Pies vesiga, the mummy goose, Limpopo and 5 more unusual dishes in Russia

Many people think that in order to tasting exotic dishes you need to go to Thailand or Bolivia. But there are unusual dishes and the national Russian cuisine, but undeservedly forgotten. Let's talk about the food two or three centuries ago were familiar to our ancestors, and now is surprising.

If you are a culinary historian and not an enthusiast of Russian cuisine, the names of these dishes you may be familiar with from the books, and the recipe is altogether unknown. No, in the old Russian cuisine not fried cockroaches and not baked earthworms, but still some of our Goodies cause shock and even disgust.

Poppy in Russia has always been an important product — it was the perfect addition to sweet dishes. In rich families went even further — it was replaced with cow's milk poppy. It sounds impressive, but to obtain such a product is quite difficult. To do this, take 200 grams of poppy seeds, carefully crushed in a mortar and then poured the substance is water.

As well as from milk of the poppy received the curd. On such an unusual production indicate many ancient sources, but unfortunately, the technology of manufacture of the cheese is now lost. So we have to believe in the word of ancient authors, who claimed that it is nutritious and incredibly delicious.

Some centuries ago in Russia was adored by all stuff. It is now customary to stuff ducks and geese apples, but a century ago they were stuffed with porridge, turnips, eggs, onions and even bread! Most often, oddly enough, the Russian people have stuffed sheep as a whole or in parts. In the course went all the organs of the animal.

In the famous "Domostroy", published by Ivan the terrible, describes how to prepare certain dishes, including guidelines for handling with a lamb:

This dish hails from the Kuban and its recipe and perfect properties for camp life of a free Cossack. Koubek is prepared from pig's intestines of the stomach, lungs and liver. Also the course is a pig's head, which cut the meat carefully. All components of the dish finely chopped and mixed in the pot with the onions and peppers.

The resulting meat is placed in a pig's stomach and sew. Received a bag stuffed with marinated, sometimes right in with the campaign of Cossacks could Koubek carry with you all day, often in the heat. By the evening of the resulting intermediate product was cooked in a cauldron, about two hours, and then again the same baked on the coals, from top to coat with butter.

In old Russian villages there were not too satisfying times when food was trying to use all of them with minimum waste. Came up with meals, not only the intestines, but also from the bones, not just Pets. Vesiga is a chord of sturgeon can say that their range. It consists of cartilage, similar to a long, flexible whip.

The vesiga were extracted from the fish separately dried and received a product that could be stored for a very long time. With vesiga baked, mixed with minced fish, but there were other interesting recipes. Fishermen, not being able to cook their own food during fishing, did not disdain, and just dried vesiga, drinking plenty of her brew or water.

By itself, this product is very hard, so before you add a vesiga pies in its several parts are boiled. Properly cooked vesiga very tender and tasty, and in addition it is believed that this part of the sturgeon is the most rich in nutrients and trace elements.

Popular in the 19th century Russian dish with the strange non-Russian name of Limpopo was both a dessert and a drink. In 1850‑ies was not in Petersburg, Moscow and Nizhny Novgorod, the tavern, where I would not suggest this delicacy. The recipe for this culinary masterpiece looked no less exotic than the title.

For a real Russian Limpopo took custard bread with raisins, made him the biscuits, then fill them with light beer, which added rum, lots of sugar and finally, lemon juice. Isn't it unusual combination? Now you know how to change over time tastes.

The ceiling is dried goose long term storage, we can say — the mummy goose. Cooked it in the Russian countryside in the fall and most of the dried half of the birds, rarely entire. Goose cut along, I extracted the bone, and then placed in a barrel with saltpetre and spices. Placed on top of the cargo and themselves barrels of resin, giving them integrity.

In this form the carcass was left for a few months on the street, until the spring. In March or April barrel with geese were opened, dried in the nitrate birds were removed, and then further smoked. After that, the ceiling was considered fully ready to eat. They say that they enjoy, you had to have very strong teeth.

For cakes in Russia a special relationship since ancient times. However, modern cakes have little in common with those products that was made by our ancestors. First, before they made them huge, and secondly, as toppings used are not always familiar products.

Pies with savory fillings are called loaves, and in some regions — pies. Often loaves are stuffed with bacon, not only pork, but also beef and lamb even. Of course, this was not the only component of toppings — bacon, added onion, boiled eggs, minced meat. Probably, it was very tasty and definitely a lot of calories!

Ture is a cold soup, which many believe is the oldest dish of Russian cuisine. No one knows when ture appeared, but it is known that it was popular among the peasants before the baptism of Rus. The popularity türi strikes in some parts of Russia it was used in the 20‑ies of the 20th century.

To prepare the ture is very simple, since the canonical recipe, this dish has. In the brew, milk or even plain water crumbled crackers and then added the onion, butter or oil, but if the spices were, and their. All this for some time and currently used cold. Now this many seem muck mud, but for the poor it was nutritious and affordable food, which helped to survive.

Yes, most of these us food belong to the national kitchen and they were characteristic for the diet of peasants and poor townspeople. But you realize that even the very rich Russians ate quite bearable, compared with their counterparts from Europe and Asia, which in times of famine no kneading ture, and baked bread made from wood flour, or catching frogs.