An Empire in Aspic: Popularizing National Cuisines in Late Soviet Russia

What is it about?

Ethnic food was all the rage in 1970s Moscow. Commonly referred to as "national cuisines," dishes purporting to represent many of the major ethnic groups of the USSR populated restaurant menus and the page of coobooks. But this trend was about much more than what people enjoyed eating. As Russian-language cookbooks and lifestyle magazines, along with Moscow-based restaurants and cafes, reveal, the national cuisines craze of the late Soviet decades sprang from a popular desire to authentic cultural experiences, as well as concerns on the part of experts and officials that the public learn to appreciate the supposed privileges of life in the decaying Soviet empire.

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Photo by Rasmus Gundorff Sæderup on Unsplash

Photo by Rasmus Gundorff Sæderup on Unsplash