Soviet Fast Food

In a story from The Suitcase, Sergei Dovlatov’s masterly collection about Soviet life,1 Dovlatov meets the black marketeer Fred at a Leningrad shashlychnaya, one of the many specialized cafés that once dotted the restaurant-poor Soviet landscape. Shashlychnayas, as their name suggests, offered shashlyk (shish kebab) – grilled, skewered cubes of meat, usually lamb or beef. Not that the food served was praiseworthy. At its best, shashlyk is tender and aromatic, but when overcooked or made with poor-quality meat, which is all that Dovlatov’s characters can expect, it is tough and stringy.

In the story, Fred explains how much money can be made by trading in Finnish socks:

The oilcloth on the table was sticky. The air was filled with a greasy fog. People floated past like fish in an aquarium.

Fred looked distracted and gloomy. I said, “That much money in five minutes!”

I had to say something.

“You still have to wait forty minutes to get some greasy pies cooked in margarine,” Fred replied.

Though we never find out how the shashlyk tastes, we don’t really want to. Dovlatov’s eatery appears shabby, with old grease from sunflower oil coating everything with a sticky film. The service is as bad as the atmosphere – even though you wait and wait, you’re never rewarded with anything tasty.

In most specialized Soviet cafés, you would place an order with a white-jacketed woman who inevitably seemed gruff or bored. The interiors were remarkably similar, too; each café was distinguished primarily by its specialty. If you were in the mood for pelmeni — wonderful Siberian dumplings that even a bad café can’t ruin entirely — you’d head for a pelmennaya. Like pelmeni themselves, such places haven’t declined in popularity, though they’ve been spiffed up from the Soviet years, when clouds of greasy steam turned everything the color of boiled dough. Another popular café was the blinnaya, which specialized in bliny. These days you’re more likely to find bliny at outdoor kiosks, where they’re quickly prepared by spreading batter thinly on a large griddle with an attached spreading device. The result is something more like French crepes, not the traditional Russian yeast-raised bliny that are supposed to be puffy and porous, in order to soak up plenty of butter.

If you were really in a hurry, you’d stop at a zakusochnaya, a snack bar where you could zakusit — have a quick bite, most often while standing at a high, round table. If you wanted something more leisurely, you could choose between raucous and sedate. For the former, pivnayas or beer halls (from the word for beer, pivo) sold beer on tap, but the watery brew was more than made up for by the fabulous crayfish that often accompanied it. Chaynayas — teahouses — offered a calmer setting. The atmosphere was studiously cozy, with curtains and a giant samovar, on which perched a large tea cozy in the shape of a plump, smiling babushka. Here you could enjoy a glass of tea along with a good selection of pastries, from flaky apple pirozhki to biskvit (sponge cake) and cookies.

My favorite Soviet cafés were the cheburechnayas, which specialized in chebureki, Crimean meat pies. Because the food was cheap, these utilitarian spaces were always packed with students. The pies themselves were invariably greasy; a cone of nonabsorbent paper revealed just how much oil had been used for frying. But they were enormously satisfying. Eating them so that the meat juice wouldn’t dribble down your chin was considered an art.

The most nondescript public eating places were the generic stolovayas or cafeterias, which offered a standard menu of zakuska salads, soups, main courses and desserts, all as inexpensive as they were unappetizing. But we can’t really blame the Soviet Union for their poor-quality food. Pre-Revolutionary accounts reveal that even a century ago cafeterias were notoriously bad. There are still stolovayas in the new Russia, but in general, eating out has never been so good. Now the most difficult thing is deciding where to go.

Shashlik

In the Republic of Georgia this simple marinated lamb is most often served with the sour plum sauce tkemali, but Russian eateries tend to serve it with a spicy tomato sauce on the side.

2 pounds boneless leg of lamb, cut into 2-inch cubes

2 cups unsweetened pomegranate juice

¼ cup olive oil

1 teaspoon salt

Freshly ground black pepper, to taste

1 bay leaf, crushed

1 teaspoon crushed thyme

2 cloves garlic, crushed

First, make the marinade: In a large bowl or Ziploc bag mix together the pomegranate juice, olive oil, salt, pepper, bay leaf, thyme and garlic. Stir in the lamb cubes to coat them well. Marinate overnight in the refrigerator.

When ready to serve, thread the lamb onto skewers and grill over hot coals for about 10 minutes, until done.

Serves 4 to 6.

Georgian Tomato Sauce

1 large onion, finely chopped

2 large garlic cloves, minced

¼ cup corn oil

3 pounds ripe tomatoes, cut into eighths

½ cup pitted prunes

1 teaspoon salt

1 ½ teaspoons freshly ground black pepper

2 teaspoons paprika

2 ¼ teaspoons ground coriander seed

½ teaspoon cayenne

In a saucepan sauté the onion and garlic in the oil until soft, then add the tomatoes. Cook gently, covered, for 45 minutes, or until the tomatoes are soft. Put through a food mill or strainer, pressing hard on the solids.

Return the sauce to the pan and add the remaining ingredients. Simmer, covered, for 10 minutes.

Serve hot or at room temperature. The sauce will keep in the refrigerator for up to a week. Reheat to serve.

Makes 1 quart.

Adapted from A Taste of Russia and The Georgian Feast