New Year's table in the USSR: what dishes were popular and what the nutritionist thinks about them

New Year’s Eve has always been and remains a special holiday for every family: people get a chance to relax from everyday worries and enjoy the enchanting atmosphere of the weekend.

In the USSR, New Year’s Eve was one of the most anticipated events of the year, when the whole family gathered around the table, shared upcoming plans for the year and made wishes. It was a day of unity, fun and, of course, delicious food. The feast was prepared for more than one day – the products were bought already in early December.

The New Year’s table in the USSR was characterized by an abundance of various dishes. These are salads, and appetizers, and fruits, and various pickles. Special attention was paid to the main course – in most cases it was baked meat.

Soviet times were not easy, often hungry, there was a shortage of products. That’s why they tried to serve the best on the table on New Year’s Eve, focusing primarily on local products and traditions: sauerkraut, sausage cuts, pickles and tomatoes.

Inhaltsübersicht

New Year salads

For the New Year’s table in the USSR tried to prepare several salads. Perhaps the most popular of them was considered Olivier.

This salad was invented in the 1860s by Lucien Olivier, a famous chef of Belgian and French origin in Moscow. He invented not a salad, but a dish called game mayonnaise. The salad recipe included fillets of grouse and partridges, veal tongue, black caviar, lobsters or crayfish, salted and fresh cucumbers, green salad leaves. All ingredients were richly dressed with Provençal sauce, or mayonnaise.

Later, this dish was adapted to the Soviet reality. It was made in the 1930s by Lucien Olivier’s disciple, the chef of the Moscow restaurant Ivan Ivanov. He substituted some unavailable ingredients, such as grouse for chicken. The new dish was called “Stolichny Salad”.

Olivier became popular in the USSR in the late 50s – early 60s. The ingredients in it kept changing. For example, instead of meat, sausage, pickled cucumbers and canned peas were added. When the shortage of products disappeared, the salad gained new popularity. To this day, it is still considered a traditional New Year’s dish.

Another salad “Herring under a fur coat” became one of the symbols of Russian cuisine and an integral part of the New Year’s table of the USSR period. The dish gained popularity in the 1970s, and its origin in Soviet cuisine is attributed to the processing of fish vinaigrette.

The basic salad consists of: pickled herring, onions, carrots, carrots, beets, eggs and mayonnaise. All these ingredients were available during the difficult years of the USSR. Fish and vegetables were finely chopped or grated and laid out on large flat dishes or in deep salad bowls in layers. To this day, herring under a fur coat is one of the main decorations of the New Year’s table.

Mimosa salad was no less popular in Soviet times. It is believed that it was invented in the Abkhazian resort town of Gagra in an attempt to prepare a new dish from simple products available at hand. The salad got its name because of its resemblance to mimosa flowers, and it became widespread in the USSR in the early 1970s.

Traditionally, the components of this dish are laid out in layers. There are a lot of variants of “Mimosa” preparation, but the classic salad is prepared in the following sequence: canned fish, grated egg whites, carrots, onions, cheese, yolks and greens. All layers are abundantly smeared with mayonnaise.

Hot dishes

The basis of the New Year’s feast in the USSR is a hot dish. Perhaps the most popular on December 31 was a whole baked chicken – inexpensive, easy to prepare and delicious dish. Especially skillful housewives prepared stuffed poultry to surprise guests.

In addition to baked chicken, American hams (aka Bush legs) or French-style meat were prepared for the festive table. Most often, affordable chicken was chosen for hot dishes, but it was not uncommon to buy veal or pork for the holiday.

Also at the Soviet holiday dinner could serve baked goose, potatoes stewed with meat, fish, meat rolls. In some parts of the country it was customary to make dumplings at New Year’s celebrations, and the whole family was involved in this action. Semi-finished products were put out on the balcony, and in the evening before the New Year were cooked in large pots.

Appetizers

Appetizers also occupied an important place on the New Year’s Soviet table. They were cold cakes, including fish, as from the movie “The Irony of Fate, or Easy Steam!”, various pickles, sandwiches, slices.

Especially popular were sandwiches with red game: butter was smeared on a piece of bread, and a small layer of caviar on it. It was bought exclusively for New Year’s Eve, as it was an expensive treat.

A more budgetary, but no less popular version of sandwiches is bread with sprats. They could be decorated with salted or fresh cucumber, lemon, herbs.

A frequent guest of the New Year’s Eve table in Soviet times was also cold cream. It was made of pork legs and beef, added onions, garlic, carrots, peppers and horseradish.

Fruit

Fruits were also part of the New Year’s table during the Soviet period, but the most popular were, of course, tangerines. The smell of these citrus fruits is still associated with winter holidays for most people.

In southern countries, tangerines were ripening just in time for the New Year and appeared on store shelves shortly before the holidays.

Desserts and pastries

In Soviet times, there was not such an abundance of sweets, and often housewives prepared New Year’s desserts on their own. These could be puff pastry tubes with protein cream, waffles with condensed milk, the famous cookies Nuts, jelly, cake Potato.

Especially skillful housewives prepared cakes. The most popular during the Soviet period were Napoleon, Medovik, Ant-Museum, Bird’s milk.

Drinks

An obligatory attribute of the New Year’s table was Soviet champagne. It was solemnly opened a few minutes before the New Year, and traditionally glasses were raised under the chimes. Often there was also strong alcohol – vodka or cognac.

Of non-alcoholic drinks, compotes were served on the table. They were boiled before serving or prepared from summer in three-liter jars of berries and fruits and set aside specially for the holiday. Also in any Soviet family children were happy to have lemonade “Buratino”.

All dishes – salads, hot dishes, appetizers – that decorated the New Year’s table of the Soviet family are still popular today. Their appearance at the feast is already a tradition, they are necessary to create a magical atmosphere of the holiday.

Opinion of a nutritionist

nutritionist, nephrologist, Hadassah Clinic branch in the Skolkovo International Medical Cluster

“If such a feast is held once in the New Year, and not stretched over two or three days (by the way, dressed with mayonnaise salads, according to sanitary norms, stored for six hours), then the disaster will not happen”.

New Year’s feast in the style of the USSR is very caloric. If you roughly imagine a set of such a late dinner: 100 g of olivier, 100 g of herring under a fur coat, 100 g of “Mimosa”, 50 g of cold cream, two sandwiches with red caviar – it comes out to about 1100 kcal. Add here two glasses of champagne – already 1400. And that’s without hot food!

Much depends, of course, on the level of basal metabolism of a person, but even for a professional athlete, this amount of calories for dinner is excessive. This menu is represented by an abundance of carbohydrates and fats, which is hard for the pancreas.

Fans of the New Year’s table in the style of the USSR are recommended to limit themselves to only one or two salads. Choosing between “Mimosa” and herring under a fur coat, it is better to stop at the second option, because beets and carrots, though boiled, still contain the necessary dietary fiber and organic acids, stimulate gastric secretion, intestinal peristalsis and beneficial effect on the liver.

Olivier is, of course, a tradition, but still the heaviest salad. It can cause bloating and discomfort in the intestines. Fish is better for hot meals, and don’t forget about vegetables. The more – the better, but I would not advise you to get carried away with fruit.