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cameliarose's review against another edition
5.0
Mastering the Art of Soviet Cooking really is a book of personal history and the 80 years history of Soviet Union. Anya von Bremzen was born in Moscow, USSR in 1963. In 1974, she emigrated to the United States with her Jewish dissident mother. She tells stories of what she remembered from her childhood, as well as experiences from her mother Larisa, maternal grandparents Naum and Liza and her father Sergei.
The heartbreaking stories are told in a humorous voice. A lot of dark Soviet jokes. Scarcity and hunger. The WWII soldiers’ amputated arms and legs frozen in snow, as hard as tree trunks. Siege of Leningrad, Ukraine famine in the 1930s, Stalin’s cleanse, and Gulag. A Soviet begins her life at the long line of birth registry and ends at the equally long burial line. The ridiculous anti-parasite law. What it really means by socialist equality, and the 27 shades of "comrade".
“Six paradoxes of Mature Socialism: 1) There’s no unemployment, but no one works; 2) no one works, but productivity goes up; 3) productivity goes up, but stores are empty; 4) stores are empty, but fridges are full; 5) fridges are full, but no one is satisfied; 6) no one is satisfied, but everyone votes yes.”
I have already known some Soviet Union history, but history in this book is fresh and intimate, with details of food, scarcity of food, and longing for food.
“On Sundays Mom invariably ran out of money, which is when she cracked eggs into the skillet over cubes of fried black sourdough bread. It was, I think, the most delicious and eloquent expression of pauperism.”
"Dreaming of food, I already knew, is just as rewarding as eating it."
In a land of false abundance and real scarcity, small pleasures like little pieces of jam-filled candy leave permanent imprints on one’s memory. At the age of 10, the author became a self-claimed “black-marketer”-- she made friends with kids of foreign embassies, got invited to their fancy homes, secretly saved candies, cut each into smaller pieces and sold them to her classmates in the school bathroom.
The chapter about the collapse of Soviet Union makes me realize how little I know about that piece of history. The Nobel Peace Prize winner Gorbachev is not whom the West wanted to believe and he did not voluntarily dissolve USSR, had blood in his hands too. Boris Yeltsin is the populist who induced a free-market shock that drove ex-USSRs further into poverty and brought the Russian oligarchs into existence.
I can not help to compare my impression of USSR from my own childhood and what’s written in the book. More importantly, I can’t help to compare China with the USSR. I totally get her childhood fantasy induced by propaganda. The “raw emotional grip of a totalitarian personality cult” is hard to escape.
Personal identity is another theme in the book. As a daughter of a Jewish mother and a Russian father, she escaped by immigrating to US the dreaded choice of which “ethnic”--Jewish or Russian--to “officially” identify herself, the former would cast her as a lesser member of the society and severely restrict her social standing. However, the unmade choice forever haunted her. After having arrived at the United States, she soon discovered Jewish was not only an “ethnic”, but also a religion which she knew nothing about. Back in the USSR, her rebellious mother secretly celebrated Christmas because Christmas was banned. Ironically, putting up a Christmas tree in their Philadelphia apartment also offended their overzealous American Jewish sponsors because it was un-Jewish. On a banquet hosted by a Russian Royal from Romanov era whose name “too grand to pronounce”, she discovered their Russia and her Soviet Union had nothing in common.
Patriotism is a fiction. Of their "motherland" Soviet Union, the generational difference is presented well: her grandparents the idealists, her mother the dissident, and herself who knew everything was farce.
The last chapter is the author visit to Moscow in early 2010s. In the Putin Land, the official history of Russia, as the author puts it, is a "tightly scripted remembering". For an individual, memories are always what you choose to remember. Then, how accurate is the collective memory of a group, especially when they are a part of an ongoing event? In reality, the collective memories are complex and dynamic, always shifting. I am particularly moved by the story of an Anna Akhmatova reading. In Moscow, the author attended a reading of Anna Akhmatova by the great poet's "ancient" friend. Anna Akhmatova's Requiem, lamenting those who were brutally purged, was read right under the pictures of the executioners--Stalin and his enablers. The author burst out, "Ladies, have you lost your mind?!" She called the scene “insane asylum where history has been dismantled and photoshopped into a pastiche of victims, murderers, dictators and dissidents, all rubbing sentimental shoulders together.”. She soon realized she had no rights howling at these frail survivors of a terrible era. Yet the frail woman did not blame her for her outburst, instead, she only gave her a mischievous half-smile. Perhaps it is true that "the bystanders see most of the game, while the players get limited vision", or perhaps the players simply play along, aware or not of what's going on.
"All happy food memories are alike; all unhappy food memories are unhappy in its own fashion." Deep down, Anya von Bremzen would always feel the pull from the fantasy land of her childhood, a world existed in propaganda, and yes, in the Kremlin's banquets.
The heartbreaking stories are told in a humorous voice. A lot of dark Soviet jokes. Scarcity and hunger. The WWII soldiers’ amputated arms and legs frozen in snow, as hard as tree trunks. Siege of Leningrad, Ukraine famine in the 1930s, Stalin’s cleanse, and Gulag. A Soviet begins her life at the long line of birth registry and ends at the equally long burial line. The ridiculous anti-parasite law. What it really means by socialist equality, and the 27 shades of "comrade".
“Six paradoxes of Mature Socialism: 1) There’s no unemployment, but no one works; 2) no one works, but productivity goes up; 3) productivity goes up, but stores are empty; 4) stores are empty, but fridges are full; 5) fridges are full, but no one is satisfied; 6) no one is satisfied, but everyone votes yes.”
I have already known some Soviet Union history, but history in this book is fresh and intimate, with details of food, scarcity of food, and longing for food.
“On Sundays Mom invariably ran out of money, which is when she cracked eggs into the skillet over cubes of fried black sourdough bread. It was, I think, the most delicious and eloquent expression of pauperism.”
"Dreaming of food, I already knew, is just as rewarding as eating it."
In a land of false abundance and real scarcity, small pleasures like little pieces of jam-filled candy leave permanent imprints on one’s memory. At the age of 10, the author became a self-claimed “black-marketer”-- she made friends with kids of foreign embassies, got invited to their fancy homes, secretly saved candies, cut each into smaller pieces and sold them to her classmates in the school bathroom.
The chapter about the collapse of Soviet Union makes me realize how little I know about that piece of history. The Nobel Peace Prize winner Gorbachev is not whom the West wanted to believe and he did not voluntarily dissolve USSR, had blood in his hands too. Boris Yeltsin is the populist who induced a free-market shock that drove ex-USSRs further into poverty and brought the Russian oligarchs into existence.
I can not help to compare my impression of USSR from my own childhood and what’s written in the book. More importantly, I can’t help to compare China with the USSR. I totally get her childhood fantasy induced by propaganda. The “raw emotional grip of a totalitarian personality cult” is hard to escape.
Personal identity is another theme in the book. As a daughter of a Jewish mother and a Russian father, she escaped by immigrating to US the dreaded choice of which “ethnic”--Jewish or Russian--to “officially” identify herself, the former would cast her as a lesser member of the society and severely restrict her social standing. However, the unmade choice forever haunted her. After having arrived at the United States, she soon discovered Jewish was not only an “ethnic”, but also a religion which she knew nothing about. Back in the USSR, her rebellious mother secretly celebrated Christmas because Christmas was banned. Ironically, putting up a Christmas tree in their Philadelphia apartment also offended their overzealous American Jewish sponsors because it was un-Jewish. On a banquet hosted by a Russian Royal from Romanov era whose name “too grand to pronounce”, she discovered their Russia and her Soviet Union had nothing in common.
Patriotism is a fiction. Of their "motherland" Soviet Union, the generational difference is presented well: her grandparents the idealists, her mother the dissident, and herself who knew everything was farce.
The last chapter is the author visit to Moscow in early 2010s. In the Putin Land, the official history of Russia, as the author puts it, is a "tightly scripted remembering". For an individual, memories are always what you choose to remember. Then, how accurate is the collective memory of a group, especially when they are a part of an ongoing event? In reality, the collective memories are complex and dynamic, always shifting. I am particularly moved by the story of an Anna Akhmatova reading. In Moscow, the author attended a reading of Anna Akhmatova by the great poet's "ancient" friend. Anna Akhmatova's Requiem, lamenting those who were brutally purged, was read right under the pictures of the executioners--Stalin and his enablers. The author burst out, "Ladies, have you lost your mind?!" She called the scene “insane asylum where history has been dismantled and photoshopped into a pastiche of victims, murderers, dictators and dissidents, all rubbing sentimental shoulders together.”. She soon realized she had no rights howling at these frail survivors of a terrible era. Yet the frail woman did not blame her for her outburst, instead, she only gave her a mischievous half-smile. Perhaps it is true that "the bystanders see most of the game, while the players get limited vision", or perhaps the players simply play along, aware or not of what's going on.
"All happy food memories are alike; all unhappy food memories are unhappy in its own fashion." Deep down, Anya von Bremzen would always feel the pull from the fantasy land of her childhood, a world existed in propaganda, and yes, in the Kremlin's banquets.
c100's review against another edition
challenging
informative
reflective
slow-paced
4.0
Content Warnings
Minor: Racial slurs, Xenophobia, and War
dumbunny's review against another edition
4.0
I purchased this book on a whim from Powell's Bookstore in Portland. It was a staff recommendation, and something about it was so odd, but at the same time so intriguing, that I felt compelled to read it. In summary, overall it was a great book, that I thoroughly enjoyed and I would recommend.
The book is not a cookbook, though there are recipes at the end. It is a book about food, and how food was used by the Soviet Union to influence people and reshape society after the Bolshevik revolution. The book tells the story of the author, Anya Von Bremzen's family, from her Great-Grandparents generation, up to her life as both a young child in the USSR and ultimately to the US and beyond, exploring food and it's influence. It explores the grand cuisine of the Czarist era, the collective eating establishments established by Lenin, the Stalinist food production and quota systems, all the way up through Gorbachev and the collapse of the USSR, with follow up into the Putin's Russia. It was an interesting exploration into how food was used to shape society, and at the same time, a very heartfelt story about the suffering Anya and her family went through, and the culinary creations created against incredibly hard odds. The story was both tragedy and comedy; or in other words, very Russian.
My only complaints were more stylistic. I felt it took a few chapters for the book to find its proper footing. In particular, the prologue and Chapter one I felt very disorganized, and it was difficult for me to follow what was going on exactly. That, plus the frequent use of untranslated Russian, made it difficult to follow. From Chapter 2 onwards, the book really hit its stride, until the end, which was highly politically. Granted, the policies of past Soviet leaders was discussed throughout the book. In the last few chapters, though, the focus is on Gorbachov and Putin, both figures who are alive today, and because the author was alive for both of these leaders, the discussion became less objective and much more personal.
Still, an outstanding, well written book, that I would recommend.
The book is not a cookbook, though there are recipes at the end. It is a book about food, and how food was used by the Soviet Union to influence people and reshape society after the Bolshevik revolution. The book tells the story of the author, Anya Von Bremzen's family, from her Great-Grandparents generation, up to her life as both a young child in the USSR and ultimately to the US and beyond, exploring food and it's influence. It explores the grand cuisine of the Czarist era, the collective eating establishments established by Lenin, the Stalinist food production and quota systems, all the way up through Gorbachev and the collapse of the USSR, with follow up into the Putin's Russia. It was an interesting exploration into how food was used to shape society, and at the same time, a very heartfelt story about the suffering Anya and her family went through, and the culinary creations created against incredibly hard odds. The story was both tragedy and comedy; or in other words, very Russian.
My only complaints were more stylistic. I felt it took a few chapters for the book to find its proper footing. In particular, the prologue and Chapter one I felt very disorganized, and it was difficult for me to follow what was going on exactly. That, plus the frequent use of untranslated Russian, made it difficult to follow. From Chapter 2 onwards, the book really hit its stride, until the end, which was highly politically. Granted, the policies of past Soviet leaders was discussed throughout the book. In the last few chapters, though, the focus is on Gorbachov and Putin, both figures who are alive today, and because the author was alive for both of these leaders, the discussion became less objective and much more personal.
Still, an outstanding, well written book, that I would recommend.
uncommonlybound's review against another edition
3.0
Read for Book Riot's Read Harder Challenge 2020, Task #13: Read a food book about a cuisine you’ve never tried before
spiringempress's review against another edition
4.0
This was a nice memoir/nonfiction about Anya and her mother's life in the Soviet Union. Personally, I found some of the earlier chapters more interesting as it explored periods of rationing and shortage and how this affected the food quality and availability. Additionally, I liked that von Bremzen included the differences in how dishes were prepared depending on the cultural background of the cook since her mother was Jewish. It was also extremely interesting to learn about how American food was brought over and Russianized, as well as, the great Kitchen Debate. This book is not about cooking but illustrates the individual difficulties faced in the kitchen over multiple generations, who are living in different phases of a totalitarian society.
bibliocatts's review against another edition
3.0
A history of the Soviet Union through its food, which is really the only way I'd pick up a book about the Soviet Union. There are a few recipes at the end. What's interesting for me though, is that I read this book at the same time I did a re-watch of the first 5 seasons of The Americans in anticipation of the final season. Really good timing on my part!
This book covers task #5 in the Book Riot 2018 Read Harder Challenge: A book set in or about one of the five BRICS countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China, or South Africa).
This book covers task #5 in the Book Riot 2018 Read Harder Challenge: A book set in or about one of the five BRICS countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China, or South Africa).
ladykate03's review against another edition
4.0
In this book, part memoir, part cookbook, Anya Von Bremzen traces her family’s history living in Russia (then the Soviet Union) by discussing the type of food they ate. She starts with her maternal grandparents living in Russia in the 1920s but jumps back and forth in time and space between her homeland and 1980s Philadelphia where she and her mother immigrated to. At the end of each chapter Von Bremzen depicts a dinner party her mother is hosting in the present day, where she and Anya are attempting to cook through the history of Soviet food.
Read Full Review: https://mybookbagblog.wordpress.com/2016/05/03/anya-von-bremzen-mastering-the-art-of-soviet-cooking-2013/
Read Full Review: https://mybookbagblog.wordpress.com/2016/05/03/anya-von-bremzen-mastering-the-art-of-soviet-cooking-2013/
emmkayt's review against another edition
4.0
Very, very good. The author emigrated from the Soviet Union to the US as a child with her mother and later became a food writer, with her first book focusing on food from the various cultures of the USSR. Each chapter of her memoir focuses on a different decade, from the 1910s through to Putin’s Russia, discussing both food and her family’s history. Beautifully written and so interesting.
melanie_reads's review against another edition
5.0
Politics, culture, family and the fall of Communism all orbiting around the subject of food. I guess that's how you win a Beard prize while the rest of us just write reviews. This is how it's done memoir / food writers, this is how it's done.