Traditional Russian cuisine, an important
part of Russian national culture, arouses a keen interest both
in Russia itself and around the world. In
times past, grain - wheat, rye, oats and millet - was the
main foodstuff in Russia. Russian people were engaged in ploughing
since time immemorial and so bread played a very significant
part in their diet. The festive table couldn't be imagined
without pies and other pasties. Pies were cooked with a cook
cereals, all sorts of pancakes and baked puddings. Cattle-breeding
was always popular in Russia as was hunting - hence a large
choice of meat dishes included those of wild animals and fowl.
Original and varied, Russian cuisine is famous
for exotic soups, cabbage schi and solyanka, which is made
of assorted meats. Russians are great lovers of pelmeni, small
Siberian meat pies boiled in broth.
Every housewife of any experience has her own
recipes for pies, pickles, and sauerkraut. Even more varied
is the choice of recipes for mushrooms, one of the most abundant
and nourishing gifts of our woods. They are fried, pickled,
salted, boiled and what not.
"No dinner without bread," goes the
Russian saying. Wheat loaves have dozens of varieties. As
to rye bread, Russians eat more of it than any nation in the
world--a peculiarity of the Russian diet.
As the Russian custom has it, a festive table
isn't worth this name without a bottle of vodka. Russians
are traditionally hearty drinkers:as good whiskey shall come
from Scotland, and port from Portugal, so Russian wheat vodka
is the world's best. We have an amazing variety to offer,
from the clear, colorless Moskovskaya and Stolichnaya to all
kinds of bitters with herbs and spices.
Of our folk soft drinks, kvass is the best-known.
Made of brown bread or malted rye flour, it goes down best
on a sultry summer day. If you add it to chopped-up meat and
vegetables, you get okroshka, an exquisite cold soup.
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