Soviet cuisine

Ukrainian borscht with smetana, pampushky, and shkvarkas

An everyday Soviet full course meal (lunch or dinner) consisted of three or four courses, typically referred to as "first", "second", "third", and "fourth"; an optional salad was not numbered. In a restaurant, one could eat anything one liked in any order, but in a typical canteen, especially in a workers' or students' canteen, one would normally have received what was called a "combined lunch" (kompleksny obed). The first course was a soup or broth, i.e., "liquid" food. The second was some kind of "solid" food: meat, fish, or poultry with a side dish, called "garnish" (Russian: гарнир). Garnishes typically included potatoes in a variety of forms, buckwheat kasha, macaroni, etc. Bliny, baked dishes (Russian: запеканка zapekanka), or eggs could also be served as the second course. The third was something to drink: tea, coffee, kompot, milk, kefir, etc. The fourth was a dessert.

Typical vegetable salad made of tomatoes, cucumbers, onions, and dressed with smetana

Green vegetables and salads were seasonal, and with some exceptions uncommon at the table. Spices were rarely used and food had a generally mild taste. There were no differences between breakfast, lunch, and dinner meals. Lunch was always consumed with a soup as a first course. A tradition of a "fish day" on Thursdays, when fish or other seafood was consumed instead of meat, was started in State-run canteens and cafeterias to alleviate a shortage of meat, but nevertheless filtered to many private households. The common approach, which still somewhat holds today in Russia is: eat a lot at each meal, few times a day. Eat nothing between meals – the reason for this was that the State-run eateries in the Soviet time was largely under the control of doctors, and the medical wisdom at the time was that snacking between major meals would ruin the appetite (especially for children) and will lead to indigestion and intestinal distress. A typical lunch meal could consist of chicken-broth-based soup or borscht for a first course and fried meatballs or goulash served with boiled potatoes or buckwheat porridge as a main course. Butter or sour cream was typically used as a sauce.

Zakuski at a celebration table

Holiday meals were typically derived from old French and Russian cuisines with extensive use of heavy sauces, marinated meats, and melted cheese. Mixing ingredients and extensive cooking was common, just as in classic French cuisine. Generally, much effort was made in order to prepare such meals. Often, the richness of a holiday table was an issue of honor for the family.