Foodie Trips to Russia

We are familiar with food from all over the World.  Baby vegetables hustled from the slopes of Mt Kilimanjaro to the shelves of Sainsbury’s no longer merit a second look.  The cuisine of Japan or China is apparently regarded by many restaurants as too boring to be presented straight, and it has to be fused with something else before it can be regarded as remotely interesting.

But Russia, in terms of food, is still exotic, and it is still only in Russia itself that the exoticism of Russian food can be fully experienced.  Only in Russia can you go to farmer's market and be offered a honeycomb to sample, caviar in tubs, or grapes, arrived from Samarkand that morning.

Russian cuisine is much more than vodka and caviar, and we would like to offer an opportunity to discover its recipes and ingredients.

The Russian is an ancient cuisine, based on traditional peasants’ fare, consisting of all things home-grown, gathered in the wild, hunted and fished. It is effortlessly seasonal, often local, organic and home-preserved in the most natural ways.

Russian cooking was influenced by various neighbours, friends and even enemies. The raised bread came from the Scythians, kumis (fermented mare’s milk) from the Kazakhs; rice and spices, including pepper, from Constantinople.

The Mongols, who ruled Russia for 250 years from the beginning of  the 13th Century brought with them terror and death - and saffron, cinnamon, the art of fermenting cabbage for sauerkraut, lapsha – noodles, and pelmeni – Chinese-style dumplings. Later they also introduced the tea that to this day is Russians’ favourite non-alcoholic drink, and, by some accounts, the samovar.

From Caucasus came the shashlyk - lamb or mutton on the skewer, roasted on an open fire; and from Turkey we got the pilaf and various sweets – khalva, Turkish delight and sorbet.

Tsar Peter the Great opened Russia to Western influences, and French chefs quickly became fashionable. They introduced new cooking tools, ingredients and techniques, and contemporary Russian cuisine is a beautiful symbiosis of the two.

For Russians food is integral to their culture, and it is taken very seriously.  Their traditions of hospitality revolve around the table, and when they are away from their homeland it is in Russian restaurants that they congregate.  We offer the chance to experience this rich tradition at first hand.