Classic Russian Cooking: Elena Molokhovets' A Gift to Young Housewives - Paperback

by Elena Molokhovets (Author)

"Joyce Toomre . . . has accomplished an enormous task, fully on a par with the original author's slave labor. Her extensive preface and her detailed and entertaining notes are marvelous." --Tatyana Tolstaya, New York Review of Books

"Classic Russian Cooking is a book that I highly recommend. Joyce Toomre has done a marvelous job of translating this valuable and fascinating source book. It's the Fanny Farmer and Isabella Beeton of Russia's 19th century." --Julia Child, Food Arts

"This is a delicious book, and Indiana University Press has served it up beautifully." --Russian Review

" . . . should become as much of a classic as the Russian original . . . dazzling and admirable expedition into Russia's kitchens and cuisine." --Slavic Review

"It gives a delightful and fascinating picture of the foods of pre-Communist Russia." --The Christian Science Monitor

First published in 1861, this "bible" of Russian homemakers offered not only a compendium of recipes, but also instructions about such matters as setting up a kitchen, managing servants, shopping, and proper winter storage. Joyce Toomre has superbly translated and annotated over one thousand of the recipes and has written a thorough and fascinating introduction which discusses the history of Russian cuisine and summarizes Molokhovets' advice on household management. A treasure trove for culinary historians, serious cooks and cookbook readers, and scholars of Russian history and culture.

Back Jacket

Joyce Toomre has translated over 1,000 of Molokhovets' recipes. A thorough and fascinating introduction by Toomre discusses the history of Russian cuisine and summarizes Molokhovets' advice on meals and menus, table settings and service, stoves and ovens, cold storage techniques, containers and utensils, servants, health, markets and ingredients, and cooking techniques.

Author Biography

Joyce Toomre, a Slavicist and culinary historian, is coeditor (with Musya Glants) of Food in Russian History and Culture.