What Russians Eat

What is a regular Russian food ordinary people eat?

Picture: Soviet posters advertising food (left—sausages, right—mayonnaise). The text in small font in the mayonnaise ad reminds that empty jars can be returned to stores for a refund. I write extensively about these, and other realities of Soviet life in my book “Was It Better in the Soviet Union?: A life journey through the last decade of the USSR.”

The subject of modern Russian cuisine is broad and complex, which is why I have been hesitating to write about it for some time. Still, you can’t avoid writing about culture without mentioning the topic of food. I've shared some recipes for traditional Russian dishes in my previous publications; links are provided below.

Modern everyday Russian cuisine is incredibly vast and diverse. For the most part, it stems from Soviet culinary tradition. Majority of the common food you'll find on a Russian table were invented in Soviet times and over thirty years after the USSR collapse still firmly hold their position. Yes, you can find a variety of cuisines in fancy cafés and restaurants, but not many people can afford to dine in those places. Besides, when you consider everyday eating habits, even the rich, in their homes prefer meals their grandmothers used to cook.

Most Russian families still cook at home. Almost any Russian meal requires considerable amount of time for preparation and making, due to complexity of recipes. Thus, home-made food is cooked in large batches for it to last for several days. If it’s a homemade pelmeni, you’d make several dozens and store it in the freezer. Kotlety count also comes in dozens; store it in a fridge, microwave later and your meal is ready. Soups are made in large pots, again to have them readily available during the week ahead.

Food preferences of Russians vary and depend on a number of factors, including the region of the country, family traditions, financial standing, general lifestyle, age and so on. Especially regional cuisines can have distinct dishes and cooking traditions. Another important thing to understand about contemporary Russian cuisine is that over seventy years of Soviet history it absorbed many kinds of foods common in other Soviet republics. Nowadays, Russians believe many of those borrowed dishes to be traditional Russian, which is not the case.

It is impossible to list all the dishes modern Russian cuisine has to offer. I will mention food you typically find on most Russian tables, in food stores and in dining places affordable for everyone. Those are not dishes you see served in posh cafés in downtown Moscow, but ordinary down to earth food people actually eat. Also, this post will highlight certain eating habits of Russians.

As a side note, in different areas of Russia you will find special dishes of a local cuisine based on locally available products. Each local cuisine is worth a separate publication, so I won't mention any in this post. Each family has their own recipes and meal preferences, that is millions of recipes and their variations.

If you'd like to check what a specific product or dish looks like, copy its Russian name (in parentheses) and paste it into a search engine of your choice. It will get you pictures and maybe recipes of dishes and foods.

Needless to mention products you’d find in European or American stores too: fruits and vegetables, seasonal, grown on dacha, imported or from local greenhouses. Namely, that is tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, zucchini, carrots, beets, apples, pears, watermelons, plums, bananas and many other kinds of produce.

Drinks.

Let's start with drinks, but not alcohol. Hot drinks include tea and coffee and I believe both have 50/50 popularity. At least in every food store you'll see large sections, each stocking teas and coffee. Black tea seems to be more in demand, but you can easily find green and herbal teas too. Following the trend, cafés and restaurants offer a choice of teas to satisfy all tastes. Loose teas are more popular than teabags, although both are available. Many Russians are tea nerds and being served a tea made with a teabag is an insult for them. There are specialty stores, selling a variety of coffees, teas and tea blends from all over the world. Instant coffee is still widely popular and in most stores you’ll find a huge selection of it.

As for other traditional drinks, there is a selection of them to be made at home, buy from a food store or order when eating out. Kompot (компот) is a popular drink made by boiling dried fruits, a choice of which you’ll find in stores. Mors (морс) is a sour drink made of cranberries and other berries. Kvas (квас) is a sweet-sour malt beverage made by fermenting cereals. All three drinks are served cold. Kisel' (кисель) is a drink made of fruits or berries with a very thick texture because starch is one of its ingredients.

Sodas, tastes of which were invented in Soviet times, are still a big part of every grocery store stock: Tarjun, Baikal, Dyushes, Buratino, Sayani and many others. You will also see varieties of fruit and vegetable juices on store shelves for good reason—they have been very popular since Soviet times. Mineral waters that have medicinal properties are also popular, especially those bottled at the well, with natural sparkling.

Breakfast.

Eggs in a variety of styles go as breakfast food. Scramble is not very common in Russia, but simple fried eggs and omelets are regular dishes on many Russian tables. If you are invited for dinner, you might try stuffed eggs, which is more of a holiday dish. Stuffing depends on what recipe your host is using, as there are dozens of them.

Boiled sausages are also in popularity as a breakfast meal. In stores, you'll see many varieties of sausages for boiling. Eggs fried with sausage is also a very common breakfast in Russia.

Boiled sausages with potatoes, vegetables, pasta or buckwheat on a side make a lunch or dinner meal.

Kasha, mostly oatmeal is popular, although it takes time and skill in cooking, unless one chose instant oatmeal. Some families make rice or millet kasha (каша), special automatic electric cookers help in fixing it.

Buterbrod (бутерброд), an open sandwich made of a piece of bread (black, rye or white) topped with cheese (can be soft cheese that you smear on top of the bread), a slice of sausage, ham or any other food of your choice. I love my buterbrod with pickled salmon. Buterbrod works not only as a breakfast food, but also as a quick snack.

Cereals, hundreds of brands and varieties, are available in abundance and hold their firm place as breakfast food. Cereals were not known in the Soviet times; they came to Russia after the USSR collapse, thus it’s the same product you’d find in shops in Europe and America.

Dairy: buttermilk, yoghurt, cottage cheese or tvorog (творог) , snezhok (снежок), sour cream or smetana (сметана), ryazhenka (ряженка). A famed breakfast meal is cottage cheese mixed with sour cream or yoghurt. Sirniki (сырники)—small cottage cheese cakes, pan fried. Glazed cottage cheese bars (глазированные сырки), you'll see many varieties of them in dairy sections of any store. Zapekanka (творожная запеканка) is a popular casserole made of cottage cheese, served with jam, condensed milk or sour cream.

Soups.

In Russia, soup is an absolute must as a lunch meal. It is a widespread opinion that one must eat soups regularly as they are good for the digestive system. Everywhere you go to have lunch you'll be offered a choice of soups. Borsch (борщ), click this link for my recipe)) seems to be a staple food, but dozens of other soup types can be found on a Russian table. To name a few: pickled cabbage soup schi (щи), a soup made of pickles and meat delicacies solyanka (солянка), chicken noodle soup (куриный суп-лапша), fish soup ukha (уха), cold summer soup okroshka (окрошка), click here for recipe.

Main dishes.

Pelmeni (пельмени), Russian dumplings of a roundish shape with meat, chicken or fish stuffing. Pelmeni take a lot of time and labor to make at home, but stores sell them factory-made, frozen, hundreds of brands and varieties. It’s a quick-fix meal: just boil it in water for about ten minutes, and it’s ready. Pelmeni are typically served with condiments: sour cream, mayonnaise, vinegar. Cafés and restaurants often serve pelmeni in broth.

Meat dishes are very popular and there is no way of listing them all. So famous beef Stroganoff you can spot in restaurant and café menus, but at home very few people cook it. Another widespread dish is "French meat." I think French chefs will be utterly surprised to learn that such a dish exists in French cuisine. It's pork steaks, oven baked under a layer of mayonnaise, topped with shredded cheese. Other meat dishes include steaks, stewed meat with vegetables and a huge variety of other types of cooked meat: pork, beef, lamb, you name it.

Poultry such as chicken, turkey and duck are also everyday meals, from whole roasted chicken to thousands of meals cooked by countless recipes.

Kotlety (котлеты), one of the Russian cuisine staples, are meat patties made of beef, pork, poultry, fish, usually pan-fried, served with garnish and sauce. It's a common dish in households and dining places. Mashed potatoes or buckwheat make a good garnish for kotlety.

Stuffed peppers (фаршированные перцы), cabbage rolls (голубцы) are very popular Russian dishes that can be served as a separate meal or complimented with a garnish, such as buckwheat or steamed rice.

Pasta is frequently served as a garnish, but as a standalone meal it is fixed with fried ground beef or tomato sauce.

Mushrooms hold a special dear place in the hearts of Russians. Mushroom picking is a famous seasonal activity of many Russians. Mushrooms can be stored canned or served pan fried, often in combination with onions and potatoes.

Shashlik (шашлык) is a classic Russian barbecue, although it apparently is a variation of kebabs. Shashlik is a seasonal summer dish, although if one lives in a private house that has dacha suitable for winter use, barbecue off-season would not be unusual.

Garnish.

Buckwheat (гречка)—a staple food in the Russian cuisine. Boiled buckwheat goes as garnish or a standalone dish complimented with butter, fried mushrooms, onions and carrots or boiled egg.

Potatoes: boiled, mashed or pan-fried (жареная картошка): cut in thin slices and fried with vegetable oil, butter or pig fat (popular in rural areas). Boiled potatoes are often topped with fresh chopped dill. Dill, parsley, cilantro are staple herbs of Russian cuisine. French fries do exist in Russia, but never as a home-made food.

Stewed cabbage (тушеная капуста) makes an easy-to-make garnish. It can be stewed with the addition of carrots and onions.

Salads, appetizers.

Russian salads come in a variety of styles. Most Russian salads extensively use root vegetables, eggs, canned vegetables, canned fish. The product choice reflects food availability in the USSR. Although you can find something like Caesar salad in almost every menu, salads based on Soviet recipes prevail when it comes to eating habits of ordinary people. The main condiment for Russian salads is mayonnaise. I will name just a few that seem to be in the most popularity: mimoza (мимоза), olivie (оливье), vinegret (винегрет). If you are in Russia or have a Russian store nearby, you can buy most of those salads pre-made to try. Yet, there are thousands of recipes for salads in Russia and with every meal, maybe except breakfast, you will find a salad on the table. Many salads use seasonal vegetables, and it can be as simple as tomatoes and cucumbers seasoned with sunflower oil or sour cream. The recipe and choice of products for a specific salad depends on individual taste, choice of available products, time available and cooking skills.

Check out my herring under a fur coat recipe, another staple dish of modern Russian culture. Considering the complexity and time required to make this dish, you mostly see it on a holiday table, yet you can buy seledka pod shuboi from stores any time.

Meat products such as sausage (колбаса), ham (ветчина), boiled beef tongue (говяжий язык), meat in jelly (холодец), pickled pig fat (сало) and plethora of others are inevitable part of the Russian dining. Buzhenina (буженина) is a whole piece of pork, oven-baked and usually served cold. Typical condiments for meat products are horseradish and mustard, both very spicy.

You might encounter the term myasnaya narezka (мясная нарезка), which means a plate with an assortment of sliced meat delicacies. Rybnaya narezka (рыбная нарезка) and syrnaya narezka (сырная нарезка) respectively are plates of assorted fish delicacies and cheese. Cheese is popular as an everyday food, but choice of cheeses can appear limited in Russia, compared to other countries.

Pickled/smoked fish. The most popular pickled fish is herring, which you can find in many varieties, in different brines, whole or filleted. There is a choice of herring from the Atlantic and Pacific. In addition to herring, salmon (лосось) and makrelle (скумбрия) are also popular, primarily pickled or cold-smoked. Shrimps you can buy in almost any store. Seafood such as scallops are more widespread in the Far East of Russia.

As for fish, a multitude of fresh water and sea fish species are used in cooking various fish meals. Salmon (especially wild salmon), cod, pollock, flounder, sprat, boy I could go on forever. Russian chefs and housewives bake, fry, steam fish, using hundreds of recipes. Fresh water fish is also very widespread: lake trout (farmed), carp, saran, pike, sudak.

Red caviar for most it’s a holiday product, though few people can afford to buy it due to prohibitively high prices. There are many kinds of red caviar; I wrote a short guide on buying red caviar (click this link.)

Pickles, canned or fermented in barrels: cabbage, tomatoes, cucumbers, mixes of various vegetables are popular especially in winter. Many of the pickles are homemade, but you can find a good assortment of them in any store.

In stores, you’ll see stacks of canned fish from tuna to salmon and herring and a variety of canned meats. Canned food is either used as ingredients for soups or salads or as standalone dishes.

Bread, sweets, pastry.

Bread. Bread used to be a cult product in the USSR and hasn't lost its popularity since Soviet times. Invariably, bread will be served on the table with each meal. Bread is very affordable and has many varieties from white to rye and black.

Sweets, of which I wrote a separate article here.

Pastry (выпечка) scene in Russia is huge. Pancakes (блины), large and very thin, the thinner, the better. Often come wrapped with cottage cheese or ground meat. Pirozhki (пирожки), small dough pies, with a variety of stuffings: meat, jam, egg, liver, cabbage. There are hundreds of other kinds of pastries; type выпечка in the web search and see for yourself. I also want to mention cakes of all sizes and types, which you can try in pâtisseries

Be aware that the food Russian families make for holidays and special occasions is a separate subject worthy of a separate article.

Sorry for such a long post, but the topic demands it. Did I miss something? Tell me.

In addition, I thought I’d share what I eat (check the picture below). I hate to brag about food, but I am a foodie and when I have time and mood I am up for fixing a good meal. So, what did I have on Sunday, last week, and how much all this food costs?

I had two appetizers. First appetizer is typical for the Russian Far-East: locals in central parts of Russia barely know this kind of food: Khe. Khe is a dish of Korean origin: herring marinaded in vinegar and species, mixed with carrots and onions ($3 per can of three servings). Second appetizer is olives in a special marinade with assorted pickles, imported from Spain, $2.4 per 180g glass jar. The salad was a simple lettuce mix, $1 per 140g pack, bought on a special (normal price is $1.5). Finally, the main dish: chum salmon (Keta) bellies, $3 for a 500g pack (frozen), and baby potatoes, $0.8 per kilo, complimented with scallions ($1 per bundle). Currency conversions are rough, but you can get an idea of what things cost in Russia.