Of any restaurant in Throndhjem I cannot speak from personal knowledge, but two or Tie Britannia three or my correspondents have had a good word to say for the cookery at the Britannia. XXII RUSSIA Russian Cookery — St. Petersburg — The Clubs of St. Petersburg — Moscow — The Moscow Clubs — Odessa — Kief — Warsaw — Hel- singfors— Yalta. Russian Dishes Russia deserves full credit for having retained a national cuisine, and a very excellent cuisine it is. Some Russians are gourmands, and before dinner or lunch make a preliminary meal from the Zakouska buffet, where potatoes and celery, spiced eels, stuffed crayfish, chillies stuffed with potato, olives, minced red cabbage, smoked goose flesh, smoked salmon, smoked sturgeon, raw herring, pickled mushrooms, radishes, caviare, look very tempting on their separate plates, and where an array of liqueur bottles with the vodka most in evidence keep them company. It would be obviously unfair to call all Russians gluttons because some of them eat too much, as it would be to call them all drunkards because some Russians can drink a surprising quantity of champagne at a sitting. Soups are the principal contribution of Russia to the cuisine of the world. The Russian Moujik, when he first stirred some sour cream into his Schi or cab- bage broth, little thought that from his raw idea the majestic Bortch and kindred soups would spring. In England Bortch and Rossolnik , the latter a soup in which cucumber juice and parsley and celery roots . 380 Russia 381 play their parts, are the only Russian soups generally known ; but they are only two out of two-score delightful soups of the national cuisine. Batrennia and Okroshka are two soups which are supped cold ; Uktra is a favourite fish soup, and Selianka is a particularly delicate soup made from the sturgeon and sterlet. Many of the Russian soups obtain a distinctive flavour from roots, or berries, or nuts, which is a proof of their peasant origin. A purely Russian custom is to serve little fish pasties with the soup. These are either eaten separately or put into the liquid and beaten into pieces. These pasties or pates are of all sizes and all kinds. They may be a tiny scrap of paste enveloping one or two shrimps, or the more elaborate Tartelettes St. Hubert , or the Rastegai which is almost in size a fish-pie, a circular casing of very light paste containing a complicated fish stuffing, a little round hole in the top of the pate being left in order that the gourmet, before he eats it, shall put some fresh caviare there. A Rastegai is generally cut into four pieces, and makes four exquisite mouthfuls. Of fish, chiefly fresh-water fish, Russia has an abundance. The sturgeon naturally makes its appearance in some form on most menus, and so does the sterlet, which is generally cooked in white wine and served with shrimp sauce. One of the distinctively Russian fish dishes is a pie of successive layers of rice, eggs, and fish, which is something like our Kedgeree. Cold boiled Moscow sucking-pig is very delicious meat. The little pig is fed from his birth to the day of his death on nothing but cream, and its flesh is pure white. Horse-radish sauce and the sharp-tasting cream, which it is a libel to call “sour,” are eaten with this angelic piglet. Roast mutton stuffed with buck- wheat is a dish by no means to be despised.

AI-modernized reading of the original text

Of any restaurant in Throndhjem I cannot speak from personal knowledge, but two or Tie Britannia three or my correspondents have had a good word to say for the cookery at the Britannia. RUSSIA Russian Cookery — St. Petersburg — The Clubs of St. Petersburg — Moscow — The Moscow Clubs — Odessa — Kief — Warsaw — Helsingfors— Yalta. Russian Dishes Russia deserves full credit for having retained a national cuisine, and a very excellent cuisine it is. Some Russians are gourmands, and before dinner or lunch make a preliminary meal from the Zakouska buffet, where potatoes and celery, spiced eels, stuffed crayfish, chillies stuffed with potato, olives, minced red cabbage, smoked goose flesh, smoked salmon, smoked sturgeon, raw herring, pickled mushrooms, radishes, caviare, look very tempting on their separate plates, and where an array of liqueur bottles with the vodka most in evidence keep them company. It would be obviously unfair to call all Russians gluttons because some of them eat too much, as it would be to call them all drunkards because some Russians can drink a surprising quantity of champagne at a sitting. Soups are the principal contribution of Russia to the cuisine of the world. The Russian Moujik, when he first stirred some sour cream into his Schi or cabbage broth, little thought that from his raw idea the majestic Bortch and kindred soups would spring. In England Bortch and Rossolnik , the latter a soup in which cucumber juice and parsley and celery roots . 380 Russia 381 play their parts, are the only Russian soups generally known ; but they are only two out of two-score delightful soups of the national cuisine. Batrennia and Okroshka are two soups which are supped cold ; Uktra is a favourite fish soup, and Selianka is a particularly delicate soup made from the sturgeon and sterlet. Many of the Russian soups obtain a distinctive flavour from roots, or berries, or nuts, which is a proof of their peasant origin. A purely Russian custom is to serve little fish pasties with the soup. These are either eaten separately or put into the liquid and beaten into pieces. These pasties or pates are of all sizes and all kinds. They may be a tiny scrap of paste enveloping one or two shrimps, or the more elaborate Tartelettes St. Hubert , or the Rastegai which is almost in size a fish-pie, a circular casing of very light paste containing a complicated fish stuffing, a little round hole in the top of the pate being left in order that the gourmet, before he eats it, shall put some fresh caviare there. A Rastegai is generally cut into four pieces, and makes four exquisite mouthfuls. Of fish, chiefly fresh-water fish, Russia has an abundance. The sturgeon naturally makes its appearance in some form on most menus, and so does the sterlet, which is generally cooked in white wine and served with shrimp sauce. One of the distinctively Russian fish dishes is a pie of successive layers of rice, eggs, and fish, which is something like our Kedgeree. Cold boiled Moscow sucking-pig is very delicious meat. The little pig is fed from his birth to the day of his death on nothing but cream, and its flesh is pure white. Horse-radish sauce and the sharp-tasting cream, which it is a libel to call “sour,” are eaten with this angelic piglet. Roast mutton stuffed with buck- wheat is a dish by no means to be despised.

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