Mastering the art of Soviet cooking : a memoir of food and longing /
Anya von Bremzen.
- First edition.
- viii, 338 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm
Includes bibliographical references.
Poisoned madeleines -- Feasts, famines, fables. 1910s : The last days of the Czars ; 1920s : Lenin's cake -- Larisa. 1930s : Thank you, comrade Stalin, for our happy childhood ; 1940s : Of bullets and bread ; 1950s : Tasty and healthy -- Anya. 1960s : Corn, Communism, caviar ; 1970s : Mayonnaise of my homeland -- Returns. 1980s : Moscow through the shot glass ; 1990s : Broken banquets ; Twenty-first century : Putin on the Ritz -- Mastering the art of Soviet recipes.
Born in a surreal Moscow communal apartment where eighteen families shared one kitchen, the author grew up singing odes to Lenin, black-marketeering Juicy Fruit gum at school, and longing for a taste of the mythical West. It was a life by turns absurd, drab, naively joyous, melancholy and, finally, intolerable.
0307886816 9780307886811
2013007787
Von Bremzen, Anya
Women cooks--Soviet Union--Biography Food writers--United States--Biography Cooking, Russian--History--20th century. Food habits--Soviet Union Russian Americans--Biography