on 2 June 2011, the Day of a healthy diet and avoiding excesses in food — the holiday is not the best known, but very useful. Those who during the regime of isolation managed to gain a few pounds or, conversely, rethink the diet and lost weight, it will be interesting to find out how to eat Russian classics in XIX century, — what limit themselves and what never could resist.
it is Known that Tolstoy was a great opponent of food excesses. In 1891 he published an article “the First step”, which outlined his views on intemperance in eating, blocking the way to goodness. In the article he tells how he came to vegetarianism: describes a horrible scene of slaughter animals and speaks with contempt about people who are too eager to fill the stomach. Here is how ironic, he writes about the process, reflected in the catch phrase of françois Rabelais, “the appetite came while eating”
For a brief description of this feast Tolstoy uses the harsh word “Grange” and claims that people eat more than their body requires, pretending to not want to eat or burdened by the duty to dine, finally, complains that while traveling all conversations are reduced to planning meals and not visiting the museums. Refusing to age 50 from meat, Tolstoy kept his position all his life, leaving out animal foods in the diet of only eggs and dairy products, and later refused and then he the advice of a physician deception poured milk in the cereal. Due to the outbreak of health problems in the early twentieth century, doctors strongly advised him to start eating eggs, fish and drink chicken soup, but he flatly refused, preferring carrots and cauliflower.
“He’s a vegetarian, and that destroys itself” — in the hearts cried out in 1902, Sophia Tolstaya in her diary. Frightened the wife of the writer and the volumes absorbed them plant food — they are little different from the “Granja” reproved Thick in the “First steps” people and obviously hurt him. In her notes, you can find descriptions of huge servings of buckwheat porridge, mushroom soup, slices of rye bread, which he preferred to eat while working.
Who did not refrain from the joys of making delicious food — so it is Nikolai Gogol. And right now it’s not about traditional Ukrainian cuisine, the dishes of which he grew up. Borsch with fritters, dumplings and dumplings with cherries remained only in the memories after a trip to Italy. Having lived in Rome from 1837 to 1846, he became the Eternal city, entirely his own, “Signor Nicolo”. He wrote the first volume of “Dead souls”, quickly learned Italian and soul fell in love with the local cuisine. Periodically, he returned to Russia and visited other European countries, but his soul all the time was longing for Italy, which he quickly began nto ativate second home. “…Flew to my darling, my beautiful Italy. She’s mine! Nobody in the world will not take it from me! I was born here,” he wrote in 1837 from Switzerland Vasily Zhukovsky.
Arriving in Russia, he gladly introduced his friends with their new gastronomic tastes: in Italy, he fell passionately in love with a variety of pasta, ravioli, gnocchi and other dishes prepared from dough. Always prepared himself, arguing that the pasta in Russia nobody knows how to do. Friends good-naturedly laughed at Gogol chef, and especially on the degree of readiness of his pasta — with Alden in Moscow at that time was known all. Here is how he described Sergei Aksakov, one of the many Italian dinners, which hosted the main mystic of Russian literature, in his book “the Story of my acquaintance with Gogol, with the inclusion of all correspondence from 1832 to 1852”:
He fed his undercooked pasta and writer Mikhail Pogodin, in the manor of which he lived, ending with “Dead souls” (from the estate, previously in the area of the virgin’s field, today there is only one house, the famous Pogodinskaya izba). Pogodin as well as Aksakov, was more impressed with the manufacturing process than by the overseas dish.
As Leo Tolstoy and Gogol have revised your diet. He lived a short life, only 42 years old. Shortly before leaving he stopped there, as if punishing himself for chrevougodnichestva, and instead of sleeping I prayed. Some researchers think his death was probably a suicide — a writer like starve myself and insomnia.
what is in the House of Gogol: a life of the main mystery of the Russian literature and exhibits
it is believed that the descriptions of the luxurious meals in “Eugene Onegin” reflect their own tastes of its author, and all of these foods he regularly ate. The love of exquisite dishes Pushkin felt already in conscious age — in the family of the future poet was no cult or delicious, or even healthy food. His companion in the Tsarskoye Selo Lyceum Anton Delvig once broke out this epigram:
a Friend of Pushkin, I want to taste
a Bad oil, eggs rotten,
So come and dine with me
Today, their home.
These lines kept Anna Kern. Who knew both, it was accompanied by a mocking verses explanation: Delvig “did not like to dine in the elderly Pushkin, which were not groceries, and in this case he was of the same opinion with Alexander Sergeevich”.
the Poet raised by a nanny Arina Rodionovna, all his life kept his love for simple food. His favorite dessert was gooseberry jam. In the main dishes he most appreciated satiety. Kern recalled that lure Pushkin for lunch his mother had managed, vowing to serve baked potatoes. Respected poet and Botinew, a cold soup made from boiled beet tops. Pyotr Vyazemsky talked about his preferences as follows:
And here is how he described his diet Natalia Pushkina Boldino of the links in 1833: “Wake up at seven o’clock, drink coffee and lie up to three hours. Recently signed, and had already written the abyss. In three hours on horseback, five in the shower and then have lunch potatoes Yes grechnevoy porridge. To nine hours — read”.
But it happened and this simple consumer, like Pushkin, a craving for gourmet food. For example, serving a link to Michael, he once wrote to his brother Lev with a request to send something to him from Petersburg: “Wine, wine, rum (12 bottles), mustard… the suitcase travel. Cheese limburgish”. Belgian Limburg cheese, or limburger, which, incidentally, was a favorite dish of Peter I, is very sharp flavor. The surviving legend, cheese secretly threw Arina — too much groin product overseas. However, other requests Pushkin brother was easier and delicacies did not contain: “my Soul, mustard, rum, anything in vinegar, Yes to books” — here is a typical list is given by Pushkin in a letter dated March 14, 1825.
Asleep in the theater, lost cards, argued with the mother-in-law: what Pushkin did in Moscow
In prose by Ivan Turgenev, as in his life, delicious food and the process of eating was Central. The famous phrase, expressed once in the hearts of Turgenev critic Vissarion Belinsky, with whom the writer had a very close relationship: “We have not yet decided the question of the existence of God, and you want to eat!”
Turgenev grew up in the family estate of Spasskoe-Lutovinovo, surrounded by fruit trees and meadows with grazing cows. At the head of the household was his strict mother Varvara Petrovna. Growing up, he got in a fight with her, and led her mistress to the tyrant in “Mumu,” and adored as a child my mother’s specialities. For example, chicken lutovinovka. Special meatballs from whipped dough into the shape of a carrot still cooking in Orel and Orel region, and the recipe is credited to Varvara Petrovna Turgeneva.
Large part of his life Turgenev was not in Russia. After moving to France, he enjoyed gourmet meals in Parisian restaurants in the company of Alphonse Daudet, Emile Zola and Gustave Flaubert. But more missed simple Russian cuisine and, according to the memoirs of Pauline Viardot, was preparing beet soup to impress her. In one of his visits home, he visited Tolstoy. The Countess remembered later that the guest was asked to arrange a simple dinner: “the Soup manami cereals, sprinkle a little more dill pie with chicken and something else, don’t remember…”
However, most often, at home he ate only boiled chicken, falsely complaining that other here do not know how to cook. The writer was cunning: p��ichinoe his diet was he developed gout.
Moscow Turgenev: from the street on moss and to Clean the ponds
the Creator of “a hero of our time” and “Demon” brought up who adored his grandmother, in his youth, he was terribly greedy. Contemporaries remembered that the amount of food and his indiscriminate eating terribly all entertained, especially the ladies. First, the friends of Michel fun exchanging jokes that he’ll, “like Saturn, will swallow stones,” and then came up with a very cruel joke. Worst of all, Lermontov was that one of the pranksters was Ekaterina Sushkova, whom he was hopelessly in love. In his “Notes,” she recalls the incident that took place in 1830.
And what? We returned home, tired, hot, hungry, eagerly took up the tea, and our deli Michelle, not panormas, ate a muffin, went for another and already moved to his third, but Sasha and I stopped his hand, showing at the same time in neugebachene for a stomach stuffing.”
Realizing what happened, the poet jumped up and ran away. Some days he did not appear in the eyes of the offenders. His love for Miss Black-Eyes, as they called black-eyed beauty Sushkov, gradually disappeared. The second time they met in 1834. Sushkova and Lermontov turning the tables and already she was looking at him concerned, and he at her with boredom. Sushkova was going to marry his friend Alexei Lopukhin. Native boys were against — the bride had a reputation for flighty women. At the request of the Lopukhin sisters Lermontov deceived Sushkov, forcing him to throw the groom, and then left her.
