These two readings conveyed some very different ideas about food as part of the Soviet experience. One thing Scott chose to highlight in the “Edible Ethnicity” reading was the importance of the ritual in food consumption, highlighting the importance of the tamada and the toast. Where to we see the social or ritual elements of eating and drinking in both readings?
One of the moments that stuck out for me in the Von Brezmen chapters was the description of her mother looking at the kulebiaka recipe and crossing things, stating, “Mom started scribbling over it furiously, shaking her head, muttering, ‘Ne nashe’ – not ours” (42).This seemed to convey a strong message about the Soviet experience and how it has shaped the author’s relationship to food. What image does this convey, and where else do we see it or similar ideas both in this reading and the “Edible Ethnicity” reading?
Finally, Von Bremzen has an interesting writing style and unique way of capturing her message about food and the Soviet experience. For example, the use of the kulebiaka throughout the chapters, and the references to Russian literature. What are some characteristics of her writing style, and what work does it do in telling her story?
The ‘ne nashe’ bit brought me back to the author disliking American bologna and velvetta, and missing the processed deli meats of her childhood, even the kolbasa she describes as stale. At one point attaches scarcity of food to obsession with food (which is a fairly universal correlation) but I’m also reading that scarcity contributing to a culture around food that transforms the recipes themselves. Like, traditionally kulebiaka would have sturgeon spine which is perhaps frugal in its usage of the whole fish but decadent in the inaccessibility of the fish. And that inaccessibility makes it replaceable with cod, which the author frames as a Soviet improvisation.
In other words, what’s “ours” is the culture and taste that forms around the limitations of the environment, and transcendence of those limitations into the formation of culture and a culinary position that values what another may call unappealing.
“Food anchored the domestic realities of our totalitarian state, supplying a shimmer of desire to a life that was mostly drab … Food, as one academic has noted, defined how Russians endured the present, imagined the future, and connected to the past.” (15)
I wanted to highlight this quote because I think they address in some manner your last question. Here Von Bremzen makes her project explicit, and I think that it is with points like these in mind that we can consider the work her writing style does. Food is central to the narrative that she tells, literally connecting the present, past, and future in chapter one. Kulebiaka is the central symbol moving us across different time periods and spaces. I think that if we looked at the different stories about kulebiaka in different locations and time periods, we would see a direct case-study example of the argument that food is “how Russians endured the present, imagined the future, and connected to the past.”
To be perfectly honest, I believe that Von Bremzen’s writing style is extremely pretentious, to the extent that it detracts from the credibility of her source. What comes to mind especially is the scene in which she said she “gaggled” on the caviar in her kindergarten, ingesting it just as she ingested the ideology of the Soviet regime. Not only is this a lazy metaphor to make, but who has the temerity to describe the experience of eating caviar as a five year old as somehow negative? Most people would view that experience as extremely decadent. Her sympathies for White Emigres are also concerning, considering that most White Emigres supported the Tzarist autocracy and repression.
I didn’t quite see what you saw, but it’s an interesting position. I did see at least one instance readers could interpret as condescending perhaps, as in when she describes coming back home with a fetch of food obtained through her black market connections, but didn’t expose its source to her mother because she was so “innocent” and von Bremzen worried what the info would do to her. It would be stimulating to see someone make compelling cases for these interpretations, since to me they from left field.
With regard to your first question, I think von Bremzen identifies larger attitudes toward hospitality as its own kind of ritual. I found her description of her mother’s refusal to turn away a guest quite charming, for as frustrating as this behavior can seem to von Bremzen she also acknowledges its powerful history. (22-3) I think it’s also significant that von Bremzen and her mother decide that their project can only be experienced fully through a dinner party, as the ritual of inviting and serving guests represents as necessary to the meal as the food itself. This seems to align with what Scott identified as the idealized imagery of the Soviet table: a multiethnic “cornucopia.” (834)
As to your first question, I think every culture has a social relationship to food. It is rarely, if ever, just a point of sustenance but is frequently completely ritualized. You can see this in the von Bremzen reading when she talks about the traditions her and her mother have developed (what they talk about, how they interact, etc) when cooking. Food becomes a bonding experience for von Bremzen and her mother, just like it was for the people at Stalin’s table (though obviously her story is a lot more intimate). Food is a way for people to come together and connect. She writes, “For any ex-citizen of a three-hundred-million-strong Soviet superpower, food is never a mere individual matter.” (14) Food is almost always a collective experience: when there is plenty it unites the people at the table in shared merriment; when there is none is unites strangers in their desperation.
In my comment, I’d like to address your last question: “What are some characteristics of her writing style, and what work does it do in telling her story?” I am always struck when we read sources that are not in typical language of historians, like the other reading we read today by Scott. I think von Bremzen’s language conveys a similar message to Scott’s but in a different way. The first phrase that really stuck out to me is the mysteries of “the czarist stomach”. (pg 47 von Bremzen) Characterizing the body with that adjective — czarist — was a powerful way of demonstrating the longing for lavishness through food — the natural craving for pleasure through food. And that this was a feature to be associated with czarism was particularly sinful, or to be felt guilty about. I think that Scott highlights this paradox but von Bremzen’s use of imagery, personal anecdote, and referencing literature highlights the deep connection and longing she has felt for food that was deemed to be extravagant. Food is seen to be something of a paradox. It is necessary to sustain life but is connected with gluttony and excess. This has lead it to be attributed to either czarist or socialist attitudes towards food. I think that von Bremzen’s use of “czarist” as an adjective and through describing the famine in Russia, she is able to highlight this paradox. This paradox may even show just how important food is to her and her mother, now that they are not living in the Soviet Union.