A Legendary Glutton

While many Russian writers are far from ascetics when it came to food and wine, one among their number was legendary for his gluttony. Stories on this score have survived nearly two centuries.

“Grandfather” Ivan Krylov, the author of more than 200 fables, whose fame is comparable among Russians to Pushkin, was widely known for his gargantuan appetites and for the dinner parties regularly thrown in his honor.

History tells us that Krylov rarely ate at home, as he was never officially married, and his housekeeper wasn’t much of a cook. Mostly he took his meals at St. Petersburg’s English Club, and he was a devotee of hearty Russian cuisine, be it shchi cabbage soup, pies, geese stuffed with mushrooms, or roasted suckling pigs with horseradish.