A Soup for the New Year

Yelena Ivanovna Molokhovets was the author of Russia’s most famous cookbook, A Gift to Young Housewives, first published in 1861. Little is known about her life. Born in 1831 into a military family in the far northern city of Arkhangelsk, she received a good education at a school run by the Imperial Educational Society for Noble Girls. With her husband, an architect, she had ten children. He seems to have been an enlightened spouse who was supportive of her writing. Molokhovets’ old age coincided with the turmoil surrounding the 1917 Russian Revolution. She died in St. Petersburg in 1918.

Her cookbook, however, lives on. A Gift to Young Housewives went through 29 editions before being deemed too bourgeois for publication under the Soviet regime. Yet families who had a copy of Molokhovets’ tome continued to treasure it, and by the 1950s the author had become almost a mythical figure — so much so that she was immortalized in a disparaging poem by the poet Arseny Tarkovsky. During the late Soviet years, when faced with food deficits, the joke-loving Russians often quoted Molokhovets’ prescription to go down to the cellar and fetch a joint of meat to serve unexpected guests. Only in the late 1980s, under perestroika, were Molokhovets’ recipes finally reprinted, and a new edition of her book appeared in 1991. 

Until Molokhovets published her book, the only popular cookbooks were those written by Katerina Avdeyeva, who had published four of them between 1842 and 1848. A Gift to Young Housewives differs from Avdeyeva’s volumes in that it goes beyond culinary matters to emphasize domestic life. Molokhovets equates an efficient household with a good family life and makes it clear that the responsibilities of a woman are moral as well as domestic. She guides young housewives through the pitfalls of domestic life, and her sympathetic understanding of the daily dilemmas of kitchen management endeared her to her readers and likely accounted for the enormous popularity of her book. 

The first edition of A Gift to Young Housewives offered fifteen hundred recipes; by the twentieth edition of 1897, there were 3,218, beginning with soups and ending with recipes for fast days, when meat and dairy products were proscribed. The subheadings for the soup chapter alone reveal the book’s extraordinary range: Hot Meat-based Soups; Meat-based Pureed Soups; Fish Soups; Butter-based Soups (without Meat); Milk Soups; Sweet, Hot Soups from Milk, Beer, Wine, and Berries; and Cold Soups. The soups are followed by an entire chapter devoted to their accompaniments. There is also an informative chapter on vegetarian cookery. Of greatest interest to the social historian, however, are the detailed sections on maintaining a household, including the treatment of servants, food storage, table settings, kitchen floor plans, etc.  A Gift to Young Housewives offers great insight into the lives of middle- and upper-class Russians in the nineteenth century, as well as into the evolution of Russian cuisine. [An abridged English version of the book, titled Classic Russian Cooking, edited and annotated by Joyce Toomre, is available from Indiana University Press.]

Here is Molokhovets’ recipe for Duck Soup with Barley and Mushrooms, perfect fare for a cold winter’s day.

Duck Soup with Barley and Mushrooms*

1 large domestic duck

2 carrots

1 parsley root

1 celery root

1⁄2 of a leek

1 onion

3-4 dried mushrooms, well rinsed

1-2 bay leaves

1⁄2 to 3⁄4 cup pearl barley

1 tablespoon butter

1⁄2 to 2 cups sour cream

1⁄2 of a lemon, or pickled beet juice or gooseberry juice

Fresh herbs

Peel the carrots, parsley root, celery root and onion; trim the leek. Place the vegetables in a stockpot with the duck, the bay leaves and the dried mushrooms. Bring to a slow boil, then simmer until the duck is tender, 2 to 21⁄2 hours. Meanwhile, in a separate pan bring the barley to a boil with 21⁄2 times as much water and cook over low heat until all the water has been absorbed and the barley is very soft.  Stir in 1 tablespoon butter and beat the mixture until it turns pale, then stir in the sour cream. 

Strain the broth, reserving the duck and the vegetables. Cut the duck into serving-sized pieces. Chop the mushrooms finely and add to the beaten barley and sour cream mixture, then stir in the broth, mixing well. Bring to a boil, then pour the soup into individual bowls, garnishing each serving with a piece of duck and some fresh parsley and dill. Sometimes you can add lemon juice or pickled beet juice or gooseberry juice to taste.

To be more economical, you can simmer the barley with the duck in the broth, and then serve the duck as the main course with potatoes and minced dried onions and sauce.

*Molokhovets’ instructions are a little scanty. I have expanded on her recipe. I recommend using only 1⁄2 cup of sour cream, to make the soup less rich.