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mburnamfink's review against another edition
5.0
Food has always been foremost in the Soviet mind, from the desperate aftermath of the Russian Civil War and the crude markets of "war communism", to Stalin's Holodomor genocides, through utopian schemes to make an Earthly Worker's Paradise, to the basic communal reality of the breadline. Anya von Bremzen and her mother, who emigrated to the US in 1974, walk through their family's past and the Soviet experience by the means of a meal-a-decade, walking the bitter-sweet paths of nostalgia.
This is an astounding picture of ordinary life in the Soviet Union. Anya and her mother were relatively lucky as dissident intelligentsia, their main crime that of constructing a small fantasy away from the grim reality of cramped communal housing, with the multiple families shoved into one set of apartment, and substandard food that hovered just above absolute starvation. Anya recalls being a junior black marketeer, selling scraps of foreign capitalist candy for kopeks at Kindergarten. Soviet cuisine, a mass of yeasty dough, suspicious sausages, and things which were once vegetables, transforms into sublime symbols in the loving hands of the right chef.
This is an astounding picture of ordinary life in the Soviet Union. Anya and her mother were relatively lucky as dissident intelligentsia, their main crime that of constructing a small fantasy away from the grim reality of cramped communal housing, with the multiple families shoved into one set of apartment, and substandard food that hovered just above absolute starvation. Anya recalls being a junior black marketeer, selling scraps of foreign capitalist candy for kopeks at Kindergarten. Soviet cuisine, a mass of yeasty dough, suspicious sausages, and things which were once vegetables, transforms into sublime symbols in the loving hands of the right chef.
technophile's review against another edition
5.0
This was one of those books I would never have selected for myself; it was a gift from my mother in law. That said, it's by a long stretch one of the more interesting history books I've read in the last year; there is a wealth of really detailed information about daily life growing up in the Soviet Union that I've never encountered before and which was a joy to read.
While the tenor of the book ranges from lighthearted to depressing to scary to sad and back, the chapter or so on Soviet alcoholism was particularly fascinating, and looking at Soviet history through their food is an affecting experience for someone who spent their own childhood embedded in American generic largesse.
While the tenor of the book ranges from lighthearted to depressing to scary to sad and back, the chapter or so on Soviet alcoholism was particularly fascinating, and looking at Soviet history through their food is an affecting experience for someone who spent their own childhood embedded in American generic largesse.
bmwpalmer's review against another edition
5.0
A memoir written through the lens of food nostalgia, AND it takes place in Russia? Yes, please! Ms. Von Bremzen understands the power of food and memories and I enjoyed every chapter (one per decade since the Revolution) of this book. It was especially interesting to read her scathing criticism of Putin's Moscow, since that's where my husband and I lived in 2002 (the author herself doesn't visit it until 2011).
I enjoyed this book on much the same level as [b:Moscow Stories|1280401|Moscow Stories|Loren R. Graham|https://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1383166771s/1280401.jpg|1269409] - it was a great peek inside the Black Box of the USSR. Through its food, of course.
I enjoyed this book on much the same level as [b:Moscow Stories|1280401|Moscow Stories|Loren R. Graham|https://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1383166771s/1280401.jpg|1269409] - it was a great peek inside the Black Box of the USSR. Through its food, of course.
factandfables's review against another edition
5.0
This is an incredibly well written memoir about growing up in Soviet Russia. Anya explores her own childhood, as well as the lives of her mother and her grandmother, and weaves this into an exploration of food, longing and nostalgia. I learned so much about Russian history, and loved the way this was told!
vittoria_ann's review against another edition
4.0
I think this was more history book than memoir, but told from a personal perspective and always with an eye for the food. I didn't know much about the history or the cuisine, but thoroughly enjoyed learning about them from von Bremzen's eyes.
lep42's review against another edition
4.0
So food memoirs are not a genre I read, but Book Riot's 2016 Read Harder Challenge had reading a food memoir as one of its tasks.The Feminist Texican Blog then published a list of feminist title suggestions for each task, leading me to this title. It proved to be a delightful cultural history of the Soviet Union from inception to demise view through the lens of cuisine and three generations of the author's family. Kathleen Gati's accented narration added to the book's charm.
purplemuskogee's review
emotional
informative
inspiring
medium-paced
4.25
"All happy food memories are alike; all unhappy food memories are unhappy after their own fashion".
This was a delightful memoir about the author's childhood and family history in the USSR. In New York with her mother - having emigrated in 1974 -, they set up to cook "food from home" and to explore the history of their homeland through its cuisine. They start with a lavish Czar-inspired 1910s dinner with friends, and work their way through each decade until the 1980s.
There are many family stories - her great-great-great-grandmother who was a feminist, her grandfather who was an intelligence officer who believed in the Party, her mother who has always dreamed of living. Men appear - her grand-father, her father - but the women of her families are what makes the book. Food is the thread that links it all together - "Food anchored the domestic realities of our totalitarian state, supplying a shimmer of desire to a life that was mostly drab, sometimes absurdly comical, on occasion unbearably tragic, but just as often naively optimistic and joyous".
A lot of the book is about history and it is well-documented. I studied the history of Russia and the USSR at school but a lot of the "popular history" facts were unknown to me: the hunger that lasted for decades, the coupns, the long queues to get food. The ideology behind food promoted by the Party, "utilatarian fuel, pure and simple", is well described - the philosophy of frugality and simple food as a rejection of the Czars and the imperialist past -, and then later foreign influences imported from the US. The story of Mikoyan, the chef and manager of the food supply, who was paid by the USSR to spend two months in the US in 1937 to explore its food industry, and brought back ketchup, ice-cream, and kornfleks, was extraordinary!
The end of the book became slightly less interesting: the author, having published a cookbook of Soviet recipes, returns in the 1990s to visit family, and later in the 2010s; cooks some more, meets relatives - still struggling, in 1991, to get enough food on the table and still using coupons -, talks about "an obscure midget with a boring KGB past" who becomes Russia's president, and about the new Russian billionaires. It was interesting too but felt less personal and slightly less interesting.
Bonus points for the recipes at the end!
This was a delightful memoir about the author's childhood and family history in the USSR. In New York with her mother - having emigrated in 1974 -, they set up to cook "food from home" and to explore the history of their homeland through its cuisine. They start with a lavish Czar-inspired 1910s dinner with friends, and work their way through each decade until the 1980s.
There are many family stories - her great-great-great-grandmother who was a feminist, her grandfather who was an intelligence officer who believed in the Party, her mother who has always dreamed of living. Men appear - her grand-father, her father - but the women of her families are what makes the book. Food is the thread that links it all together - "Food anchored the domestic realities of our totalitarian state, supplying a shimmer of desire to a life that was mostly drab, sometimes absurdly comical, on occasion unbearably tragic, but just as often naively optimistic and joyous".
A lot of the book is about history and it is well-documented. I studied the history of Russia and the USSR at school but a lot of the "popular history" facts were unknown to me: the hunger that lasted for decades, the coupns, the long queues to get food. The ideology behind food promoted by the Party, "utilatarian fuel, pure and simple", is well described - the philosophy of frugality and simple food as a rejection of the Czars and the imperialist past -, and then later foreign influences imported from the US. The story of Mikoyan, the chef and manager of the food supply, who was paid by the USSR to spend two months in the US in 1937 to explore its food industry, and brought back ketchup, ice-cream, and kornfleks, was extraordinary!
The end of the book became slightly less interesting: the author, having published a cookbook of Soviet recipes, returns in the 1990s to visit family, and later in the 2010s; cooks some more, meets relatives - still struggling, in 1991, to get enough food on the table and still using coupons -, talks about "an obscure midget with a boring KGB past" who becomes Russia's president, and about the new Russian billionaires. It was interesting too but felt less personal and slightly less interesting.
Bonus points for the recipes at the end!
cjf's review against another edition
4.0
This is a thoroughly enjoyable, intelligent, witty, and sensitive history of the Soviet Union, its leaders, and its people cast through the lens of food.
At the outset, Von Bremzen imagines her project as a series of classic Soviet (and one pre-Soviet) dinners, era by era, prepared by herself and her mother in Queens, New York, where they live. As the narrative progresses (the number of dead multiplies, bread lines grow), however, the author reveals her interest (or it reveals itself to her through the food) in her family history and Russian history at large. The posited structure loosens up.
Food remains central, however. Von Bremzen takes a shot (or four) of vodka and recalls the disastrous Gorbachev administration, which in turn inspires a discussion of Russia's longstanding relationship with the libation. She remembers sweets and her fleeting, privileged moments under Stalin, and she reflects upon the hard, black bread, the queues, the ration cards, the famine, the cold, the pride -- in essence, the entire world of her family and millions of others. A memoir, a magnificent one, and so so much more.
At the outset, Von Bremzen imagines her project as a series of classic Soviet (and one pre-Soviet) dinners, era by era, prepared by herself and her mother in Queens, New York, where they live. As the narrative progresses (the number of dead multiplies, bread lines grow), however, the author reveals her interest (or it reveals itself to her through the food) in her family history and Russian history at large. The posited structure loosens up.
Food remains central, however. Von Bremzen takes a shot (or four) of vodka and recalls the disastrous Gorbachev administration, which in turn inspires a discussion of Russia's longstanding relationship with the libation. She remembers sweets and her fleeting, privileged moments under Stalin, and she reflects upon the hard, black bread, the queues, the ration cards, the famine, the cold, the pride -- in essence, the entire world of her family and millions of others. A memoir, a magnificent one, and so so much more.