A Gift to Young Housewives
A Gift to Young Housewives (Подарок молодым хозяйкам) is a Russian cookbook written by Elena Ivanovna Molokhovets (Елена Ивановна Молоховец). It was the most successful book of its kind in 19th- and early 20th-century Russia.[1] Molokhovets revised the book continually between 1861 and 1917, a period of time falling between the emancipation of the serfs and the Communist Revolution. The book was well known in Russian households during publication and for decades afterwards.[2]
The original series went through 20 editions and sold 295,000 copies. The book gave instructions for elaborate dishes like suckling pig, Madeira cake, and hazel grouse. Other recipes included soups, fritters, tortes, mushrooms, aspics, mousses, and dumplings. There were also instructions on making jam, mustard and vodka. Although the number of recipes varied by edition, there were as many as 3,218 in the 1897 edition.[3]
In addition to recipes, the book covered cooking techniques, utensils and cooking equipment, stoves and ovens, household management, relations with servants, menus for feast days, nutrition and also gave time and money-saving hints.[3]
During the Soviet era, the book, written for the middle class and aristocrats, was condemned as "bourgeois and decadent", mainly because of its aristocratic tone and obvious disparagement of the lower classes. The book, for instance, says that "fresh roach is not very tasty and barely useful; it's, therefore, best used to feed the servants."[4] Also, it was mostly outdated for the 20th century, as for obvious reasons it didn't cover usage of modern kitchen equipment: refrigerators, electric and gas ovens, etc.
In the post-war USSR, where people dealt with long lines, food shortages and scarce ingredients, cookbooks were mostly seen as a laughable anachronism.[3] A recipe for babka, for example, called for ingredients such as 60 to 70 eggs, which few people could afford at that time. But as life was getting better, the need for cookbooks and complex recipes was arising. In 1952, "The Book of Tasty and Healthy Food" was published to replace outdated "Gift" as an everyday cookbook.
Joyce Toomre adapted and translated recipes and other content from the various editions into a 1992 book published as Classic Russian Cooking: Elena Molokhovets' a Gift to Young Housewives.
See also
References
- ^ Christian, David (April 1994). "Classic Russian Cooking: Elena Molokhovets' A Gift to Young Housewives". Russian Review. 53 (2).
- ^ Kurlansky, Mark (2002). Salt: A World History. pp. 174–175.
- ^ a b c Visson, Lynn (Summer, 1995). "Review of Classic Russian Cooking: Elena Molokhovets' a Gift to Young Housewives". Slavic Review. 52 (2): 431–432.
{{cite journal}}: Check date values in:|date=(help) - ^ "A Gift to Young Housewives" (in Russian).