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marinaraydun's review against another edition
5.0
Highly recommend this book to anyone harboring cultural/historical curiosity as to the former Soviet Union.
menniemenace's review against another edition
3.0
3.5/5
I remember reading somewhere that many people use communist symbols because they look cool and how that's pretty insensitive to people who were crushed by it.
I think this book has the same soul of that, but actually by a citizen. The USSR sounds cool from afar, but it isn't. Is any political ideology good, though?
Under capitalism man exploits man. Under Communism, it's the other way around and all that.
This book was boring at first, not even good on an emotional level. However, I was hooked by the halfway point. It is quite emotional and personal, but also a history through an individual's eye.
I remember reading somewhere that many people use communist symbols because they look cool and how that's pretty insensitive to people who were crushed by it.
I think this book has the same soul of that, but actually by a citizen. The USSR sounds cool from afar, but it isn't. Is any political ideology good, though?
Under capitalism man exploits man. Under Communism, it's the other way around and all that.
This book was boring at first, not even good on an emotional level. However, I was hooked by the halfway point. It is quite emotional and personal, but also a history through an individual's eye.
worldlibraries's review against another edition
4.0
This was a very fun read about the history of the Soviet Union as experienced through what people ate in each decade of the Soviet Union's history. It started with a meal fit for the Tsars for contrast, and then explained how people ate and prepared meals in communal kitchens under communism.
Two things Anya von Bremzen does particularly well in this book is explain Gorbachev from the Soviet point-of-view at the end of the Soviet Empire. Westerners celebrate the end of the rivalry (short-lived, it seems), but it wasn't any fun to live the end of a system with nothing to replace it.
The second thing she does particularly well is celebrate the 'Family of Nations' that makes up the multicultural Soviet Union. It makes one very curious to see and meet these people and their places.
This is a fun book for book clubs, especially if you have friends who are former Soviets to hear their perspectives and to enjoy a potluck with of Soviet delicacies.
Two things Anya von Bremzen does particularly well in this book is explain Gorbachev from the Soviet point-of-view at the end of the Soviet Empire. Westerners celebrate the end of the rivalry (short-lived, it seems), but it wasn't any fun to live the end of a system with nothing to replace it.
The second thing she does particularly well is celebrate the 'Family of Nations' that makes up the multicultural Soviet Union. It makes one very curious to see and meet these people and their places.
This is a fun book for book clubs, especially if you have friends who are former Soviets to hear their perspectives and to enjoy a potluck with of Soviet delicacies.
chintogtokh's review against another edition
5.0
I love this book. I think many Mongolians have a sort of nostalgia for out communist, Soviet past. The apparent lack of a big cultural heritage, or rather, what constitutes "culture" in modern times - food, music, art - led to the adoption of many Soviet-era exports as our own. Reading this book feels both familiar (Olivier salat - Nisslel salat, Blinchik, Plov, Borshch) and yet, with the detailed look into one family's life from the nation's infancy to its death, it serves as a cure for any ostalgie that one might have for those times.
dajna's review against another edition
3.0
Il libro mi ha sorpreso: è bello, da qualsiasi parte lo si guardi.
Sì, è un romanzo storico: racconta la Russia, dalla caduta degli zar alla costituzione dell'URSS, da Stalin a El'cin fino all'onnipresente Putin, ma attraverso le tavole imbandite e i supermercati vuoti.
Sì, è un'autobiografia, un memoriale e una saga famigliare. I parenti dell'autrice hanno avuto carriere interessanti e lei stessa si è reinventata autrice di libri di cucina quando un'infortunio ha fermato la sua carriera di pianista (storia molto americana: la figlia dell'immigrata che si mantiene facendo le pulizie finisce a seguire i corsi della Juilliard).
Sì, è un basico libro di cucina: per ogni periodo storico analizzato abbiamo la ricetta per riprodurne il piatto tipico. Proverò, prima o poi, nell'angolo cottura del mio monolocale grande quanto una cucina sovietica (così avrò anche l'ebbrezza di immedesimarmi in una babushka russa).
L'autrice è riuscita a comunicarmi la sua nostalgia per sapori, tempi e luoghi che hanno fatto la storia.
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La versione di Byron
Ma per me non è avanzato proprio niente da mangiare?
Sì, è un romanzo storico: racconta la Russia, dalla caduta degli zar alla costituzione dell'URSS, da Stalin a El'cin fino all'onnipresente Putin, ma attraverso le tavole imbandite e i supermercati vuoti.
Sì, è un'autobiografia, un memoriale e una saga famigliare. I parenti dell'autrice hanno avuto carriere interessanti e lei stessa si è reinventata autrice di libri di cucina quando un'infortunio ha fermato la sua carriera di pianista (storia molto americana: la figlia dell'immigrata che si mantiene facendo le pulizie finisce a seguire i corsi della Juilliard).
Sì, è un basico libro di cucina: per ogni periodo storico analizzato abbiamo la ricetta per riprodurne il piatto tipico. Proverò, prima o poi, nell'angolo cottura del mio monolocale grande quanto una cucina sovietica (così avrò anche l'ebbrezza di immedesimarmi in una babushka russa).
L'autrice è riuscita a comunicarmi la sua nostalgia per sapori, tempi e luoghi che hanno fatto la storia.
---
La versione di Byron
Ma per me non è avanzato proprio niente da mangiare?
namucat's review against another edition
5.0
I came into Mastering the Art of Soviet Cooking with the expectation of finding only several recipes and perhaps they’re own history, inside the scope of Russian history and the writer’s own personal story but what I got was so much more than that and I couldn't be happier!
In this memoir, von Bremzen takes the reader through a fascinating story of not just random Russian recipes, but whole generations of her family and the socio-political landscape that shaped them, with food often serving as the glue holding together the trainwreck that was the fall of the Russian Empire and its’ Soviet years.
Being a topic often disregarded, especially at times when famine is the rule, it was refreshing to read a memoir of those troubled times so focused on what is often a huge part of personal and family life. As von Bremzen writes, in the worst moments, life was measured through the time between meals, sparse as they were, so the importance of said moments is obviously to be remembered.
Stepping outside the URRS, I also found it extremely compelling to read about Anya herself and, who is perhaps the true heroine of this book, her mother, Larisa Frumkin. Besides their experiences growing in Russia and its’ various regimes, their longing to find their roots while so far away from home, as emigrants in America, resonates with anyone missing home and finding it in the taste of their childhood. Their adventures both in the kitchen and with fellow escapees, to find the perfect flavors of their chimerical madeleines, were both trilling and heartbreaking and, as someone that never had true Russian cuisine, I cannot wait to try out a kulebiaka!
(This book was read thanks to NetGalley and Crown Publishing. Thank you so much!)
In this memoir, von Bremzen takes the reader through a fascinating story of not just random Russian recipes, but whole generations of her family and the socio-political landscape that shaped them, with food often serving as the glue holding together the trainwreck that was the fall of the Russian Empire and its’ Soviet years.
Being a topic often disregarded, especially at times when famine is the rule, it was refreshing to read a memoir of those troubled times so focused on what is often a huge part of personal and family life. As von Bremzen writes, in the worst moments, life was measured through the time between meals, sparse as they were, so the importance of said moments is obviously to be remembered.
Stepping outside the URRS, I also found it extremely compelling to read about Anya herself and, who is perhaps the true heroine of this book, her mother, Larisa Frumkin. Besides their experiences growing in Russia and its’ various regimes, their longing to find their roots while so far away from home, as emigrants in America, resonates with anyone missing home and finding it in the taste of their childhood. Their adventures both in the kitchen and with fellow escapees, to find the perfect flavors of their chimerical madeleines, were both trilling and heartbreaking and, as someone that never had true Russian cuisine, I cannot wait to try out a kulebiaka!
(This book was read thanks to NetGalley and Crown Publishing. Thank you so much!)