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What People Ate in the USSR When There Was Nothing on the Shelves: Lifehacks That Are Still Useful Today
When I think back to my parents' stories about the Soviet Union, I am struck by how unusual their approach to cooking was during the times of severe food shortages. Life.ru has already covered what officials and the rich ate back then, but today we will look at the other side of the coin.
Soviet culinary masterpieces were full of creativity. Surely in your family there are memories from your parents about the hardest years of shortages, when parents and dad played the card game "Thousand" in the evening and ate boiled macaroni with grated sour apples.
In conditions of shortage, Soviet cuisine developed very quickly, the diet consisted mainly of bread, cereals and a small amount of vegetables, and people learned to cook hearty meals from simple products during the week. We suggest considering other culinary solutions of the peoples of the Soviet Union. Let's remember the methods that were used in the Soviet Union when there was nothing to eat.
When there was no food on the shelves, people used little tricks to diversify and expand their stocks. At the end of summer, after gardening and harvesting, everyone began pickling, drying and marinating everything that had grown that season.
Substitutes were often used. Milk was diluted with water, meat was replaced with bone broth with various herbal additives, and cutlets were made from generously breaded pork belly. Of course, this was much simpler, because city dwellers had their own farms, and vegetables planted in greenhouses could grow a little longer than the end of the summer-autumn period.
Vegetable and flour gravies and sauces were used. We "expanded" the dish and made it tastier. Adding oatmeal and semolina to the dough replaces eggs and milk when they are not at hand.
Of course, the most popular dish was soup. Borscht, shchi, solyanka with cereals – all meat was minimal or not at all. For example, the famous "Herring under a fur coat", in which the herring can be replaced with less expensive fish. And Soviet housewives made sweets from crackers, jam and caramel. Pastries, cakes and cookies can be made from the simplest ingredients. "Kartoshka" cookies are made from breadcrumbs, cocoa and condensed milk. This allowed us to create recipes that we still remember as iconic for that era.
When something “special” needed to be prepared for a holiday or festival, families often joined forces to share products and recipes and organize joint lunches and dinners. Some brought vegetables, others meat or sweets, and a whole feast was arranged. Soviet people also actively exchanged food products with their neighbors, colleagues and friends. This support allowed many families to enjoy variety at the holiday table even in difficult times.
Every housewife in the Soviet Union had great ingenuity and creativity, thanks to which simple products not only satisfied hunger, but also created home comfort. The originality of this signature dish was so ingrained in its time that it remains in the memory of many families today. Also on Life.ru you can find detailed recipes for 5 dishes that every Soviet person ate.