Date: Wednesday 19th February 1975
Venue: The Staff House, The University of Birmingham
Sponsor: Professor R.E.F. Smith
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Buckland Club – Russian Dinner ’75
A Russian dinner was held at the Staff House, University of Birmingham on 19th February 1975.
Our sponsor, Professor R E F Smith of the department of Russian Language and Literature at Birmingham University, told us that Russian food was coarse food. The Zakuski with which we started, before we went into the dining room, were large chunks of bread with various kinds of fish, vegetables and meat. One member thought them “church hall-ish”. This may have been authentic. They were eaten with vodka – very cold, but perhaps in two elegant glasses. In Russia, we were told it is drunk from large tumblers, if not from the bottle.
Vodka since the 18th century has formed part an important part of the Russian economy. The gentry were able to convert perishable and bulky grain, which they received as rent, into a more valuable and readily marketable product: vodka. The state obtained an important part of its income from taxation on vodka. Vodka today is still drunk in very large quantities.
Our sponsor told us an anecdote about Khrushchev dying and going to heaven where he encountered the last tsar. Nicholas II enquired in detail about Russia: was his beloved army the same? The people? The officials? To each question Khrushchev replied ‘Yes, your majesty, exactly the same’ until those are asked about the vodka, ‘Ah’ replied Khrushchev proudly ‘that is five degrees stronger’. ‘Well,’ said the tsar, ‘was it worth having a revolution just for that?’.
We sat down to a warm and nourishing cabbage soup called Shchi. Cabbage has been grown in Russia since before 1000 AD and cabbage soup has long been a basic peasant dish. It is normally made from sour cabbage or rather pickled cabbage, but if sour cabbage is not available, fresh cabbage is used and the soup soured with whey or buttermilk. Ours was made by the latter method. Shank of beef was boiled to make a stock. The beef was removed and cabbage put in. When ready the beef was cut up and returned to the pot and sour cream added. More sour cream was served separately.
The soup was excellent but not perhaps quite authentic. The Russian peasant would not normally have beef in his soup and he would certainly not have degreased it as the chef in the Staff House had done. Our sponsor quoted a Russian professor of chemistry writing in the 1870s. “Obviously everyone prefers cabbage soup with mince to plain cabbage soup … I am only saying that the muzhik does not consider meat important as regards its effect on work. The main significance in food he attaches to fat. The fatter the food is the better.” Professor Smith stressed this point further by giving us two Russian popular sayings. These sayings used some expressions probably not previously heard at the Club, I have therefore seen fit to quote them only in the original Russian:
Our meat course was Hare with Buckwheat and Beetroot. We were reminded that Russia is a country unsuited to farming. It is essentially a country of forests a country of food gathering rather than agriculture. Fish, fungi, berries and game exist in great variety and are excellent. Our hare was marinated, larded, fried in butter and dressed with sour cream. In many cases however it was not excellent. My own was good, but some members described their portions as dry and tough. The buckwheat was good and had been treated as described in the second popular saying quoted above. Beetroot was also less good than members felt the staff house should serve.
Our sweet, Kisel, was simple but good. Sort of full made from cranberries, red wine and arrow root, decorated with almonds and whipped cream.
Throughout our meal we had drunk Russian wines and we ended with tea. Not served from a samovar although Professor Smith’s beautiful collection of samovars was on view. The use of tea spread in Russia in the 18th century when trading contact was established with China. Tea was almost the only thing praised by the French visitor to Russia, de Custine. The people were small and very ill scented. The nobles smelt worse but the tea “always of good quality and well made”. Our tea was not Russian but was well made.
Professor Smith again quoted de Custine told us that “in Russia popular pleasures are melancholy in character: mirth is viewed as a privilege… the man who laughs is either an actor, a drunkard or a flatterer”. In this respect our dinner was not authentic. If correctly course and perhaps unexciting gastronomically, it was verbally interesting, agreeable and witty: certainly not a melancholy evening.
44 members and two guests attended. Their names are as follows: –