The Soviet Union Collapsed. Then the Fight Over Food Began
In a wave of gastro-nationalism, food became a political tool for nation-building. A new cookbook ties that history to the author’s own table.
In 1935, two years after a government-engineered famine known as Holodomor (literally “death by starvation”) left millions of Ukrainians and others across the region dead, Joseph Stalin declared in a speech at the First All-Union Conference of Stakhanovites, “Life has become better, comrades; life has become more cheerful.” To drive home his optimistic read on the state of the Soviet Union, he did what so many personalities do these days to capitalize on their influence: He published a cookbook.
Spearheaded by the People’s Commissar of the Food Industry, Anastas Mikoyan, and authored by the Institute of Nutrition of the Academy of Medical Scientists of USSR, The Book of Tasty and Healthy Food (Kniga o Vkusnoi i Zdorovoi Pishche) — or simply “the Book” as it became known over time — was first published in 1939. More than 1,400 recipes were crammed into its 400 pages, interspersed with pictures of lavish spreads, tips on etiquette and hygiene, menu suggestions, canned food ads and prescriptive diets for various ailments and syndromes. As food historian Polly Russell writes, “What was on offer in the book was not an achievable culinary proposition, but a promise of what might be enjoyed once the ideals of communism were realized.”