Eat it right away: TSU guest spoke about the traditions of the Russian table
TOMSK, May 31 – RIA Tomsk. Siberian cuisine does not exist, dumplings can measure the road from Tomsk to Krasnoyarsk, and jam from pine cones cannot be put on the table every day. The scientist Igor Shein told RIA Tomsk about this.
Igor Shein is a PhD in Biology, a biochemist, a plant physiologist, a gastroarchaeologist, a researcher of the Siberian table, a deli, a wine expert, a restaurant critic and a blogger. Last weekend Tomsk State University (TSU) with a lecture “Siberian public table of the late 19th – early 20th centuries”.
This lecture became part of the festive program of TSU in honor of the 14th anniversary of the university.
From May 26 to May 29, the State University held a festival of intellectual books and design “Book Dozen” for Tomsk residents. Here Shein discovered his new book about Siberian meals, public catering and tavern trade. The author analyzes in detail the serving of dishes, their ideas and manufacturing techniques.
– Igor, you have the right to call yourself a gastroarchaeologist. An unusual combination of sciences. What exactly are you calculating?
– I am engaged in Russian gastronomy, which existed before the (revolution) of 1917. The Russian system of dining – table à la russe – developed somewhere by the time of Alexander I and developed and improved throughout the 19th century. This classical period of Russian gastronomy is the subject of my study.
I am also interested, in the smallest detail, in the Siberian table. It is a mistake to say “Siberian cuisine”, because “there will be a kitchen” – multinational, anational cuisine – is nonsense. as a Siberian table – a place where dishes are national cuisines.
For example, Siberian dumplings are found Siberian not because they were invented here, but because there is a Siberian way of preparing and consuming them. No need to look for who invented it. Pelmeni simultaneously united in China, and in Siberia, and in the Urals. You have to watch how they are made.
Dumplings
In Siberia, it happens like this: in significant proportions, beef, lamb, poultry, game (big game, elk) – we chop finely and make dumplings. They should hang out in the cold in a linen bag, so that they get a little frostbitten, dried.
Dumplings in Siberia were molded in an intimate area within the family – and therefore intimate. I study a large number of menus and gala dinners, restaurant and club menus and have never seen dumplings served in public.
And dumplings could be a road dish. We then cook them, fry them, and freeze them. If without roasting – this is family consumption, with roasting – road consumption. In general, roads in Siberia were measured by gulls. There were 14 tea leaves from Krasnoyarsk to Tomsk, that is, you will drink tea 14 times before reaching Tomsk or Krasnoyarsk.
By the same logic, you can determine the distance on the road with dumplings.
– What is the meaning and tradition of table à la russe?
– Little does he remember that the whole system of dining in Europe in gourmet restaurants, to detect their reception, takes place in the table à la russe system.
This greatly affects the system where everything is scheduled. It is published in three parts, in three spaces. The first is a snack table. In Soviet times, we called it a buffet, but in Sweden, on the contrary, it is called Russian. This is a Russian diner. Unfortunately, they stand with him. This is the vodka space of the table. This is where the phrase “Russians drink while standing” came from.
Here you are the director – you yourself choose vodka from the whole arena and a snack for it. It was customary to approach the table three times. It’s better to have a bite of fish: lightly salted is good, and if it’s also Sosva’s herring, which in Tomsk was called manner, it’s very good. The second approach is to meat snacks, and vodka of a different taste. And finally – a vegetable approach, mushrooms under sour cream, mushrooms with a disease, that is, hemp oil.
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Igor Shein
Having warmed up the stomach with vodka and snacks, discussing all the news along the way, waiting for latecomers, everyone moves to other rooms and sits down at the table. In front of each is a cover (dining cutlery for the whole evening), on which lies the menu – A pleasant gastronomic “violence” woven by the chef and the owner begins.
Pacified by appetizers, they silently await the first change. This soup is the soul of the meal. It includes pies, kulebyaka or other dough products. The more solemn the reception, the smaller the bites to the soup. They eat silently – when I eat, I am deaf and dumb – drinking sherry or Madeira. The dinner table is wine territory, not vodka territory.
Immediately after the soup, you can try an attracted dish, which softens the transition from soup to the second act of the table performance. So, if the Windsor soup, thick, with a rich taste, based on veal legs and black beans, then after it you can immediately serve fish under galantine, that is, under jelly.
Anyway, after the first change, the interobservation begins. And here is champagne. It recharges our taste characteristics with its bubbles. Together with champagne, they start with a run of raw radishes (if summer) or pickled cucumbers (in winter). This is a brilliant flavor combination. Try it. And here, under the glass of foamy effect, speech, gratitude, health resorts begin. And so everyone is in the interspace.
The second change is the sauce that gives the dinner a foundation. It’s not a gravy, a type of dish. These are probably the best pieces of fish, meat, marine reptiles, and very carefully, without changing the taste of the product: steamed, lightly boiled, and so on. Wash it down with white or red light wine.
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Wine
Then another intermediary. Here they no longer drink champagne, but a cup of hot mulled wine, grog, burnt wine, warm themselves up before the big break – hot – at the top of the dinner.
Russian roast – bird roast – the most appetizing, the most complex dish of the Russian dinner. This is a set of birds, and the smaller they are, the more refined the dish. Ideal – lark, oatmeal, thrush, sandpiper. Salad grows as a side dish for roasts: in summer – with herbs, in winter – vinaigrette. All this is accompanied by an increased content of aged wine in the environment. Attachment infection – seasonal roots.
The fourth change is called “cake”. Here ice cream, soufflé, creme brulee, pudding, sabayon and so on are considered. The most important sweet procedure for such dishes is maraschino liqueur. The cake was accompanied by Tokay wine.
And towards the end, the table begins – to try what has been on the table from the very beginning of the dinner as decorations: marzipan bouquets, dry jam, fruits, berries, and so on.
And now everyone satisfactorily rises from the table and moves into the living room. This is the space of the tea table: tea, coffee, liqueurs.
After all this abundance, there is no heaviness in the stomach, because the menu combines in a balanced and balanced way. Hearty dishes alternate with ease, which are easily digested by every person.
– It seems that in this meeting we do not expect this meeting …
– Yes, we have lost coordination in this sense. By virtue of the structure of events in the first place. Before the revolution, everyone knew that this system and detection would not reach it. After the liberation of the space of the system Russian table, it constantly narrowed, but for a different reason – changes in the product base.
– What dishes in this system were served in Tomsk?
– Here, too, four changes were suggested (although their number may be more). These are daily cabbage soup, and also all kinds of dishes from hazel grouse – cheese, pudding, cutlet with the addition of truffles. Hazel grouse is generally a favorite bird of Tomsk residents at that time. As for fish, this is muksun: they also prepared whole arena of dishes from it. As a rule, ice-cream was served for recess.
– As a gastroarchaeologist, what do you think about the food of the future?
– I think that everything new is a well-forgotten old. And only in this case will a random and correct one be obtained. We must respect the table experience of our ancestors: they developed the rules for quality nutrition and food preparation.
We must preserve this food system and pass on the priority to the generation. If they start developing this experience themselves, it will be bad and scary. Already now we see marketing in gastronomy, which can be poisonous in the truest sense of the word.
For example, jam from cedar cones. If you use it, the pancreas may not like it very much. It is deadly to consume the widely advertised sagan daily tea. Both of these products were not used by our ancestors.
To use the experience of development, to strive for the harmony of nutrition in terms of its physiology for our body, to learn to enjoy food again – we have forgotten how to do this. Perhaps it should be “on the table” both today and in the future.
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Igor Shein