CCCP Cook Book: True Stories of Soviet Cuisine

by Fuel, Olga Syutkin (Contributor), Pavel Syutkin (Contributor)

As the Soviet Union struggled along the path to communism, food shortages were commonplace, and both Party authorities and Soviet citizens had to apply every ounce of ingenuity to maximize often-inadequate resources. The stories and recipes contained in the CCCP Cook Book reflect these turbulent times: from basic subsistence meals consumed by the average citizen (like okroshka, a cold soup made with the fermented beverage kvass) to extravagant banquets held by the political elite (suckling pig with buckwheat), with a scattering of classics (beef stroganoff) in between. Each recipe is introduced with a historical story or anecdote from the period, and illustrated using images sourced from original Soviet recipe books collected by the authors, food historians Olga and Pavel Syutkin.

Many of the sometimes extraordinary-looking pictures depict dishes whose recipes used unobtainable ingredients, placing them firmly in the realm of "aspirational" fantasy for the average Soviet household. In their content and presentation, the recipes and illustrations act as windows into the cuisine and culture of the era.

CCCP Cook Book offers an illustrated history of Soviet cuisine told through the stories and popular recipes from the period. The book contains 60 recipes from the Soviet period, including such delicacies as aspic, borscht, caviar and herring, by way of bird's milk cake and pelmeni.

Genres: Food, Cookbooks, Russia, Nonfiction, History, Cooking, Cultural

192 pages, Hardcover

First published September 29, 2015

Reviews

[Jazzy Lemon · Rating 5 out of 5]

A cookbook? yes, but that is secondary as it is so much more. Part of the authentic culinary story of Soviet Russia.

[Miina Lindberg · Rating 4 out of 5]

A really interesting and highly entertaining book about the history of the Soviet Union told through food. I grew up with many of these dishes (well, not the fancy ones) and I will surely try to follow some of these recipes. I especially enjoyed learning more about the historical background of the dishes represented in this collection.

[Katarzyna · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thing of exceptional beauty. Sophisticated eye candy!
Fired eggs with jam though...

[Michael · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a curious book. It is published by FUEL, a London publisher that publishes books on different aspects of Soviet life, including for example a two-volume title of photographs of Soviet bus stops.

This USSR (which is what CCCP is standing for) cook book is built around 60 recipes representing different areas of Soviet "cuisine" with one page essays and the recipes themselves accompanied by a photograph of resulting dishes taken from mostly older Soviet cook books. (Apparently the publisher decided these Soviet photographs published in Soviet books are in the public domain.) Some photographs of posters and advertisements or other materials are also included.

The one page essays often talk about different Soviet cook books and their authors although this information is in English only and it might not be easy to identify the original publications.

The book was written in Russian and translated into English but I don't think it was ever published in Russian; it reads as though the writers assumed a foreign audience.

The subtitle, "True Stories of Soviet Cuisine," doesn't seem very accurate to me. Something more like "The History of Soviet Cooking Told by Soviet Recipes" seems more accurate.

I was a little surprised to find this book was available from my local public library. Well, at least I read it.

[Grisha Temchenko · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting book and design. It is organized as a collection of recipes of representative Soviet time dishes, and one or two pages related stories about each recipe. Once, it features stylized pictures of the dishes and quick recipe for it, but what is worth in it is its stories. Published in 2010s, it is written in modern language (e.g. not equating Soviet and Russian terms), and supported by modern understand of history. As such, it was interesting to learn about Russian/Polish disputes of the origins of vodka; the story of invented "central asian" salad "Tashkent"; the reasons why buckwheat in Eastern Europe is different from Western Europe (it was dried to extend shelve life). Well worth reading!

[Freya Gordon · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love this book as a piece of social history - I liked the pictures taken from older cookbooks, the little essays on the importance of the foods described. I'm a little less clear on some of the recipes though. For instance the recipe for Salo seems to be missing some steps? It seems to be telling me to take pork, rub it in salt and pepper, then insert garlic in cuts in the meat and refridgerate fpr 4-5 days - and then it goes straight to 'serve as an appetizer'. That doesn't sound like a whole recipe. I feel like if you're telling me to serve raw pork I'm going to need more information than the essay above it about vodka. There's a lot of inconsistency in the way recipes are presented as well - for instance some of them tell you how many the stated recipe will feed - some do not. One recipe lists bay leaves twice in it's ingredients list. A surprising number of dishes seem to require a food processor - which doesn't seem very traditional.

[Anna L · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read this book out of novelty, as a person who grew up with Soviet food in the last days of the Soviet Union. And while the historical anecdotes are amusing, and recipes are informative, the book comes up short on describing an authentic Soviet experience, being written through the lens of people who seem to never have left the relative comfort of Moscow and its environs. Moscow was always both more prosperous than (and wholly oblivious to) the rest of the country, and that shows in the writing.

[Benjamin Kahn · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this, not as a cookbook, but for the social history around food that the authors tell as a preface to each recipe. I found these stories to be very interesting - I never realized how much seafood was consumed in the Soviet Union. It was a very interesting book, and the design captured the era beautifully. I can't speak to the recipes, as I didn't try any of them, but for the insight into life in the Soviet Union, the book was fascinating.

[Dagne567 · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ähh, ma ei viitsinud eestikeelset raamatuversiooni sisestada. Täitsa asjalik raamat. Väga Moskva- ja Venemaa-keskne, a no nad midagi muud ei lubanudki ju. Tasub koduriiuliga autasustamist kaaluda. Hämmastaval kombel tekkis tahtmine paari retsepti isegi realiseerida.

[Bookthreat · Rating 5 out of 5]

Read our review at https://bookthreat.com/2017/07/04/pol...

[c_in.a.bubble · Rating 4 out of 5]

The book is great, the translations is awful, so bad that sometimes it’s almost impossible to understand whole paragraphs.

[E G Melby · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fascinating look at how Soviet Union took various regional food and drink and standardized it, or attempted to. Great photos

[Reinher Behrens · Rating 5 out of 5]

Lovely combination of Soviet history and cuisine!

Приятного аппетита!

[Canaan Perry · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a superb point of reference for anyone interested in food ideals from behind the Iron Curtain. I love this book.

[Bill · Rating 4 out of 5]

Here is a book that covers a subject I had never thought about, Soviet Cuisine. Each recipe comes with a story giving a window into the details of that era of history. The book is European so the measurements are in grams and some of the ingrediants may be easier to find on the internet than in a supermarket. Still if you like to read about food or cook this is a great book.

[Lina · Rating 5 out of 5]

I just finished reading the CCCP Cookbook, which features 60 recipes from Russia's Soviet period, and loved it. The value of this cookbook is not in the recipes which are covered elsewhere, but in the historical information about each dish and food culture during Soviet times. The authors are food historians, and the CCCP Cookbook seems more a way to convey this history to the public than to distribute recipes, most of which are covered elsewhere. The history, though, is fascinating, covering everyday and "aspirational" dishes where the ingredients were not actually available to the average citizen. Each story and recipe is accompanied by an original photo from the era. The photo quality isn't the greatest (they are copies from Russian cookbooks at the time) but are hilarious, particularly the ones of the futuristic aspic creations.

My only complaint is that it's small. With a list price of $32 and because it was a cookbook, I thought it was going to be a cookbook-sized book, which it most definitely isn't; it's the size of a paperback novel.

[Serena · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well written book, talking about Soviet food, as seperate from Russian. Soviet food had influences including mass production, shortages, ethnic diversity, changes in celebrations, and large scale food distribution. As a vegetarian who dislikes mayonnaise, many recipes left me cringing, but a few I copied down. It was the stories of the food that were more the reward for me.

[Elizabeth Judd Taylor · Rating 5 out of 5]

A cleverly presented book--it resembles books I brought back from the Soviet Union in college--that includes many recipes that can be made today along with their histories from the Soviet era. There are also lots of vintage photos and illustrations as well as cultural history.

[Laura · Rating 5 out of 5]

An interesting and nicely presented look at Soviet cuisine, complete with stories about the dishes. I don't really fancy making any of the recipes, though.

[Daisy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Like a history book. What fun.

[lady.livresque · Rating 4 out of 5]

I didn't read this book so much for the recipes, as I did for the glimpse of food culture in the former USSR. For this it was interesting to see Soviet propaganda juxtaposed with recipes eaten by the people from roughly post-revolution (early 1900's) until the 1980's.

By no means am I an expert on Russian culture, but I did enjoy the interesting tidbits & stories the authors included to help paint a picture of why so many of these recipes were incorporated and adapted by the Soviet party. Most are fairly simple ingredient-wise, though not all sounded super-appealing to my millennial American taste. Several sounded intriguing, and I've copied them down to incorporate into my meal plans.

If anything, this book (bad pun alert!) has left me hungry for more, and I'll be curious to learn more about Russian history through something as relatable as food. A recent TASTE article that caught my attention digs a bit deeper into why Russian cuisine is so "haute" right now, considering the current political (and cookbook) climate. Give it a read here: https://www.tastecooking.com/its-diff...