The Next Page Dish

The idea for the poem came when the great Russian poet Vladimir Mayakovsky dipped a slice of pineapple in champagne and suggested that Igor Severyanin should do the same.

After it was published, "pineapples in champagne" became a set expression for a beautiful life that one can only dream of.

The Russian dish polotok, translated here simply as ‘goose’, meant in fact a half piece of salted, smoked or dried boneless poultry.

Popular in the 18th–19th centuries, when the absence of refrigerators meant poultry had to be slaughtered en masse to preserve the meat, polotok was usually goose preserved with salpeter. 

Nettle shchi was consumed around spring, when the plants are still young and less rigid and bitter. Sorrel would be thrown into the mix to add a touch of sour to the generally flat taste of the nettle.

Shchi is one of the oldest Russian soups, first mentioned in the 9th century when the Slavs began to farm cabbage. The centuries have turned it into somewhat of a cultural phenomenon.

Then there appeared additional contributions from the master himself, the products of his kitchen: a fish-head pie, into which had gone the cartilage and head trimmings of a three-hundred-and-twenty-five-pound sturgeon; another pie with pepper mushrooms; fritters; dumpling boiled. (Transl.by Bernard Guerney)

Fish is an important part of the Russian cuisine. There are numerous ways to cook fish from stewing and frying it to salting, smoking, or baking it, using it as filling or as salad topping.

Fish was served in aristocratic houses, peasant huts and workers’ dorms, although while some feasted on the rare belorybitsa, others would have to make do with the cheaper Black Sea sprat. Today, Russia produces various fish varieties from northern whitefish salmon, muksun, omula, and nelma, to the Black Sea varieties of horse mackerel, mullet and goby.

From time immemorial, pirogi were a sign of hospitality and prosperity in Russia. This kind of traditional Russian pies was made predominantly with rye flour, as wheat was far more expensive.

The excerpt above mentions a great many kinds of pies including pryazhentsy or fritters with meat and onion filling, and maslyantsy, or small dumpling-like buns made with flour fried in boiling butter.