlery, forks and knives previouslyhad been shared among several people, because largejoints of meat establishedrules. As punishment,Korsakov is forcedto drink a hugegoblet of sweet,heavy malmsey, to theamusement of all. WhilePeter the Great's famous eagle-shaped goblet was surelynot as enor- mousas Ivanthe Terrible's ceremonial kubok (which weighed almost forty-four pounds and was nearly sevenfeet high), Korsakov is neverthelessno matchfor it. After downing the wine, he stumblesand nearlyfalls as he triesto leavethe dance floor. His humiliationis madeall themore bitter by Peterthe Great'sobvious delight. The descriptionof Ivanthe Terrible's kubok is citedin: Kostomarov Do- mashniaiazhizn' i naroda 82. 78 nravyvelikorusskogo p. For detailsregarding The HonorableMirror for Youth and its publicationhistory see Max J. Okenfuss The Discoveryof Childhoodin Russia:The Evidenceof theSlavic Primer.Newtonville, MA 1980,pp. 45-48. 79 In contrast,the French had been publishingetiquette manuals for a century.See Dominique Michel Vatelet la naissancede la gastronomicParis 1999,pp. 222-233. AntoineCourtin's 1622 Nouveautraité de la civilitéappeared in Englishin 1685 as Rulesof Civility,intended to teachgood tablemanners to "personsof quality." Thisis theway peasants typically cut bread. Urbane Italians also consideredcutting bread against thechest a markof peasant behavior. See Odile Redon,Françoise S abb an, Silvano Serventi The MedievalKitchen: Recipes from France and Italy.Chicago, London 1998, p. 9. Iunostichestnoe zertsalo. Saint Petersburg 1717, reprint Moskva 1976,pp. 40-43. TereshchenkoByt russkago naroda p. 260. Also in Kliuchevskii Istoriiarusskogo byta p. 23. 496 Darra Goldstein were carved and served in small pieces at table. But Peterencouraged the use of individual two-prongedforks, although forks were not yet consideredde rigueur™(Not incidentally, even in France at thebeginning of the eighteenthcentury the forkwas not universallyused. King Louis XIV famouslypreferred his fingersto a fork,and in thisregard Peter, who kept his own personal spoon tucked in a pocket, appears as the more refined.)84Finally, the - elaboratedrinking vessels thatthe Russians had used forcenturies chasha, charka, kubok, - stopa were graduallyreplaced by theshot glass (riumkafrom the German Römer) and the goblet (bokal fromthe French bocal).*5 The old kubok disappeared entirely,except for ceremonialoccasions, as did drinkinghorns made of gilded or silver-platedbuffalo and oxen horns.Gone were the silverurns for mead, which sometimesrequired three hundred men to fillthem.86 Peterthe Great wanted to bringhis courtup to the polished standardsof westernEurope thathe had observedon his travels,but at the same timehe showed littleregard for his own boorish behavior. On his firsttrip abroad in 1697 he was invitedto dine with Sophia, the widowed Electress of Hanover, and her daughterSophia Charlotte,wife of the Elector of Brandenburg.As Sophia Charlottelater wrote, "It's clear thathe had neverbeen taughtto eat properly,but I likedhis naturalmanner and his ease."87Her motherelaborated: "He has great vivacity of mind, and a ready and just repartee.But, with all the advantages with which naturehas endowed him, it could be wished thathis mannerswere a littleless rustic.We immediatelysat down to table. HerrKoppenstein, who did theduty of marshal,presented the napkinto his Majesty,who was greatlyembarrassed, for at Brandenburg,instead of a table- 83 Ibidem p. 23. FriedrichWilhelm von Bergholz, who served Count Karl Friedrichof Holstein in Petersburgand Moscow formany years, noted the presence of gilded silver forksat a dinnergiven by Fedor Matveevich Apraksinin 1721. As Gentlemanof the Bedchamber,Bergholz kepta diarybetween 1721 and 1725 thatdescribed Peter's court. See Friedrich Wilhelm von Berkhgol'ts Dnevnik Kamer-iunkeraF. V. Berkhgol'tsa 1721-1725. Moskva v un. tip. 1902, p. 56. 84 See Michel Vatel et la naissance de la gastronomiep. 230. Forks were introducedfrom Italy into northernEurope in the late sixteenthcentury at a timewhen trenchersof bread were being replaced by pewter,silver, or glazed ceramic plates. The absence of a bread crustas an eating utensil encouraged the use of knifeand forkby individualdiners. In France the two-tinedfork was firstmentioned in print in 1570. See Barbara Ketcham Wheaton Savoring the Past: The French Kitchen and Table from 1300 to 1789. Philadelphia 1983, pp. 54-55. The forkwas introducedinto England by Thomas Coryate in 1601. Usually made of precious metals and encrustedwith gems, the charka had a spherical bowl and a flat,horizontal handle. The metalwas oftenworked in niello, filigree,or hammering,and some charki had a round foot or saucer. The charka held 1/10 of a shtof,or a littlemore than 4 ounces. It was replaced by glass or crystalstopki and riumki.Like the charka, the chara was also intendedfor alcoholic drinks, especially foreignwines, and was much favored by the wealthy. Chary could be of differentsizes. Low and round,with a flathandle, they lacked the saucer or footthat distinguished the charki. A low centerof gravitymade both the charka and the chara very stable, and it was nearly impossibleto tip themover accidentally.The kubok,imported from Europe and Asia, was one of the most ancientdrinking vessels. It always appeared at religiouscelebrations and feastsand thereforehad ritualconnotation. Highly decorated, with a tall stem,the kubokoften had a lid. It gradually fell out of utilitarianuse to acquire purelysymbolic meaning as a giftor decoration. See N. I. Kovalev Bliuda russkogo stola: Istoriia i nazvaniia. S.-Peterburg1995, pp. 252-258. 86 Reported by le capitaine Margaret Estât de l'empire de Russie et Grande Duche de Moscovie p. 20, cited in: Tereshchenko Byt russkago naroda p. 249. 87 Reportedin A. G. Brikner IstoriiaPetra Velikogo. Tip. A. S. Suvorina,S.-Peterburg 1882, reprint Moskva 1991, p. 169. Brikner's informationis fromJean Pierre Erman Mémoires pour servir à l'histoire de Sophie Charlotte.Berlin 1801. GastronomieReforms under Peter the Great 497 napkin,they had given him a ewer and basin afterthe meal."88The implicationis thatPeter ate withhis hands. A darkerside of Peter's table behavioris revealed in the practical,at times sadistic,jokes he liked to play. On seeing the Norwegian naval expert Cornelius Cruys' crew cleaning tortoises they had caught in the Don and learning that they were intended "to make a fricasseefor dinner," Peter immediately ordered a similardish preparedfor his own table and invitedsome of his noblemento join him. The Russians consideredtortoises unclean and had no idea thatthey were eating it. Thinkingthe tastydish was made fromchicken, they ate it withgusto. When finished,Peter ordered a servant"to bringin the feathersof theseexcellent chickens, which, to the general astonishmentand consternation,turned out to be tortoise- shells." Most of the noblemen laughed at the joke, except for Aleksei Shein and Fedor Saltykov, who became sick at having eaten food thatwent against theirreligious beliefs.89 Worse yetwas Peter's treatmentof Ivan MikhailovichGolovin, a memberof theTsar's inner circle.In his diarythe Austrian emissary Johann-Georg Korb reportedthat "from his cradle, [Golovin had] a naturalhorror of salad and vinegar,so theCzar directingColonel Chambers to hold him tight,forced salad and vinegar into his mouth and nostrils,until the blood flowing from his nose succeeded his violent coughing."90On another occasion, at the weddingof PrinceIurii Trubetskoi, Peter noticed the weakness of the bride's fatherfor jelly (probably aspic), and "orderedhim to open his mouth, and he himselfstood up fromhis seat, took a glassof jelly and freeingit with a knife,poured it into his throat all at once,which he repeatedseveral times and even opened Ivan Mikhailovich'smouth with his own handswhen he didn'topen it wide enough."91 Peterwasn't theonly one to engage in such antics.His chiefof police, Fedor Romadonovskii, took pleasure in forcinghis guests to drinka cup of strongspirits doctored with pepper that was preferredby a huge bear, who pulled offtheir hats and wigs and grabbedat theirclothes if they failed to drinkthe concoction.92With such goings-on it is not surprisingthat Peter should eschew decorum in other areas. And in fact, he not only encouraged excessive 88 Eugene Schuyler Peterthe Great, Emperor of Russia: A Studyof Historical Biography. Vol. 1-2. New York 1884,reprint New York 1967.Vol. 1,p. 285. The historianVasilii Kliuchevskii stated that Peterprobably ate with his hands, not with cutlery. At a weddingPeter "would move toward the buffet, takea hotroast of meatin his hands,and starteating. It was thishabit of dispensing with knives and forksat tablethat had so shockedthe princesses at Koppenburg.He had no mannerswhatsoever and did notconsider them necessary." Kliuchevskii Kursrusskoi istorii, eh. 4, in: Sochineniia.Tom 4. Moskva1958, p. 35. However,since as notedabove even the French royalty did notalways use forks, thisgaffe should perhaps not have surprisedPeter's hostesses so greatly. 89 Fromthe ofCornelius as in Schuyler Peterthe vol. 357-358. 90 journal Cruys, reported Great, 1,pp. Korb Diaryof an AustrianSecretary of Legation,vol. 1,pp. 190-191.This storyis repeatedin: Schuyler Peterthe Great, vol. 1,pp. 357-358. Thoughhe mayhave disregarded his own behavior, Peterwas sensitiveto etiquettein others.He hadproblems with both his son the Tsarevich Aleksei and withhis thirdwife, Catherine, whom he reportedlysent home from abroad so thather poor manners wouldn'tembarrass him. See ibidem,vol. 2, pp. 260-261, 307. 91 Berkhgol'ts Dnevnikp. 158.Bergholz's diary includes numerous examples of forceddrinking, andhe notedthe pleasure Peter took in forcingothers to drink (especially samoe prostoe khlebnoe vino or 'rotgut'),as well as thenovel ways Peter came up withto makesure his subjectscouldn't escape, such as breakingoff the stems of gobletsto keep themfrom being set down untilempty (ibidem p. 179).For more on Peter'santics see Hughes Russiain the Age ofPeter the Great pp. 264-270. Kliu- chevskiirepeated Bergholz's story about Trubetskoi almost verbatim in: IdemKurs russkoi istorii, eh. 4, p. 38. 92 Weber The PresentState of Russia,vol. 1,p. 137. Bergholznoted the forced drinking that took placeat Apraksin's dinners, commenting that "In a word,nowhere else in Petersburgdid we drinkas muchas we did here."(Berkhgol'ts Dnevnikp. 57). 498 Darra Goldstein drinkingat court,he virtuallyenforced it.93 At theassemblies and othergatherings Peter often plied his guests withdrink in orderto findout what was reallygoing on, even going so far as to place guardsat thedoors so thatno one could escape. A cultof Bacchus prevailed,with drinkingbinges thatlasted fordays at a time duringState and religious holidays. Even the most highly-placedgovernment officials took part in these bouts, consideringservice to Bacchus a valorous way to gain theTsar's favor.Knowing hosts simplyspread the floorsof theirhouses witha thicklayer of hay to make it easier to clean up the vomit and urine that inevitablyresulted from such carousals. The bawdy ceremonies and debauches of Peter's Drunken Assembly have been well documented,94but certaindetails continue to astound. On September 10, 1721, forinstance, a grand masquerade was held in honor of the wedding of Petr Ivanovich Buturlin,the "prince-pope"of theDrunken Assembly. A bed strewnwith hops was installedin a nuptial chamberinside a large wooden pyramidthat had been specially constructedin frontof the Senate. The room was lit withcandles and furnishedwith barrels of wine, beer, and vodka. In Peter's presence the newlywedswere made to drinkvodka fromvessels in the shape of oversized male and female genitalia (male forthe bride, female forthe bridegroom).Then Peterleft, although he and otherpeeping-toms could watchthe newlyweds' drunkenactivity throughholes drilledinto the pyramid.95 This kind of behavior,which undoubtedlytitillated Peterand his companions,makes it clear why the unfortunatebride had resistedButurlin's advances fora year.In the end Peter forcedher to marryhim. Women sufferedparticularly fromPeter's whims.In her last trimesterof pregnancythe wife of Marshal Vasilii Ol'sufev begged the Tsar not to make her drinkat a gathering,but he refusedher request and she subsequentlymiscarried.96 If the nobility found excessive drinkinga burden,the common folk considered it an escape. Well aware of theirattraction to alcohol, Peterorganized carnival celebrationsand other ritualized occasions for drinkingas a way to placate and controlhis subjects. This institutionalizeddrinking often deteriorated into drunkenbrawls. Yet public rowdinesswas less appallingto some foreignobservers than the Russians' poor hygiene.Weber, ever critical of Russian customs,was trulydisgusted by the commoners' drinkinghabits: "Duringthe great Heats one is hardput to itfor Drink, considering the Beer which is brewed forpublick Sale inthe Czar's Brew-Houses,is so strong,that it does notquench one's Thirst, besidesthat no outlandishPerson can resolveto sendfor it to thePublick Tap-houses, where 93 Ibidem pp. 38-40. Anotherdiary entry told of being trickedat Peterhof,where the palace custodian made a pretenseof wantingto show Bergholz Peter's famousunderground kitchen, the "most amazing thing"in one of the royal pleasure palaces (see note 107 below). This room, about two arshins (2 1/3 feet) below the surfaceof the Neva River, had a floorand walls so thicklycovered with cementthat watercouldn't penetrate."As soon as we enteredinto this so-called kitchen,I was struckby an unpleas- ant smell,and I understoodthe custodian's intention.But it was already too late to leave: having lured us into his cellar, which he called a kitchen,he began to force us terriblyto drink,saying thatit was the local customto have to drinkto thehealth of each guest individually,and he swore thatwe would not leave withoutaccomplishing that.At least he treatedus to the best wines thatthere were in the cellar; however, except for some others,we had to drink Hungarian, Rhine, Champagne and Bur- gundy." (Ibidem p. 92). 94 See, forexample, the descriptions by Korb, Bergholz,and Weber; Hughes also provides an excellent account in: Hughes Russia in the Age of Peterthe Great pp. 249-257. 95 Berkhgol'ts Dnevnik p. 120. 96 Ibidem pp. 147-148. Juel also told of forceddrinking that ended in death. Peter offeredPrince Luka Dolgorukov a large kubok of wine. Knowing thatdespite his seventyyears of age he could not get away withoutdrinking, the princedrank some, but not all, of the wine. When Peter learned of this deception,he forcedDolgorukov to drinka one-quarterliter glass of vodka (about 8 1/2ounces) at one go. Dolgorukov's legs immediatelygave out,he fainted,and withinan hour he was dead. See Zapiski Iusta Iulia, in: Russkii arkhiv(1892) no. 5, p. 72. GastronomicReforms under Peter the Great 499

itis enoughto see butonce their manner of selling it, to be putout of Conceitfor ever with all RussianBeer. The Liquorstands there in an openTub orCooler, to which the common People croud,taking it out with a woodenVessel, and drinking it, holding their Mouths over the Tub, thatnothing may be spilled,so thatif by chanceany of itmisses their Mouths, it runsdown theirBeards (which the Day-Labourers, and other common People, are connived at stillto wear forwant of Barbers)and fallsagain intothe Tub. If such a Customerhappens to have no Money,he leaves his old Fur Coat, a Shirt,a Pair of Stockings,or some otherPart of his wearingApparel, to pawn,till the Evening, when he receiveshis Hire;mean time those filthy Pledgeshang on theBrim, round the Tub, nor is a greatMatter whether they are pushed in by theThrong of thePeople, and swimthere for some time.The Czar has Englishand Dutch Brewersfor his Houshold, who make good Beer of divers Sorts after the way of their countries, and notwith red-hot Stones or ironBullets, as all therest is madeat Petersbourg"97 Peter had reaffirmedthe otkupsystem largely because he needed revenue forhis war with Sweden. But by 1716 popular dissatisfactionwas so greatthat he issued an edict authorizing the free distillationand sale of vodka, thoughboth the stills and the finishedproduct were subject to taxation.98In addition to deregulatingvodka production,Peter influenced its technologyby encouragingsuccessive distillations."Commoners, however, did not like his refinementsand continuedto favortheir beloved herb-infusedspirits, the dobroe zeleno vino of folkloreand song.100The conservativePrince Mikhail Shcherbatovnoted with disapproval thatPeter also developed a tastefor beverages not at all traditionalfor Russia, such as Dutch aniseed brandyand fineFrench and Hungarianwines.101 Despite his pursuitof new libations,Peter I did nothave a refinedpalate. He mightappear unannouncedin any odd cornerof his empire,drop into a house at random,sit down at the table and enjoy the simplestmeal. At othertimes he contentedlystayed at home with his favoriteLimburger cheese, whichhe was knownto measurewith a compass beforeeating.102 His appetite was apparentlyenormous, in keeping withhis large frame,and on enteringa dwellinghe usually made a beeline forthe table. As reportedby Saint-Simon,on a statevisit 97 Weber The PresentState of Russia,vol. 1, 179-180. 98 pp. V. V. PokhlebkinChai i vodkav istoriiRossii. Krasnoiarsk 1995, p. 210; Knigao vodke.Ed. by G. Ivanov.Smolensk 1995, p. 15. 99 Nicholas Faith, Ian WisniewskiClassic Vodka. London1997, 38. 100 p. In fact,they considered the newfangled product to be ofpoor quality. The popularnames given to vodkaduring the Penine era reflect the people's disdain for Peter's spirituous reforms. "The Tsar's Madeira"(tsarskaia madera) made cynical reference to thefortified wines that Peter I forcedguests todrink at hisassemblies. "Fourteenth-class French" (Frantsuzskaia 14-go klassa) alluded to theTsar's introductionof theTable of Ranks,in whichthe fourteenth rank or class was thelowest. Finally, "Peter'svodka" (Petrovskaia vodka) was a derogatoryterm for poor-quality spirits. See Pokhlebkin Chai i vodkav istoriiRossii p. 156. Today,the Petrovskaia vodka label evokes age and authenticity. 101 Shcherbatov O povrezhdeniinravov v Rossiip. 141. Hermitageis a finewine produced from Syrahgrapes, and the most famous northern Rhone appellation. Beginning with Peter I, itwas particu- larlyfavored by theRussian court. Iu. M. Lotman, E. A. Pogosian Velikosvetskieobedy. S.-Peterburg 1996, p. 89. Staehlinvon Storcksburgwrote an accountof how Peter measured his cheese with a compass,which Robert Massie paraphrasedas follows:"...Veiten [his chef] served Peter a Limburgercheese which the Tsar found especiallytasty. He atea pieceand then took out his compass,carefully measured the amount remain- ing and wrotedown the dimensions on his notepad. Thenhe summonedVeiten and said, Tut this cheeseaway and don'tlet anyone else tasteit because I wishto finishit myself.' The followingday, whenthe cheese reappeared, it seemedmuch smaller. To verifythis impression, Peter took out his compassand measuredit, comparing his calculationswith the note in his pocket.The cheese was smaller.Peter called for Veiten, displayed his notes, pointed out the discrepancy, stroked the cook with hiscane and then sat down and finishedthe cheese with a bottleof wine." This anecdotecomes from Staehlin von Storcksburg OriginalAnecdotes of Peterthe Great. London 1787, p. 147; retoldin: Robert K. Massie Peterthe Great: His Lifeand World.New York 1980,p. 796; Kliuchevskiiwrote thatPeter "had an insatiablesailor's appetite. According to his contemporaries,he was alwayshungry and wheneverhe wentvisiting he was readyto sitdown to a meal,whether he had alreadydined or not."(Kliuchevskii Kursrusskoi istorii, eh. 4, p. 33). 500 Darra Goldstein to France in 1717 Peter astounded his hosts withthe "inconceivable" amount of food and drinkhe consumed.103Peter's cook prepared"two or threedishes forhim every day, and [used] forthis purpose enough wine and meat to serve a table of eight."104 Abroad, Peter was acutely aware of his lack of grace at the table and avoided official dinners when he could. Even at home he did not especially like to host ceremonial feasts, even thoughthey provided an opportunityfor intelligence-gathering, and he generallyleft grand entertainingto his favorite,Prince Aleksandr Menshikov, who staged magnificent dinnersat a diningtable craftedof silver.105When Peterdid entertain,he made use of special contraptionshe had devised forserving. In orderto receive food promptlyfrom the outdoor kitchen,his urbandining room was outfittedwith a small opening in the wall throughwhich food was passed.106And in the "Hermitage," one of his pleasure palaces at Peterhof,he placed an elaborate table: "[...] in one of Peterthe Great's little pleasure palaces therewas a tablewhich mounted by machineryfrom the kitchen below to thedining-room above. The plates,or rather,the centre of thetable, performed this evolution. Each platedid thesame, and itsowner had in frontof hima string,which pulled a bell,and, as each bell had a differentnote, the cook alwaysknew whichof the guests it was thatwanted his plate changed."107 While Menshikov's palace on the embankmentof Vasilevskii Ostrov lacked a mechanical table, it was equipped witha large kitchenand open hearthwith a spit (vertel) forroasting wildfowland game in the Muscovite style. Dining among the upper classes had previouslybeen a privateaffair, but Menshikov's dinnerswere so successful thatother noblemen began to imitatethem. Soon the custom of keeping an open table was introducedin many homes, causing a certainprandial intimacy to be lost. JohannAlbrecht Euler, Secretary of theAcademy of Sciences in Saint Petersburg, commentedupon the unique Russian custom of always keeping the table set and ready for unexpectedguests, who were welcome to dine whetheror not theirhosts were present.108By theclose of theeighteenth century the open house had takenon excessive proportions,as in 103 Mémoiresde Saint-Simon.Nouvelle édition. Paris 1920, vol. 31, p. 369. 104 As reportedby Liboy,the French chef in chargeof orderingPeter's meals during his visitto France,in: SbornikImperatorskogo rossiiskogo istoricheskogo obshchestva. Tom 34. S.-Peterburg 1867-1916,p. 184.Liboy further noted that "[The Tsar]is servedboth a meatand a lentendinner on Fridaysand Saturdays.He likessharp sauces, brown and hardbread, and greenpeas. He eatsmany sweetoranges and applesand pears.He generallydrinks light beer and darkvin de Nuits,without liquor.The morninghe drinksaniseed water (Kümmel), liquors before meals, beer and wine in the afternoon.All ofthem fairly cold. He eatsno sweetmeatsand does notdrink sweetened liquors at his meals."This translation is taken from Schuyler Peterthe Great, vol. 2, p. 3 10; itis repeatedin Massie Peterthe Great p. 640-641. 105 Accordingto Bergholz,"It is well knownthat nowhere in Petersburgdo theydine so well as at theprince's [Menshikov's]." (Berkhol'ts Dnevnikp. 55). 106 Nikita Ivanovich Kashin Ruskoisoldat, povestvuiushchii o Petre pervom, in: Ruskoivestnik na 1808 god,no. 10 (okt.),p. 42. 107 The DowagerMarchioness of Dufferinand Ava My Russianand TurkishJournals. New York 1916,p. 40. Comparethe table machinée that was popularin royalresidences in eighteenth-century France.This mechanical table (also knownas a tablevolante or "flyingtable") actually disappeared intothe floor as anotherfully-set one descendedfrom above. See Rodolphe el-Khoury Delectable Decoration:Taste and Spectaclein JeanFrançois de Bastide'sLa petitemaison, in: Taste,Nostalgia. Ed. by AllenS. Weiss.New York 1997,p. 60. Peter'shead carpenter,a Frenchman named Michel, installedthis device, the first of its kind in Russia, in theHermitage. See Laurence Kelly St. Peters- burg:A Traveller'sCompanion. London 1981, p. 21 1. 108 Letterof 18/29October 1771 to SamuelFormey, Secretary of the Berlin Academy of Sciences. Citedin: DominiqueTaurisson ,Les nourrituresterrestres en Russie,4ou l'Artde vivrede Johann AlbrechtEuler. Saint-Pétersbourg (1766-1800), in: The CulturalTopography of Food. Ed. by Beatrice Fink.Vol. 23. n.s.,no. 2, May 1999,of Eighteenth-CenturyLife, p. 149. GastronomicReforms under Peter the Great 501 the home of Lev AleksandrovichNaryshkin, at whose table any nobleman, invitedor not, was welcome to dine and sup daily. Naryshkinoften did not even know the names of his guests,yet all were accorded equal welcome.109 The wealthiestfamilies dined offsilver and pewter,and numerousobservers reported the use of gold plates.110This did not mean,however, that hygienic standards were as fineas the tableware.Olearius had been appalled by the "black and repulsive" pewterand silver plate thatthe Grand Prince used forserving foreign ambassadors and was disgustedby tankards "thathad notbeen washed fora yearor more."111Nearly one hundredyears laterat Peter the Great's court,Johann-Georg Korb feltsimilar distaste when he observed cups of gold and silver"so coated withfilth that it is hardto discoverwhich precious metal lies hiddenbeneath the dirt."112 Most likely sanitationwas not much betterin the kitchen,even thougha revolutionwas takingplace there.In a move highlysignificant for the development of Russian cuisine,Peter introducedthe Dutch range. In contrastto the traditionalRussian stove, the range relied on a cooktop {plita) ratherthan on oven chambers, and this change necessitated different cooking utensils. Thus the customarygorshok or earthenwarepot - perfectfor the slowly fallingtemperatures of theRussian stove- was largelyreplaced by thekastriulia or saucepan (a corruptionof theGermanic Kastrol). Similarly,the cast-iron pot (chugun) gave way to the protiven', a griddlederived from the German Bratpfanne. The colander (durshlag) likewise enteredinto Russian fromthe German {Durchschlag). The foods that were served also underwenttransformation. The founding of Saint Petersburghad caused tradeat the importantport of Archangelto decline; between 1700 and 1718 its revenuefell from three million to threehundred thousand rubles, while Petersburg's grew fromnothing to fourmillion rubles.113So in 1721, in orderto help revive Archangel, Peterissued an ukaz orderinghis people to eat ocean fish.Except forherring, the Russians previouslyhad eaten mainlyfreshwater fish from rivers and lakes, and manywere suspicious of such strangespecies as cod, whiting,and mackerel.114Even intothe late nineteenthcentury thepeasantry still used treskoedor "codeater" as a pejorativeterm for the inhabitantsof the WhiteSea coast.115But ifthe peasantry remained skeptical, the nobilitypositively reveled in thenovelty of thenew fish.Throughout the eighteenth century they used sledges to transport flash-frozenfish from Archangel to Petersburgand Moscow in the wintertime,vying to be the firstto show it offin theirkitchens. 116 109 M. I. Pyliaev StaraiaMoskva. Tip. A. S. Suvorina,S.-Peterburg 1891, reprinted Moskva 1995, p. 239. 110 Tereshchenkogave an overviewof theseaccounts in: Tereshchenko Bytrusskago naroda pp. 247-248. PrinceShcherbatov, however, denied such ostentation, claiming never to haveseen "a proper silverdinner-service in the Masterskaya Palata" and concludingthat the royalty used pewterfor their dailymeals. See Shcherbatov O nravovv Rossii 120. 111 povrezhdenii p. The Travelsof Oleariusp. 155. Korb of an Austrian of vol. 2, 157. 113 Diary Secretary Legation, p. L. JayOliva Russiain theEra ofPeter the Great. Cliffs,N.J. 1969, 129. 114 Englewood p. V. V. Usov Rybana vashemstole. Moskva 1979,pp. 25-26. 115 N. I. Kovalev Bliudarusskogo stola: Istoriia i nazvaniia.S.-Peterburg 1995, p. 203. 116 Thiscontest led to suchridiculous-sounding preparations as labardanograten [au gratin],where theforeign words were thought to lenda toneyflair. Labardan gained literary fame in NikolaiGogol's play The InspectorGeneral when the hero Khlestakov has his firsttaste of thefish. After a long monologue,he leaves thestage declaiming "Labardan! Labardan!," which sounds hilarious to the Russianear. The foodhistorian N. I. Kovalevdefined labardan as "bakedcod" (Idem Èntsiklopediia gurmanap. 277); butJoyce Toomre, in her translation of ElenaMolokhovets' famous cookbook, A Gift toYoung Housewives, asserted that this dish is moreprecisely salt cod, with labardan a corruptionof Aberdeen,a cityrenowned for its fine salt cod. Labardaneventually came to referto plaincod, and 502 Darra Goldstein

Yet only the most affluentcould affordto importnew products. Overall availability continued to be dictatedby what was locally produced, and the poor soil and vast bogs surroundingSaint Petersburgwere not conduciveto good agriculture.(Moscow, withits rich surroundingfarmlands, had more varietyin its diet, though even there grains and root vegetables continuedto be the mainstayof the diet.) The provisioningof Saint Petersburg proved to be a seriousproblem. From the very start, the laborers who built the city subsisted on littlemore thancoarse bread,occasionally supplementedwith garlic or a simple gruel of flourand water (muchnaia pokhlebka). JustJuel marveled at theirapparent acceptance of theserations,117 though it is hard to believe thatthey ever feltreplete, especially since their paltrywages barelyallowed forthe purchase of extrafood.118 The high mortalityrate of the workerscan be tracedto lack of nutritionas much as to disease. Because of Saint Petersburg'slocation, most edible provisionshad to be broughtin from greatdistances; freshwater fish were virtuallythe only readilyavailable product.The city's growthwas dependentupon a more reliable food supply. Thus Peter conceived of a system of canals that would eventually connect Petersburgwith the Baltic, White, Black, and Caspian Seas by means of Russia's central rivers. This grand project began with the constructionof a canal to connect Petersburg'sNeva River withthe Msta and Tsna Rivers feedinginto the Volga. Peteralso orderedthat a bypass canal be built around Lake Ladoga, whichwas oftentreacherous to navigate.In 1712 theimperial court moved fromMoscow to Saint Petersburg,and in 1713, ten years afterthe city's founding,construction began on Gostinyidvor, the commercial center, whose design incorporateda canal rightin the middle of the building so thatboats could unload theirwares on site. The provisioningof Saint Petersburgwas shaped not only by the city's geography,but also by its demographics.Peter the Great offered foreigners generous benefits to come to his city and participatein the building of industryand the developmentof the arts and social institutions(Dutch, English,and Italianshipbuilders were especiallynumerous). Petersburg's significantforeign population influencedthe city's eatinghabits, and foods such as waffles and artichokesfound welcome reception.One of the city's popular drinkingestablishments carried the Italian name "Osteria" (subsequently "The Triumphal Osteria of the Four even to herring.Molokhovets called forherring in a recipe for labardan. (Podarok molodym khoziaikamili sredstvok umen'sheniiuraskhodov vo domashnemkhoziaistve. Tip. N. N. Kolbukova, S.-Peterburg1901, reprint Moskva 1991,recipe no. 261 1, p. 739). Foran Englishtranslation of this recipefrom the 1897 (20th) edition of the book, see JoyceToomre Classic RussianCooking: Elena Molokhovets'A Giftto Young Housewives.Bloomington 1992, p. 573; To confusethe question of labardaneven further, the culinary historian V. V. Pokhlebkinmaintained that labardan or laberdan is a corruptionof theDutch Kabelljau, a namethat Dutch fishmongers used forlarge Spanish cod weighingfrom 10 to 40 kgs.These largefish were placed in a saltbrine, dried slightly, then pressed and packedinto barrels. Pokhlebkin erroneously stated that "dishes prepared from this cod in the restaurantcuisine of European countries in the 19th century received the name 'kabel'iu', and in Russia - labardan."This preparation is clearly salt cod orbacalao. See PokhlebkinKulinarnyi slovar' p. 206. 117 IustaIulia p. 281. 1IÄZapiski A. V. PredtechenskiiNaselenie i bytPeterburga, in: PeterburgPetrovskogo vremeni, p. 129; Similarly,soldiers in Peter's newly-created army had nothing but bread to eat.The navy,Peter's pride, faredbetter, receiving ham, butter, fish, vinegar, and wine in additionto bread.See ibidemp. 134 and L. N. Semenova Ocherkiistorii byta i kul'turnoizhizni Rossii pervaia polovina XVIII v., Leningrad 1982,p. 219. As a navalrecruit, Ivan I. Nepliuevreceived the following monthly rations: 2 puds 10 poundsof rusks, 15 poundsof dried peas, 15 poundsof grain,2 1/4pounds salt, one chetverikof rye flourfor kvass, 25 charkasof wine, 1 1/2kruzhki of vinegar, 6 poundsof dried fish, 19 poundsof ham. (A chetverikequalled 15.8 pounds, a kruzhok,two bottles or one shtof[' .3 quarts].For equivalents for pud, pound,and charka,see footnotes12 and 85.) 1. 1.Nepliuev Zapiski,1693-1773. S.-Peterburg 1893,reprint Newtonville, MA 1974,pp. 5-6. GastronomieReforms under Peter the Great 503

Frigates).119Peter was aware of theconsternation foreign foods sometimescaused and, if we are to believe Ivan Nepliuev, whom Peter sent abroad in 1716 to studynavigation, the Tsar had a sense of humorabout it. In his memoirsNepliuev relatedhow he accompanied Peter to the cottage of a carpenterwhose wife had just given birth.The carpenteroffered Peter some vodka (goriachee vinci)and a piece of carrotpie (pirog s morkov7w), then offered the same to Nepliuev, who declined.But Peterurged him to have somethingto eat lest he offend theirhost, and withhis own hands broke offa piece of the pie, saying,"Take it! This is our nativefood, it's not Italian."120Here we see a kinderand gentlertsar than the one who force- fed his diningpartners. Along withnew drinkingestablishments like the Osteria,traktiry (inns) began to appear in Petersburg, superseding the traditional korchmy and kabaki. These western-style establishments(named afterthe Latin tractorid)served up hot meals and camaraderie at a timewhen restaurantswere stillnot known.121Peter also opened Russia's firstcoffeehouse in St. Petersburg.Equally importantto thedevelopment of public and privatedining were the Russians whom Peterhad sentabroad to furthertheir education, and who returnedwith new tastesalong withnew skills. Seeking more varietyin theirdiet, they began to importexotic foods. When Peterhired a foreigneras his privatechef (Johann Veiten, the Saxon cook to the Danish ambassador to Russia), the nobilitysoon followed suit. Thus Russia's firstforeign chefscame primarilyfrom Saxony, Bavaria, and Austria;only laterin thecentury did French chefs come into vogue. Peterwas eager to acquaintRussians withnew foodstuffsand cooking methodsfrom his extensivetravels. He is said to have introducedthe potato as earlyas 1716 by puttingseveral in a sack and sending them fromRotterdam to Count Boris Sheremet'ev at his estate. However, it took an ukaz under Catherinethe Great to enforcetheir cultivation, and even thenthey didn't gain wide acceptanceuntil the nineteenth century. Peter also encouraged the cultivationof salad greens;the Russians consideredlettuce "grass" and laughed at the foreign residentsfor eating it.122 From Holland he importedaged cheeses, whichthe Russians did not know how to make. Finally,he broughtthe European methodof churningbutter from fresh cream.123The unsalted butterthe Russians preparedby heating freshsour cream or sweet cream in the stove and churningthe solids spoiled too quickly; until Peter's reign, the traditionalfats were vegetable oils pressed fromnuts, poppies, linseed and hempseed. The vocabularyintroduced into Russian over thecourse of the eighteenthcentury reveals influencesfrom the Dutch, German,English, and ultimatelyFrench cuisines. Such foreign terms as almond (mindaV), anchovy (anchous), apricot (abrikos), artichoke (artishok), asparagus (sparzha), biscuit (bishkot, later biskvit),bottle (butyl'), bouillion (bul'on), chocolate (shokolad), citruspeel (tsedra), cocoa (kakao), coffee(kofe), dessert (desert), fruit (frukt),gelée (zhele), glaze (glazur'), inn (traktir),kitchen (kukhnia), lard (shpik), lettuce (latuk), orange (apeVsin), pineapple (ananas), pudding (budin, laterpuding), roast beef (rostbif),sauce (sous), saucepan (kastrol, later kastriulia), soup (sup), starch(krakhmat), stockfish(shtokfish), trout (foreV), vanilla (vanii'), and waffle (vafeV, later vaflia) now 119 Schuyler Peterthe Great, vol. 2, p. 2. 120 Nepliuev Zapiskip. 107. 121 The firstrestaurant was establishedin France only in 1765.See Wheaton Savoringthe Past p. 77. See Schuyler Peterthe Great, vol. 1, p. 205; Korbreported that when he arrivedat courtin Moscow in 1698, "thefirst fresh salad was senta presentout of thegarden of Mr. Carbonairde theCzar's of an Austrian of vol. Bisenegg,123 physician."(Korb Diary Secretary Legation, 1, p. 100). Webernoted: "They knew as littleof making good Butter;their Way was to takethe Cream, and meltit in a Pan forpresent Use." (Weber The PresentState of Russia,vol. 1, p. 182). For special occasionsRussians prepared clarified or toplenoebutter, which was finerand less proneto spoilage, butthis was a luxury.See also Tereshchenko Bytrusskago naroda p. 274. 504 Darra Goldstein belong to thestandard Russian lexicon.124Some of thesefoods, such as sauce, alreadyexisted in theRussian repertoire,but now theywere designatedby a Latinate insteadof a Slavonic form. Thus vzvar, the traditionalsweet-and-sour condiment served with meats, became simplysous, while the sweetzaedki servedafter a meal became themore fashionabledeseri. Similarly, striapnaia and povarnia, early terms for "kitchen," were superceded by the Latinatekukhnia. Entirely new foodsbecame a source of delightand competitionamong the wealthy,who engaged in a game of one-upmanshipin which the stakes grew continually higher.Out of vanityand theneed to appear au courant,the nobility sought ways to entertain ever more lavishly. When pineappleswere introducedin 1721/22they were embracedwith particular passion, and those with the resources began to grow them year-roundin hothouses. Most often pineapple was servedfresh, but certainwell-known gourmands were famed fortheir special concoctions. At a time when most people had never tasted pineapples, or even heard of bananas, Count PetrIvanovich Shuvalov cultivatedboth fruits in abundance in his hothouses and preparedan exoticpineapple wine.125 The nobleman Zavadovskii was not contentto eat pineapple freshor injam, so he chopped and soured it like cabbage in barrelsand thenused it forpineapple shchi and borshch.Zavadovskii was said to have squandered his fortuneon the expensive fruit,dying in penury.126 Peterthe Great evinced a personalinterest in grapes,seeking varietals that could thrivein southernRussia and placing the two-centuries-oldAstrakhan winery under the supervision of a Frenchvintner, Pousset, to increaseits qualityand production.127Pousset had originally been sentto Azov, but shortlyafter his arrivalthat city fell to the Turks,so he moved on to Astrakhan.There is some disagreementas to whetherthe vines planted therewere from Frenchor Persianstock, but whateverthe varietals, the wine produced"had the same Colour, and somethingof the Flavour, thoughnot the same Spiritas those in France."128Pousset 124 E. E. Birzhakova, L. A. Voinova, L. Kutina Ocherki po istoricheskoileksikologii russkogo iazyka XVIII veka: Iazykovye kontaktyi zaimstvovaniia. Leningrad 1972, pp. 337-409. 125 Shcherbatov O povrezhdeniinravov v Rossii p. 222. 126 Pyliaev Staroe zhit'e p. 17. This Zavadovskii was most likely Count Petr VasiPevich Zavadov- skii (1739-1812), a statesmanwho served underthree rulers. Catherine the Great rewardedhim with vast estates until Potemkinturned her against him. See Êntsiklopedicheskiislovar'. Ed. by I. E. An- dreevskii. Tom 12. S.-Peterburg1894, p. 95. 127 Weber called Pousset "a French Refugee, A Gentlemanof fine Parts and good Sense" (Weber The PresentState of Russia, vol. 1, p. 157). It was no simple matterto restorethe Astrakhanvineyards. The English engineer JohnPerry, who went to Russia in 1698 to help constructthe Ladoga- Volga canal, describedthe difficulty Peter faced: "The Czar has Thoughtsof plantingVineyards, and improv- ing the makingof Wine on thisSide of the Caspian Sea, in Terkiand Astracan,where the Grapes, both red and white,are very large and good, and are broughtfrom thence every Year to Mosco [. . .] In the Year 1706, the Czar gave Orders to the late worthyMr. Henry Stiles Merchantin Mosco, to writefor 10 or 12 Persons skill'd in the several Parts of Plantingand making Wine, with Design to send them to settleat Astracan. But Mr. Stiles*s BrotherMr. Thomas Stiles,(who is since also dead) returnedhim forAnswer fromLondon, That he had wroteto his Correspondentsin Spain and in Portugal, and they had treatedwith several Persons forthat Purpose; but hearingof the Rebellion thathad happened in As- tracan in theYear 1703, whereinall the Strangersthat were in thatCity were cut to pieces in a revenge- ful manner,without sparing eitherMan, Woman, or Child... no Person therefore,without very great Consideration,would engage in the Undertaking,to hire themselves to go to the said Countrey for makingof Wines; and so thatDesign has lain cold ever since." (Perry The State of Russia pp. 95-96). 128 According to Weber, the wines planted therewere French. Weber The PresentState of Russia, vol. 1, p. 157. But the painterCornelius LeBrun commentedin his notes on Russia thatthe vines had been broughtfrom Persia. See his Observationson Russia, in: Weber The PresentState of Russia, vol. 2, p. 421. Tereshchenko stated thatthe original Astrakhanvines were of Persian origin, the giftof travellingmerchants. See: Tereshchenko Byt russkago naroda p. 277. GastronomicReforms under Peter the Great 505 successfullyapplied the local irrigationmethod used forthe famousAstrakhan melons to the vines.129 Most of thesewines Peterhad sentto his own table,but in otherareas he had the people's interestsmore at heart.Near Voronezh he set up an experimentalgarden to determinewhich sortsof vegetablescould be adapted to theRussian climate,and in 1713 he created a garden formedicinal herbs in Saint Petersburg.This plot lent its name to Pharmacist's Island and eventually grew into an importantbotanical garden. Peter's interestin botanicals also prompted him to open the firstfree pharmacies for the population at large. Not least, he developed the mineralsprings that gushed in Olonets near the newly-builtcannon foundry at Petrozavodsk,in 1714 establishingRussia's firstspa, "MartialWaters," where generations of dyspepticdiners subsequentlysought relief. The chalybeate water thatissued fromthis source lefta reddishsediment and undoubtedlyhad a harshtaste, though Peter swore by its efficacy.130Local Petersburgmineral waters were bottledunder the Poliustrovo label, which is still sold today. Not all of Peter the Great's commercial food ventureswere as healthfulas vegetables, herbs,and mineralwaters. He also increasedthe use of tobacco in Russia. English merchants had imported tobacco throughArchangel as early as 1553, and by the late seventeenth centuryit was alreadybeing cultivatedin Ukraine and Siberia fromAmerican seed. At first tobacco had not been regulated,but Tsar Mikhail Fedorovich issued edicts against its use. Anyone caught in possession of the substancerisked not only arrest,but tortureand death: The miscreantcould be flogged,his nostrilstorn, his nose cut off.When PeterI ascended the thronehe, like his predecessors,forbade tobacco's use. However, he changed his mind after his foreigntravels, and from1697 on tobacco was freelysold and used in Russia. The first tobacco-processing factorywas built around 1714 in Kharkov province,but afterPeter's deathit fell into disrepair,and domestictobacco productionwas not revived untilthe reign of Catherinethe Great.

Eighteenth-CenturyDevelopments Peter the Great's gastronomicreforms were by no means universal. Even under his rule certainfeatures of themedieval table persisted,such as theuse of dwarves forentertainment. At the feastcelebrating the baptismof his son PetrPetrovich in 1715 "a Pye [was] servedup on theTable of theGentlemen, which being opened, a well-shaped WomanDwarf stept out of it,being stark-naked, except her Head-dress and someOrnaments of red Ribbons;she made a well-setSpeech to theCompany, filled some Glasses of Wine whichshe had with her in thePye, and drankseveral Healths; after which she was carriedoff again.On theLadies Table a Man Dwarfwas servedup in thesame manner."131 129 Weber The PresentState of Russia,vol. 1, 158; LeBrun Observationson Russia 421. 130 p. p. Weber The PresentState of Russia,vol. 1,p. 205. Schuylerreported that "A wittyFrenchman has saidthat the great miracle of Spa is thatthe Tsar was able to drinkthe water, continue his modeof life,and yetlive and even be betterfor it. He neverconformed exactly to theprescriptions of the physicians.Sometimes, for instance, he woulddrink twenty-one glasses of waterin a morning,which seemedto have no othereffect than to producean excellentappetite. He was forbiddento eat fruit unlesscooked. Yet it is said thatone day,immediately after taking the waters, he ate tenpounds of cherriesand a dozenfigs." (Schuyler Peterthe Great, vol. 2, p. 448). No sourcefor this information is provided. 131 Weber The PresentState of Russia,vol. 1,p. 109. 506 Darra Goldstein

Elsewherein medieval Europe live birdshad flownout of pies, and a hunchbackhad popped out of a custardpie at HenryVII's coronation,132but such entertainmentshad largelydied out by the eighteenthcentury. In any case, the use of dwarves seems to have been a peculiarly Russian touch. Predictably,Peter used themnot only fortheir diminutive size but also for sexual titillation. Dwarves aside, theeighteenth century in Russia saw theevolution of table service toward the sequence of fourcourses thatis familiartoday (zakuska, pervoe, vtoroe,sladkoe). Where seventeenth-centurybanquets had begun dramaticallywith a roast bird such as swan or peacock, eighteenth-centuryfeasts under Peter the Great featuredcold, open-faced sand- - wiches withmeat or cheese at the beginningof the meal a directborrowing from Dutch practice. At the same time, salted and smoked foods including caviar, salmon, sturgeon, herring,pickles, and ham were offeredbefore the main course,an earlyversion of thezakuski or hors d'oeuvres thatbecame the hallmarkof Russian cuisine. Peter's grandees laid their tables with ham, sausages, and other salted and smoked meats prepared with generous amountsof butter,garlic, and onion. Afterthese cold dishes,various soups, roasts,and other hot foods were served,followed by dessertconsisting of fruitoffered either fresh or poached in syrup.Weber explained: "Aftersitting down the firstCourse is served up, consistingof cold Meat, Hams, sausages, Jelly-broth,and diverssorts of Meat dressed withOil of Olives, Onions and Garlick,which is lefton the Table above an Hour; thencome the Soups, roast Meat, and other hot Victuals, which make up the second Course, and last of all the Dessert."133This sequence was already a change fromearlier in the century,when the soup course followed the cold salted dishes and roasts.134 Yet significantly,the basic styleof table service remainedunchanged, focused as it was on theactual servingof the meal. This Russian practicecontrasted markedly with the more restrainedFrench style accepted at noble tables throughoutwestern Europe. The French banquet table entailed an exquisite set-piece, intendedprimarily to delight the eye. On enteringthe banquet hall, dinersfound tables alreadyset withan artfularray of dishes, many of them in fancifultrompe l'oeil. But even thoughan entirecourse comprisingdozens of dishes was beautifulto behold, eating it was likely anothermatter. The preset display, a pretense,meant thathot foods were no longer hot; fatswere congealed. And each time a course concluded, the table had to be fullyrearranged. Russian service differedprofoundly. On enteringthe banquet hall, dinersusually found only salt and pepper cellars and vinegar cruetson the table (the exception being at court, where the Tsar's tables sagged under the immenseweight of gold servers). Yet these few condimentswere of the finestquality, the vinegar made fromwort flavored with gingerbread and raspberries,the salt fromthe Volga flats near Astrakhan"clear as crystal,"with "a pleasantodor of violets."135Once theguests were seated,each dish was broughtindividually to table and presentedwith great fanfare.136 In 1553 Richard Chancellor had described the table of Ivan the Terrible: 132 Betty Wason Cooks,Gluttons & Gourmets:A Historyof Cookery.Garden City, NY 1962, p. 175.Jugglers and acrobats were also sometimesserved in enormouspuddings, leaping out to enter- tainguests. See Madeleine Pelner CosmanFabulous Feasts: Medieval Cookery and Ceremony. New York 1976.o. 31. 133 Weber The PresentState of Russia,vol. 1,pp. 26-27. HereWeber described a feasthosted by PrincessNatalia, Peter the Great's sister. 134 ZapiskiIusta Iulia, in: Russkiiarkhiv (1892) no. 3, p. 276 and no. 5, p. 69. 135 The Travelsof Olearius p. 325. Thissalt is likelywhat we referto today as fleur de sel, thefinest- qualitysalt skimmed from the very surface of the flats, which commands an extremelyhigh price. 136 See Kotoshikhin'sdescription of the Russian style of service in seventeenth-centuryMuscovy in: Kotoshichin O Rossiiv tsarstvovanieAlekseja Mikhajlovicha pp. 23, 39. GastronomieReforms under Peter the Great 507

"[...] thegentleman usher of thehall comesin, with a notablecompany of servantscarrying thedishes, and having done his reverence to the emperor, puts a youngswan in a goldenplatter uponthe table and immediately takes it thence again, delivering itto the carver and seven other of his fellowsto be cutup; whichbeing performed, the meat is thendistributed to theguests withthe like pomp and ceremonies."1 Nearly two centurieslater Johann-Georg Korb described similarpomp: "Abouttwo o'clock came a Pristaw,dressed in a greenpelisse of silkand furof sables,which is given to themwith the obligationof returningit to the Czar's treasury,whence upon occasionslike the present it is producedfrom an innerchamber. He was accompaniedby the vice-prefectsof theCzar's kitchenand cellars,attended by someclerks of theambassadorial chancery,and followed by twelve semskoi (persons belonging to theCzar's kitchens),clad in dressesornamented with silk, over which they wore linen; then in longprocessional train by two hundredsoldiers, bearing the Czar's daintydishes, and carryinglikewise drinkables, brandy,wine, mead of variouskinds, beer, and guass [kvass].They laid thetable. The cloth was of thefinest possible texture; there was one littlegold salt-cellar,two other vessels, also of gold,one of themwith pepper, and theother with salt. [...] Thenthe viands were brought in.Among the roasts was a swan;there were no less thana hundredand eightdishes counted, butexcessively few that a Germanpalate could relish."138 Like Neuville and Weber before him, Korb did not find Russian style to his liking, commentingthat "the mere rudeness of theirunpolished mannersand theirfilthy service would sufficeto distinguishthis from every other court in Europe."139 Consideringthat banquets consisted of no less thanfour courses, withup to one hundred dishes in each course,royal feastscould be an ordeal, especially forforeign visitors used to the orderliness and self-containmentof a French-stylemeal. Importantly,however, the Russian styleof servicekept the food hot,since each dish was servedat itspeak of readiness. Russian practicealso providedlive performanceas liveriedwaiters - oftenone foreach guest - paraded repeatedlyinto the banquet hall withplatters held high. As Chancellor reported, "therewere one hundredand fortyservitors arrayed in cloth of gold thatin the dinnertime changed thricetheir habit and apparel."140Even at domestic gatherings,this theatricalstyle of service prevailed, albeit on a smaller scale. This traditionalfeature of the Russian table survivedPeter's reforms.Indeed, one of his soldiersrecalled that"the sire [...] liked his food hot,"141and no doubt Peter recognized the advantageof bringingdishes to table as soon as theywere prepared.Little could he anticipate that in a neat culinarytwist, service à la russe would become the rage in mid-nineteenth- centuryEngland and France (Charles Dickens was one of the firstto introducethe Russian manner of dining to English society). The sequence of courses we eat in America today derives directlyfrom the Russian styleof service. Overall,however, the culinary changes wroughtduring Peter's thirty-sixyear reign were notable. By the time his daughterElizabeth seized the thronein 1741, lemons and oranges were no longer a luxury,and English beer was in greatervogue than traditionalRussian brews.142If we thinkof our era as one of celebritychefs, we need only look at Elizabeth's Russia to find that there,too, the most sought-afterchefs cooked to great acclaim and 137 Richard Chancellor The FirstVoyage to Russia,in: Rude& BarbarousKingdom pp. 26-7. Thisaccount was first in 1589 in Hakluyt's The vol. 1. 138 published PrincipalNavigations, Korb of an Austrian of vol. 167-168. 139 Diary Secretary Legation, 1,p. Ibidem,vol. 2, p. 157. 140 Chancellor The FirstVoyage to Russiapp. 26-27. Kashin Ruskoisoldat, o Petre 42. 142 povestvuiushchii pervomp. See Shcherbatov O povrezhdeniinravov v Rossiipp. 223-225,and Cross By theBanks of the Neva p. 19. 508 Darra Goldstein receivedenormous salaries.143 Peter himself had been less interestedin theactual preparation of foods thanin introducingthem, favoring the scientificover the gastronomic(though it is curious that in a list of books purchased in 1716, including such predictable titles as KünstlicheMaschinen fürWasserkunst, Mühlewerk und Feuer Spritzen,Manière de fortifier les places par le plus fameuxIngenieur, avec figures,and Mémoires d'artilleriepar Remy, we find also Délices de la Grande-Bretagne,Délices d'Italie, Délices d'Espagne et du Portugal).144Many at courtconsidered Elizabeth's frivolityand tastefor things French a relief afterthe practicality of Peter's reign.Elizabeth's love of luxurymeant that during her reign Frenchinfluence was increasinglyfelt, and by theclose of theeighteenth century food in the homes of the wealthywas unabashedly French. Russia's most affluentfamilies regularly employed French chefs, who supplanted the Germanic influences of Peter's era. Chic Russians now ate sup instead of ukha or pokhlebka,sufle instead of theirnative (irachena, an ancientwhipped-egg dish.145 The nobilityeven went so faras to orderpies, breads, and sweets directlyfrom Paris, which arrived in Petersburgwithin six days. Those who were not contentwith mail order simplytook themselvesto Paris, returningwith tales of the latest trendsin food and dining. With so much foreigninfluence, Russian cuisine lost its national characterand became increasinglycomplex. The vocabulary surroundingmeat is particularlyrevealing of the changes thatoccurred. When Petertook the throne,large joints of meat were still roasted or braised in the greatRussian stove, or grilledon a spit,but by the end of century,meat was cut up intosmall pieces thatdemanded complicated handling. Fancy menus of theday began to list bifshteks(steak), entrekot(entrecote), file (filet), shnitseV (schnitzel), and klops (meatballs) along withthe standardRussian zharkoe or roast. As noble families strove to outdo one anotherin the preparationand service of food, noveltyand luxurybecame the norm.By the late eighteenthcentury, meals served by such well-known gastronomes as Prince Grigorii Potemkin, Catherine the Great's favorite, providedgrand occasions forshowing off. Not onlydid Potemkinhave a silverdinner service fordaily use, he also reputedlyhad kitchenwareof pure silver,including vast stockpotsthat held sixty-fivegallons each.146With his unlimitedresources Potemkin spared no cost to elicit Catherine's delight. Avidly imitatingthe latest European trends, he strove to be as sophisticatedas his European counterparts.He and othermembers of the Russian nobility enjoyed creatingmagical, neo-classical settingsthat transported guests to distantplaces and times.For one famousparty Potemkin transformed his diningroom into a Caucasian grotto completewith a fullyengineered stream spilling down an artificialmountainside. Roses and otherfragrant flowers grew in profusion,while myrtleand laureltrees were resplendentwith fruitscrafted of gems. On Catherine'sarrival, a chorusbroke into song, limningher praises 143 Shcherbatov O povrezhdeniinravov v Rossii p. 223. This practice continued throughoutthe eighteenthand nineteenthcenturies. In 1789, forinstance, the personalchef of Matvei Matveevich Eck, St. Petersburg'sPostmaster General, received 600 rubles a year. In a letterto Samuel Formey,Johann AlbrechtEuler wrote thatEck had "une cuisine superbe: il donne à son cuisinier 600 roubles par an, et il fautl'avouer, qu'on ne mange nulle partsi bien que chez lui, et qu'on y boit des vins délicieux: aussi il ne lui manque jamais des convives...". Letter of 31 August/11 September 1789, cited in: Taurisson 'Les nourrituresterrestres en Russie' p. 151. 144 Rospis' o vziatykhknigakh in: "1716 goda." Sbornikvypisok iz arkhivnykhbumag o Petre veli- kom. Moskva v un. tip. 1872, pp. 30-31. 145 Drachena lacks thedelicacy of a soufflé,which is made withseparated eggs. A half dozen whole eggs are beaten,with flour added graduallyto make a smooth,thick batter. Then enough milk is added while beatingto make a liquid batter,which is poured into a butteredskillet and baked until lightand puffy. 146 Pyliaev Staroe zhit'e p. 6. GastronomicReforms under Peter the Great 509

in ancient Greek.147Despite such displays, some commentatatorsclaimed that Catherine showed littleinterest in grandeur.For instance,she allegedly preferredboiled beef with pickles and a sauce made of dried deer tonguesto any recherchéFrench fare.148 The ostensiblesimplicity of the Muscovite era and its decline under Peter's rule was the subject of a cantankeroustreatise by the conservativecount Mikhail Shcherbatov,"On the Corruptionof Morals in Russia". Writingnear theend of theeighteenth century, Shcherbatov complained thatthe reformsinitiated by Peter the Great had led to Russia's deterioration. Specifically,the nobility's excessive socializing at table led to moral deterioration: "Themeals were not of the traditional kind, that is, whenonly household products were used; now theytried to improvethe flavour of themeat and fishwith foreign seasonings. And of course,in a nationin which hospitality has alwaysbeen a characteristicvirtue, it was nothard forthe custom of theseopentables to becomea habit;uniting as itdid thespecial pleasure of societyand the improvedflavour of the food as comparedwith the traditionalkind, it establisheditself as a pleasurein itsown right."149 In thispassage Shcherbatovproved himself a moralistand spoilsportwho soughtto diminish the conviviality of the shared table even as he recognized its delights. What apparently troubledhim mostwas the idea of thetable as "a pleasure in its own right,"with no thought given to our relationshipto the food we eat or our moral and religious obligations as we partake of it. Such seeming indifferencewent against the very grain of what Shcherbatov judged to be truehospitality, which he correctlyidentified at the core of Russian culture.He was grievedby the factthat hospitality often contained more thana touch of personal pride. Yet pride had long ago intrudedinto the sacred ritualsof hopitalityas prescribedby the Domostroi. As Olearius wrotein the mid-seventeenthcentury: "The highestmark of respectand friendshipthey show a guestat a feastor in thecourse of a visit,to conveythat he is welcomeand that they approve of him,is as follows.After the guest hasbeen fed, the Russian has his wife,richly dressed, brought out to theguest to presenthim witha cup of vodkafrom her own hand.Occasionally, as a markof particularfavor to the guest,he is permittedto kissher on themouth. This great honor was renderedme personally by CountLev AleksandrovichShliakhovskii, when I was lastin Moscow,in 1643."150 The apparentlysimple act of presentinga guest withvodka was, even in pre-Petrinetimes, a carefullycalculated display of the host's power and wealth. In despair over the perceived loss of a golden past, Shcherbatovoverstated his case in favorof the erstwhilesimplicity of Muscovite lifebefore its contaminationby foreignways. Yet despite his lack of objectivity and even credibility,Shcherbatov's treatiseis useful for its reflectionof the conservative mood among nobilitywho desired the returnof a more purelyRussian past. Like Shcherbatov,the eighteenth-centurypoet and playwrightAleksandr Sumarokov foundthe societal changes unsettling.In a treatiseentitled "On the Use of Foreign Words in the Russian Language" he excoriated those who chose foreignwords over native Russian ones, makinghis pointwith several examples fromthe culinary sphere. Although Sumarokov 147 Lotman, Pogosian Velikosvetskie 28-30. 148 obedypp. Pyliaev Staroezhit'e p. 6. PrinceShcherbatov supported this image of Catherine,claiming that sherefused to dismiss a particularlyunskilled cook, in contrastto Potemkin,who forced Prince Nikolai Golitsynto retireas High Marshalof theCourt for failing to ordera favoritedish prepared.See Shcherbatov O povrezhdeniinravov v Rossiipp. 246, 290. 149Ibidem 143. 150 p. The Travelsof Olearius p. 158.Kotoshikhin also describedthe practice of allowingguests to kiss thehost's wife and drinka gobletof double-or triple-distilledvodka. See Kotoshichin O Rossii v tsarstvovanieAlekseja Mikhajlovicha pp. 159-160. Well intoPeter's reign, women were still being paradedout to kisshonored male guestsand offerthem a charkaof vodka.See Korb Diaryof an AustrianSecretary of Legation, vol. 2, p. 208, and Weber The PresentState of Russia,vol. 1, p. 148. Ifthe Emperor abashed women by bringing them out of seclusion,he also liberatedthem from servile behavior,at leastin modernterms. 5 10 Darra Goldstein

- allowed forthe introductionof foreignwords foranimals and fruitsnot native to Russia - such as carp,sardines, capers, olives, lemon,oranges, and bitteroranges he maintainedthat therewas no reason to call thesandpiper, kulik, by theFrench term bekas.ì5ì In what way was sup preferableto the traditionaland evocative Russian pokhlebka,which up untilnow had servedits purpose more thanadequately? "What need is thereto say insteadoïplody.fruktyl insteadof stolovoipribor, stolovoi serviz?...instead of nachal'nyi povar, kikhenmeisterand even more strangely,kukhmistrl [...] German and Frenchdeform our language."152 But the conservativevoices of Shcherbatovand Sumarokov were lost in the nobility's quest forprestige, and as the nineteenthcentury drew near, European dining habits were firmlyentrenched in Russia. Peterthe Great's reformsand subsequentculinary refinements had broadenedand polished Russian cuisine.Russia was enteringthe westernworld withall of its attendanttemptations, not theleast of which lay in the realm of gastronomy.Adapting westerntrends to theirown needs and tastes,the Russians ultimatelymade theirtable quite sophisticated.By encouragingthe nobility to adopt a more European sensibility,by teaching themetiquette and expandingtheir palates, Peter accelerated the process of refinementand civilizationthat might otherwise have takendecades longerto complete.153Emerging into a public domain, the Russian nobilitygradually abandoned the cloistered,secretive world of Muscovy. But althoughPeter succeeded in refininghis subjects' manners,he could do little to tempertheir innate, hearty sense of extravagance.The nobleman may have donned new clothes and shaved his face smooth,but a Russian bear still lurkedbeneath the debonair surface.Only now he clutcheda forkin his hand.

151 Sumarokovbetrayed his own terminological confusion here. The Frenchbécasse or "woodcock" was borrowedinto Russian to refer neither to thewoodcock (val 'dshnep,from the German) nor to the kulikor "sandpiper,"as lamentedby Sumarokov.Bekas in Russianrefers to thecommon snipe. For moreon wildfowlsee S. T. Aksakov Zapiskiruzheinogo okhotnika Orenburgskoi gubernii. Ed. by S. V. Kirikov.Moskva 1953. An Englishtranslation is availableas Sergei TimofeevichAksakov Notesof a ProvincialWildfowler. Evanston 1998. 152 Polnoesobranie vsekh sochinenii v stikhakhi proze...Aleksandra Petrovicha Sumarokova. Chast IX. Moskvav un-skoitip. u N. Novikogo1781, p. 275. 153The culturalhistorian Dmitri Likhachev believedthat without Peter's reforms Russia would have remainedtwo hundredyears behind the times.See his Byla li epokhapetrovskikh reform pereryvomv razvitiirusskoi kuFtury?, in: Slavianskiekul'tury v epokhuformirovaniia i razvitiia slavianskikhnatsii XVII-XX vv. Ed. byD. F. Markov.Moskva 1978,pp. 171-174.