The Soviet “Food” Union

“He who does not work shall not eat” Vladimir Ilyc Ulyanov, 1917

Whether Comrade Lenin consciously borrowed “the socialist principle” from Apostle Paul’s Second Epistle to the Thessalonians and adapted it for his 1917 work The State and Revolution is not for us to know. Yet, the quote shed a light on the role food had in the making of the Soviet Union ― Lenin did not point a finger to the "lazy" or "unproductive" workers, rather to the bourgeoisie, the evil class, in Marxist theory, who had come to own the means of production, pocketing the profits at the expense of the working class.

The 70-year long Communist experiment engineered the homo sovieticus ― a new type of human being who would not only think and behave to benefit the society at large, but would also live in communal spaces ― no private kitchens, for example ― and eat certain food.

Food not only feeds us, it portrays who we are and a glimpse into the Soviet cuisine tells the story of the USSR ― a planned economy, war, breadlines, staple shortages, communal kitchens, obshepit (public diners). And flowing streams of mayonnaise.

Inevitably the Soviet state inherited the similarly vast Russian empire’s gastronomy, yet it purposely “de-bourgeois-ed” few dishes ― take the signature Olivier salad which is to be found on any table in the former Soviet space. Invented in the 1860s by the Moscow-based Belgian chef Lucien Olivier, the salad featured an elaborate dressing made of French wine vinegar, mustard, and olive oil and ingredients included, depending on the season: capers, grouse, crayfish, and smoked duck. By the end of the 1930s the Olivier salad faintly resembled the original recipe ― boiled chicken and tinned peas took over the more “decadent” meat and veggies, while the sophisticated dressing was replaced with cheap industrial mayonnaise (a lot of it).

As the Communist party standardized every bit of people’s lives, food was no exception. Standardized menus and recipes became the state policy ― from Kaliningrad to Vladivostok, from the arctic Siberia to the subtropical Black Sea, the Soviet people ate the same dishes, had the same dining experience. The public diners, общепит (obshepit), served identical pies, donuts, canned meat and fish, pickles, cereal, and soups. Political propaganda promoted healthy nutrition and a strict daily nutrition regime was set according to age, sex, employment, and physical activity, while the development of the food processing industry contributed to the standardization. “Moreover, deficiencies in the trade and distribution systems led to losses and the plummeting quality of food,” maintain Russian food historians Olga and Pavel Syutkin in their CCCP Cookbook. “It was clear that such an inflexible approach was doomed for failure.”