In the USSR, the very first ice cream factory was opened in 1932 — when the Minister of Food Supply (if translated not too liberally) Anastas Mikoyan visited the United States of America and was so impressed with their ice cream, he decided that Russia needed something of the kind. So the ice cream making technology and equipment were imported and the ice cream supply to all and everybody began. The process was highly regulated and, indeed, the quality of Soviet ice cream was enviable. If  in 1932 the total amount of icecream produced was about 300 ton, then 10 years later it grew about 270 times — in 1940 there were  82 thousand ton of ice cream produced.

The city of Khabarovsk, 1970.

This numbers were lost during the WWII as the factories had to cease work — but it quickly recovered and by 1950 there was a 20% increase of what was made before.

The sweet choice: the brick, the cup, the cone, the works. Unfortunately, the flavour variety was limited to two flavours: plain sweet or chocolate.

Funnily enough, in Russia the ice cream on a stick had become synonymous with the word eskimo — named after the indigenous people of the Northern countries.  You could walk in a shop and ask for two eskimos!

Everyone’s favourite treat

An ice cream street vendor. Moscow, 1959

Year and author unknown, yet a very sweet picture

Pioneers: I’ll have what he is having!

Moscow, 1934. Would have been one of the very first ones!

Another street vendor — apparently, there is some march of protest on and everybody is politically concerned

Image courtesy to LIFE magazine archives

Image courtesy to LIFE magazine archives

Most likely it’s late October — early November, yet she must be making a mint!

A Moscow winter

Not your average job — selling icecream to the Russians

A cheery Soviet ad poster for the ice cream

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Here is a twee collection of paintings by various Russian artists picturing breakfast time in Russia of different periods, from 1918 throughout to late 1970s. It provides some insights into an everyday life of simple people and their meals on the go, before work, very low key and casual.

Still life: Morning. By Kuzma Petrov-Vodkin, 1918. Just like anywhere else in the world, eggs are popular and the dog is hungry.

Just like many, Russians liked their eggs, bread and sausages — a hearty start of the day.  The brass item pictured is samovar — a metal water boiler which has been around for centuries. These samovars have always been popular as part of tea  making process — even nowadays you can find a moderninsed version of one in almost every house. It is also a popular wedding gift and a traditional Russian souvenir, as it symbolises hospitality and qulaity family time.

Apparently there is a concept of Russian Tea that exists in the West: strongly brewed black tea with a wheel of lemon and generous amounts of sugar. This sweet and sour concoction is indeed popular in Russia, however, nobody calls it “Russian tea”.  Just tea with lemon.

Tea party; by Popova. 1966.

A cup of coffee; by Elena Shumakova.Can’t go wrong with cheese and pastries!

In summer there were healthier alternatives available: freshly picked strawberries and cream in a jug would be enjoyed just like anywhere else in the world. Please note the fine lace of the tablecloth — very popular in Russia of all times.

Berries and Cream; by Elena Shumakova, 1983

Another country life illustration; please note a slighly different shape of the samovar. Also — bagels, extremely popular Russian wheat snack. Sugar cubes, a frequent substitute for regular sugar, which was hard to buy at times. A traditional tea glass, with an iron glass holder, an icon of those times and a well sought after collectable item now.

Still Life: Samovar; by Elena Shumakova.

On the terrace; by Zhukovsky.Neat!

Naturemort: five eyed fried eggs; by Osmerkin, 1950.

Another model of samovar and a more common breakfast altogether: eggs, butter, bread.

Morning Tea and Flowers; by Grabar; 1939.

To finish off, a few paintings which do not exactly picture breakfast times, but still appear very Russian and full of ambience.

February; by A. Laktionov, 1956.

Alcohol-inspired paintings tend to have lots of zest for life, too.

Still life: a Teapot on the Table; by P. Konchalovsky. 1946.

Still life, name and year unknown, by Elena Shumakova.

Country Life (name of paper), by Bobrov. 1983.

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The every day Soviet life was far from luxurious, however, the government had its ways of making people believe that life was good and constantly getting better. An interesting means of achieving it was a notable culinary book published in the USSR – The Book On Tasty and Healthy Foods. This book, a few inches thick, turned out to be more than a collection of recipes – it is considered to be an encyclopaedia of the Soviet epoch, an insight into the ordinary life of the Soviets.

The most famous image behind the Russian food, caviar was literally impossible to buy (let alone exorbitantly expensive!)

Originally it was created as a way to deliver information on the culture of dining, the values of home cooked meals and good eating habits. Written by prominent chefs and dieticians of the time, the book was approved by the minister of health and then by Stalin himself (the first edition dating 1939). Everything that went into it was carefully chosen and selected. Apart from the recipes, it contained information on how to plan a weekly menu for a family, what is healthy eating, how to serve the tables nicely, as well as basic principles of  food handling and kitchen hygiene.

Dairy products: most likely, this is the whole range of dairy foods available in the USSR. Milk, cream, plain youghurt, eggs, cheese, canned coffee cream and skim milk. That was it.

Nowadays this style of cuisine would be called fusion, as it contained recipes from all over the Union: borscht was followed by lamb pilaf with the Soviet style black forest gateau for the dessert. Usually the recipes were simple and would not demand fancy ingredients or time/labour investments. The food shortages were still on and the book could only stretch as far. A few easy meat recipes, a sauce or two, simple salads – surprisingly, “meat and three veggies” recipes were universal across the globe.

Meat and three veggies Soviet Style. Yum.

The images in the book were not considered to be an advertising material – they were merely a way to form the demand for the foods produced by the food factories – as everything, it was planned in the Soviet economy.

Unappetisingly looking preserves: green capsicums, meat in cabbage parcels, eggplant chutney.

Interestingly, in some later edition, fish was a recommended dietary element at least once a week – that was dictated by the shortages of meat: the protein levels had to stay up in order to keep the nation nourished and thus maintain the medical costs at bay.

Dinner on the stove: tinned beef garnished with green peas. No, it was not called spam.

Cooking was not considered to be art or indulgence; rather, it had a technological focus — typical for the Soviet era of industrialisation. Here a very important point was made about who would do the cooking: the traditional, western-style family, where the man is the breadwinner and the woman is the pretty homemaker would go against the Soviet ideology, in which women were equal partners and comrades. Therefore the image of a wife was being shifted from a stove towards the factory production line, and a husband would eat something simple, something cooked for the entire family in the weekend, for instance.

Extended family hand-making meat dumplings — later to be frozen.

Noteworthy, until the 1980s, the book contained no actual photographs — only drawings. However, it does not justify the sad-looking foods pictured in it. Some of it looks just inedible.

Green peas soup with croutons, wheat porrige well-buttered and jelly for dessert, anyone?

Desserts are always nice, though. Timeless, too.

Chocolate cake, served with tea.

Because restaurants were scarce and the whole concept of dining out was simply non-existent, dinner parties played a very important part in every person’s life. Labour Day on the May, 1st; Victory Day on May, 9th; November 7th (the Revolution Day) and New Year’s Eve were to be celebrated in style and in abundance — regardless of the food supplies.

Soviet alcohol selection: sparkling wine, white wine from Georgia, white port, Georgian port.

Such dinners required a lot of leg work as hunting for the necessary ingredients was required and queuing for as long as hours was unavoidable. However, the outcomes were remembered for long and treasured with all hearts. Family time together, what could be nicer, really.

Circa 1970s. At a table.

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1981. “Milk” (rus. Moloko). In the front a woman pushes the blue pram with a ‘window’. It was incredibly difficult to buy this sort of prams in those times.

Milk

1965. In Soviet Russia people do not think too much about inventing names for the outlets owned by the state. All the stores were simply named: “Bread”, “Milk”, “Meat” or “Fish”. On the picture — “Grocery Store”.

Grocery

1987. Home appliances (rus: “Electrotovary”).

Source: germanych.livejournal.com (In Russian)

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1959. Typical grocery department. There is not too much food-stuff on the shelves. Actually, the shelves are completely empty. There is something behind the salesman hanging on the wall. It is difficult to recognise what that actually is. Look like decomposed cow carcasses or something wrapped in the oil-paper. Well, we want to believe that it is just meat.

In the grocery

Source:  germanych.livejournal.com (in Russian)

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