Favorite dishes of writers and poets. Food of geniuses

Pushkin, Lermontov, Dumas, Gogol, Krylov. Only Agatha Christie could figure out which of them ate 20 at a time, who didn’t eat up even the royal dinner, who wrote a cookbook, who loved spaghetti, and who once ate pies with sawdust. By the way, Agatha Christie herself was an insatiable woman - in the gastronomic sense, of course. Details are in this article.

Agatha Christie. skinny glutton

In her autobiography, the English writer recalls that since childhood she was prone to gluttony: “Given the amount of food that I consumed in childhood and adolescence (because I was always hungry), I simply cannot understand how I managed to stay so skinny ". As a 12-year-old girl, Agatha Christie even competed in "digestive prowess" with a 22-year-old young man: "In terms of oyster soup, he overtook me, but otherwise we" breathed into each other's necks. We both ate first boiled, then fried and four or five pieces of beef fillet. Then we got down to plum pudding, sweet pie, and biscuit. After that came biscuits, oranges, plums and candied fruits. And finally, for the rest of the day, handfuls of different varieties of chocolate were brought from the pantry, whoever liked what. The writer herself was not only surprised that after such dinners she did not have stomach problems, but also doubted that "now people are able to overcome such a meal." And Agatha Christie considered cream to be her favorite dish, to which she became addicted as a child and continued to “jam them all her life.”

Alexandre Dumas senior. Between a book and a frying pan

The famous French writer was known not only as the author of the legendary trilogy about the Three Musketeers, but also as a gourmet and glutton. Cooking and writing are two passions between which Dumas was torn all his life. Contemporaries recalled that he could part with a pen only "for the sake of a frying pan handle." However, Dumas often combined two types of activity, resulting in the “Great Culinary Dictionary”, which, however, the writer did not have time to complete - Anatole France later did it instead.

What's nice: in the cookbook, Dumas included five recipes for Russian jam (from roses, pumpkins, nuts, radishes and asparagus). However, in general, the writer did not really like our cuisine, and in two years of traveling around Russia he did not manage to fall in love with it. The only dish that conquered the mind and stomach of this gourmet was kurnik - a pie with eggs and chickens, cooked in the house of the Russian writer Avdotya Panaeva, with whom he was visiting. Later, she recalled the incredible voracity of the Frenchman: "I think that Dumas' stomach could digest fly agarics." Dumas impressed her as a man with a great appetite and very brave, because how to eat “two plates of botvinia, fried mushrooms, pies, a pig with porridge - all at once! You need to have great courage for this, especially for a foreigner who has never tasted such dishes ... ".

Alexander Pushkin. Potatoes as bait

“Do not put off until dinner what you can eat at lunch” is one of the writer’s “Gastronomic Maxims”. However, Pushkin was still not a gourmet, he simply loved to eat, while he was unpretentious in food. Pushkin's friend, the poet Pyotr Vyazemsky, wrote: “Pushkin was not at all a gourmand... but he was a terrible glutton for other things. I remember how on the road he ate 20 peaches bought at Torzhok in one go. Soaked apples also got pretty bad. Pushkin was also familiar with French cuisine, which was popular in his time, but, nevertheless, he loved simple, one might even say, rustic Russian cuisine. "The genius of pure beauty" Anna Kern recalls that Pushkin's mother, Nadezhda Osipovna, even lured her son to dinner, "before which Pushkin was a great hunter." Pushkin was very fond of apple pie, which was prepared in the house of his neighbors Osipov-Wulf. Well, all the dishes of Pushkin's nanny were appreciated not only by himself, but also by his friends. From the sweet, Alexander Sergeevich was very fond of gooseberry jam.

Mikhail Lermontov. Sawdust pie lover

Unlike Pushkin, this poet did not feel reverence for food, moreover, he did not understand it at all. As his first lover, Ekaterina Sushkova, recalls in her Notes, Lermontov never knew what he ate: veal or pork, game or lamb. However, this did not prevent the poet from arguing with friends, convincing them of the sophistication of his gastronomic taste. They listened, listened, and then they took and fed Mikhail Yuryevich with buns stuffed with ... sawdust. Young Lermontov (at that time he was only 16 years old), without suspecting anything, managed to eat a whole such bun and start on the second one, but he was stopped, pointing to the “stuffing that was indigestible for the stomach”. Bearing in mind that in the future Lermontov took revenge on Sushkova for numerous mockery of himself, it is safe to say that the way to a man's heart lies through his stomach.

Ivan Krylov. 30 pancakes for a snack

Ivan Andreevich not only loved to eat, he was a real glutton. There were legends about overeating the fabulist - based on real facts. Krylov could eat up to 30 pieces of pancakes with caviar in one sitting. And these pancakes were "the size of a plate and the thickness of a finger." Ate at least 80 oysters. He loved both "solid" dishes - fish soup with pies, fried turkey, veal chops, a pig under sour cream, and edible "little things" - cucumbers, lingonberries, plums. From drinks preferred kvass. It is interesting that Krylov did not eat at all at the royal dinners, after which he went to dine in a restaurant, and dinner was immediately waiting for him at home. Of course, how could he get enough of five spoonfuls of soup, c-sized pies, a turkey wing and a half-orange dessert with jelly and jam inside?!

Nikolay Gogol. pasta soul

The writer's favorite dish was ... Italian pasta. He enjoyed cooking them himself, adding salt, pepper, butter and parmesan cheese. According to the memoirs of contemporaries, no one "could not eat as much pasta as he sometimes lowered them." Even Nikolai Vasilievich absolutely could not live without sweets: the pockets of his trousers were always full of sweets and gingerbread, which he "chewed without ceasing." Gogol loved not only to eat himself, but also to treat others. A friend of the writer, critic Mikhail Pogodin recalls: “He never ran out of excellent tea, but the main thing for him was to collect various cookies for tea. And where he looked for all sorts of pretzels, buns, crackers, he only knew this, and no one else. Every day something new appeared, which he first gave to everyone to taste, and was very glad if someone found it to their taste and approved the choice with some special phrase. There was nothing more to please him."

Minestrone by Leonardo

The unforgettable genius of the Renaissance, Leonardo in food was unpretentious, preferring vegetarian food. Therefore, his diet most often consisted of fresh tomatoes, zucchini, cabbage, carrots and parmesan - foods that stimulate the brain. Minestrone vegetable soup was da Vinci's favorite dish, which, oddly enough, he became addicted to in early childhood.

The classic Florentine minestrone is full of vegetables, yet thick and filling. First, boil 1.5 cups of dry white beans in salted water for two hours. Remove half of the beans, rub them through a sieve and return to the pot. Pour sunflower oil into another pan and lightly fry the garlic-onion mixture in it. Then dilute 2 tbsp. l. tomato paste in a small amount of water in a saucepan. We also send chopped vegetables here in turn: a head of cabbage, carrots, a couple of zucchini and leek. Lastly, we introduce half a glass of rice or short durum wheat pasta. The finishing touch is a spicy blend of basil, rosemary, mint and salt. Minestrone is cooked for no longer than half an hour over low heat, after which it is immediately served at the table.

Poetic potato from Pushkin

The sun of Russian poetry gave himself to gastronomic pleasures without a trace. However, Pushkin was in no hurry to sign up as a gourmet, preferring to dine for a long time and on a grand scale without false modesty. Many friends called the poet a terrible glutton. Once, hungry on the road, Alexander Sergeevich deigned to buy a couple of dozen peaches, which were immediately destroyed in one sitting. After which the same fate befell half a dozen soaked apples.

Pushkin's taste preferences were entirely given to Russian village cuisine. His favorite dishes were thick cabbage soup and green soup with boiled eggs, chopped cutlets with sorrel and spinach, peasant porridges, sturgeon botvinia, and mashed beetroot pancakes. But especially the soul of the poet froze at the sight of baked potatoes, which he could enjoy eating several times a day. They prepared it according to a special recipe: together with the peel, they rolled it in coarse salt and baked it in a Russian oven, hiding it deeper in the ashes. For dessert, Alexander Sergeevich liked to indulge in white gooseberry jam.

Sweet inspiration of Gogol

But Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol, although he sang with rapture the irrepressible Russia-troika, gravitated toward Italian cuisine. Having lived for several years in Rome, he was forever captivated by the tastes and aromas of the local cuisine. Most of all, the writer loved traditional pasta. As usual, he cooked it with his own hands, adding a fair amount of butter to the pasta and filling them with a mountain of grated parmesan. And Gogol had a childishly sincere passion for various sweets. Therefore, sweets, gingerbread and bagels were never translated into his pockets, with which he regaled himself non-stop and treated his friends. In the writer's house, wherever he was, there was always tea. And as if by magic, rich buns, cookies and rolls always appeared from somewhere to a cup of hot fragrant drink. Probably, sweets gave the writer inspiration for writing his immortal creations.

Dali's Garlic Madness

His Majesty the king of outrageous Salvador Dali dreamed of becoming a cook since childhood, he told about this in his memoirs. And the fact that in all his life he never learned to cook did not bother him at all. The eccentric artist expressed his personal taste preferences in an abstract formula: “I only eat what keeps its shape. Everything else my mind rejects. Based on these considerations, spinach, “a herb like freedom, sluggish and boneless,” was added to the list of hated foods. But the most favorite dish of the restless genius was garlic soup.

First, peel the head of garlic without breaking it into cloves. In this form, wrap it in foil, pre-lubricated with olive oil. Bake garlic at 180 degrees for half an hour. Then we pass it through a garlic squeezer. Next, fry the onion rings in oil, add the potatoes and pour everything with the pre-prepared vegetable broth. When the potatoes become soft, add the garlic pulp, pour 100 ml of milk into the pan and beat with a blender. Now put the pan back on the fire and add 200 ml of cream, stirring constantly, but not boiling. Garlic croutons are the best addition to this soup.

Agatha, nicknamed Gargantua

The queen of the detective genre, Agatha Christie, was distinguished not only by her outstanding talent, but also by her indomitable appetite. If she had a chance to participate in any gastronomic competition, she would have won the first prize without a doubt. According to the writer, as a little girl, she, along with adults, competed in "digestive prowess." Young Agatha, along with one of the guests, could deal with a roast turkey, a couple of pieces of beef fillet, tamping them down with a complex dessert of plum pudding, sweet pie, cookies and a generous portion of fruit. The rest of the evening was devoted to chocolates and sweets, which barely managed to fill the vases on the table in the living room. But Christie's favorite delicacy was cream, which she consumed in breathtaking quantities, even in her old age. It is surprising that with all this, the writer never experienced stomach problems and remained invariably a slender and attractive woman.

Surely, some of the proposed dishes will be to your taste, especially since it will not be difficult to cook them. Who knows, maybe they really have a piece of genius hidden in them.

Pushkin, Lermontov, Dumas, Gogol, Krylov… Only Agatha Christie could figure out which of them ate 20 peaches at a time, who didn’t even eat a royal dinner, who wrote a cookbook, who loved spaghetti, and who once ate pies with sawdust . By the way, Agatha Christie herself was a woman with a good appetite. Details are in this article.

Agatha Christie. skinny glutton In her autobiography, the English writer recalls that since childhood she was prone to gluttony: “Given the amount of food that I consumed in childhood and adolescence (because I was always hungry), I simply cannot understand how I managed to stay so skinny ". As a 12-year-old girl, Agatha Christie even competed in "digestive prowess" with a 22-year-old young man: "In terms of oyster soup, he overtook me, but otherwise we" breathed into each other's necks. We both ate boiled turkey first, then fried turkey, and then four or five pieces of beef fillet. Then we got down to plum pudding, sweet pie, and biscuit. After that came biscuits, grapes, oranges, plums, and candied fruits. And finally, for the rest of the day, handfuls of different varieties of chocolate were brought from the pantry, whoever liked what. The writer herself was not only surprised that after such dinners she did not have stomach problems, but also doubted that "now people are able to overcome such a meal." And Agatha Christie considered cream to be her favorite dish, to which she became addicted as a child and continued to “jam them all her life.”

Alexandre Dumas senior. Between a book and a frying pan The famous French writer was known not only as the author of the legendary trilogy about the Three Musketeers, but also as a gourmet and glutton. Cooking and writing are two passions between which Dumas was torn all his life. Contemporaries recalled that he could part with a pen only "for the sake of a frying pan handle." However, Dumas often combined two types of activity, resulting in the “Great Culinary Dictionary”, which, however, the writer did not have time to complete - Anatole France later did it instead. What's nice: in the cookbook, Dumas included five recipes for Russian jam (from roses, pumpkins, nuts, radishes and asparagus). However, in general, the writer did not really like Russian cuisine, and in two years of traveling around Russia he did not manage to fall in love with it. The only dish that conquered the mind and stomach of this gourmet was kurnik - a pie with eggs and chickens, cooked in the house of the Russian writer Avdotya Panaeva, with whom he was visiting. Later, she recalled the incredible voracity of the Frenchman: "I think that Dumas' stomach could digest fly agarics." Dumas impressed her as a man with a great appetite and very brave, because how to eat “two plates of botvinia, fried mushrooms, pies, a pig with porridge - all at once! You need to have great courage for this, especially for a foreigner who has never tasted such dishes ... ".

Alexander Pushkin. Potatoes as bait “Do not put off until dinner what you can eat at lunch” is one of the writer’s “Gastronomic Maxims”. However, Pushkin was still not a gourmet, he simply loved to eat, while he was unpretentious in food. Pushkin's friend, the poet Pyotr Vyazemsky, wrote: “Pushkin was not a gourmand at all ... but he was a terrible glutton for other things. I remember how on the road he ate 20 peaches bought at Torzhok in one go. Soaked apples also got pretty bad. Pushkin was also familiar with French cuisine, which was popular in his time, but, nevertheless, he loved simple, one might even say, rustic Russian cuisine. "The genius of pure beauty" Anna Kern recalls that Pushkin's mother, Nadezhda Osipovna, even lured her son to dinner with baked potatoes, "for which Pushkin was a big hunter." Pushkin was very fond of apple pie, which was prepared in the house of his neighbors Osipov-Wulf. Well, all the dishes of Pushkin's nanny were appreciated not only by himself, but also by his friends. From the sweet, Alexander Sergeevich was very fond of gooseberry jam.

Mikhail Lermontov. Sawdust pie lover Unlike Pushkin, this poet did not feel reverence for food, moreover, he did not understand it at all. As his first lover, Ekaterina Sushkova, recalls in her Notes, Lermontov never knew what he ate: veal or pork, game or lamb. However, this did not prevent the poet from arguing with friends, convincing them of the sophistication of his gastronomic taste. They listened, listened, and then they took and fed Mikhail Yuryevich with buns stuffed with ... sawdust. Young Lermontov (at that time he was only 16 years old), without suspecting anything, managed to eat a whole such bun and start on the second one, but he was stopped, pointing to the “stuffing that was indigestible for the stomach”.

Ivan Krylov. 30 pancakes for a snack Ivan Andreevich not only loved to eat, he was a real glutton. There were legends about overeating the fabulist - based on real facts. Krylov could eat up to 30 pieces of pancakes with caviar in one sitting. And these pancakes were "the size of a plate and the thickness of a finger." Ate at least 80 oysters. He loved both "solid" dishes - fish soup with pies, fried turkey, veal chops, pig under sour cream, and edible "little things" - cucumbers, lingonberries, plums. From drinks preferred kvass. It is interesting that Krylov did not eat at all at the royal dinners, after which he went to dine in a restaurant, and dinner was immediately waiting for him at home. Of course, how could he get enough of five spoons of soup, pies, size c Walnut, a turkey wing and half an orange dessert with jelly and jam inside?!

Nikolay Gogol. pasta soul The writer's favorite dish was ... Italian pasta. He enjoyed cooking them himself, adding salt, pepper, butter and parmesan cheese. According to the memoirs of contemporaries, no one "could not eat as much pasta as he used them sometimes." Even Nikolai Vasilievich absolutely could not live without sweets: the pockets of his trousers were always full of sweets and gingerbread, which he "chewed without ceasing." Gogol loved not only to eat himself, but also to treat others. A friend of the writer, critic Mikhail Pogodin recalls: “He never ran out of excellent tea, but the main thing for him was to collect various cookies for tea. And where he looked for all sorts of pretzels, buns, crackers, he only knew this, and no one else. Every day something new appeared, which he first gave to everyone to taste, and was very glad if someone found it to their taste and approved the choice with some special phrase. There was nothing more to please him."

Agree, it would be interesting to know what were the favorite dishes of great people. It turns out that Tolstoy had a terrible sweet tooth, and Pushkin slept and saw baked potatoes. What Stalin treated the guests and how to cook chocolate jelly according to the recipe of Sofia Andreevna Tolstaya.

Oddly enough, despite European guidelines, Peter the Great has always remained one of the adherents of Russian cuisine.

According to the memoirs of his contemporary, the mechanic Andrey Nartov, the usual "foods" of the emperor were jelly, pickles, sauerkraut, sour cabbage soup, cereals and roast with cucumbers and salted lemons. Before eating, Peter drank aniseed vodka, and during the meal - kvass. The emperor preferred to give public dinners with European dishes for foreign guests at Menshikov's.

Potato for Pushkin

Most of all, Alexander Sergeevich loved simple village dishes: cabbage soup and green soup with boiled eggs, cereals, chopped cutlets with sorrel and spinach, etc. But, according to the memoirs of contemporaries, greatest pleasure baked potatoes were delivered to him, which he could eat in large quantities. It was prepared according to the traditional recipe: rolled in a peel in coarse salt and baked in an oven, dug deeper into the ashes. And for dessert, the poet liked to eat white gooseberry jam.

Sweet tooth Lev Nikolaevich

It is a well-known fact that Leo Tolstoy did not eat meat. All the dishes prepared in his house were from products plant origin, milk and eggs. Every day for breakfast he ate oatmeal, curdled milk and eggs. The writer did not think about the amount eaten and could easily drink up to three bottles of kefir in one day, several cups of coffee, eat mashed rice, pies. The wife, Sofya Andreevna, was very worried about her husband's stomach. “Today at dinner,” she wrote in her diaries, “I watched with horror as he ate: first salted milk mushrooms ... then four large buckwheat toasts with soup, and sour kvass, and black bread. And all this in large numbers.

Lev Nikolayevich was also very fond of sweets. There were always nuts, dates and dried fruits in the house, as well as jam, including Yasnaya Polyana. Rather, it was even an assortment of fruits and berries, as it included melon, cherries, apples, peaches, plums, gooseberries and apricots.

Sofya Andreevna herself kept a "Cookbook", in which she eventually collected over 160 recipes. One of them is chocolate ... jelly. So, you should take one “board” of chocolate (two standard tiles), two cups of potato flour, a cup of sugar and two bottles of milk (one bottle in those years was about 0.75 liters). The chocolate was grated, mixed with starch and sugar and a little milk. The rest of the milk is boiled and the resulting mixture is poured into it. The drink should be stirred until thick.
Luis Contreras, 2013

Stalin's Buffet

Stalin had a rather strange attitude towards feasts: they began late in the evening, lasted a long time, and the tables were literally bursting with dishes, while the leader himself ate little, preferring to treat the guests to satiety. Usually boiled pork, lamb or poultry rolls, sturgeon, pies, fish and, of course, real Georgian dishes - shish kebab, lobio, pkhali, etc. were placed on the tables.

Anastas Mikoyan once recalled that Stalin's favorite dishes included fish (frozen nelma, Danube herring, boiled). “He loved birds: guinea fowl, ducks, chickens. He loved the thin lamb ribs made on a spit. A very tasty thing. Thin ribs, little meat, dry roasted. Everyone has always loved this dish. And boiled quail. These were the best dishes,” he said.
Snapshot from Instagram account shvepa, 2016

And General S. M. Shtemenko, Chief of the Operations Directorate of the General Staff, who dined with Stalin at the Near Dacha more than once, in the book “The General Staff during the War Years” said that “Stalin’s dinner, even a very large one, always passed without the services of waiters. They only brought everything they needed to the dining room and silently left. Cutlery, bread, cognac, vodka, dry wines, spices, vegetables and mushrooms were set out on the table in advance. Sausages, hams and other snacks, as a rule, did not happen. He didn't like canned food."

Hitler's Night Snacks

An interesting fact about Adolf Hitler: it is known that he had problems with the spleen, so the Fuhrer followed a strict diet, which was personally monitored by his chef. But a couple of years ago, Hitler's former maid Elisabeth Kalhammer told reporters that at night, when the servants went to bed, the Fuhrer made his way to the kitchen and secretly ate cookies and cream cakes. According to Kalhammer, chefs prepared and left a "fuhrer pie" with raisins, apples and nuts in the kitchen especially for him before going to bed.
The hearty link of Lenin

In the family of the future leader, the daily routine was quite strict: breakfast - at eight in the morning (on holidays - at noon). Lunch on ordinary days - at two o'clock in the afternoon, and on holidays - at four. Dinner was served daily at eight or nine o'clock in the evening. Vegetable, cereal and milk soups regularly appeared on the table, less often - cabbage soup and fish soup. Meat was usually eaten boiled, fish - also boiled or smoked. In addition, milk and chicken eggs were in use, which were eaten often and in any form (scrambled eggs, scrambled eggs, boiled, etc.). There was no cult of bread in the family: on weekdays, only black bread was eaten for lunch, and white was served with tea or dinner.

Such a diet, on the whole, had a beneficial effect on children growing up in the family, but as soon as the future leader lost his usual home-cooked food, having entered Kazan University, he almost instantly acquired gastritis, because of which he later suffered all his life.

According to a famous researcher different types kitchen William Pokhlebkin, “at the end of 1895, the first arrest follows. In prison, Lenin's gastritis first worsens. But regular Russian prison food (shchi, porridge) gradually stabilizes the situation. And even more favorable conditions add up for Lenin in exile.

Once in Krasnoyarsk private apartment with full board, i.e. with plentiful Russian feeding four or five times a day and a real Siberian menu (mushroom cabbage soup, veal, boiled fish, pies, dumplings, shanezhki, lamb with porridge, etc.), Lenin enthusiastically writes to his relatives : “I live well, I am quite satisfied with the table. I forgot to think about mineral gastric water and, I hope, I will soon forget its name too! “Being in exile, I felt good.”
Laurel F, 2005

And of the drinks, Lenin most of all liked tea, sometimes very strong. In emigration, he sometimes drank beer, and on his return to Russia, according to Vyacheslav Molotov, wine, but he did not get carried away with this.

Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol is rightfully considered one of the best "verbal chefs" of Russian literature. The writer's works are saturated with so many detailed descriptions of dishes and feasts that it becomes clear that the cult of food played a significant role in his work. No wonder the symbolist Andrei Bely in the literary study "Gogol's Mastery" (1934) called the story " Dead Souls”- Zhratviada, and the philosopher L.V. Karasev noted that “in Gogol, the movement of the plot is largely subject to the will of the stomach.” But Gogol not only knew how to brilliantly describe gastronomic joys, on occasion he himself could stand at the stove and cook an excellent dinner.

Few people know that the future classic, in addition to his undoubted literary talent, also possessed a wide variety of abilities. In a letter to his uncle Petr Petrovich Kosyarovsky, he wrote: You don't know all my virtues yet. I know some crafts: a good tailor, I paint the walls pretty well with alfresco painting, I work in the kitchen and I already understand a lot of something from the art of cooking ...“. He drew, knitted and embroidered beautifully, and once he cut and sewed dresses for his sisters Anna and Elizabeth. On the estate of his parents, Gogol devoted himself with all his passion to another hobby of his - gardening.

And yet his greatest affection, in addition to literature, was cooking. Gogol's gastronomic tastes and inclinations were shaped by his native Ukrainian cuisine, and complemented and enriched by Italian cuisine, which he became a great admirer in his mature years.

Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol was born in the village of Velikie Sorochintsy, Mirgorodsky district, Poltava province, in a family that belonged to an old Ukrainian family. The Gogols had over 1,000 acres of land and almost two hundred serfs, which ensured modest prosperity. Simple-hearted morals, unhurried and unpretentious way of life, family habits will later be reflected in “ old-world landlords ". Gogol's mother, Maria Ivanovna, was engaged in housekeeping. The worries of preparing a variety of food took away most time. The kitchen was always simmering, frying, and baking, and the pantry was stocked to overflowing with store-bought supplies. Traditional Ukrainian dishes were cooked in the old fashioned way - Poltava borscht with dumplings (prepared necessarily in chicken or gander broth), pampushki with garlic, krucheniki with mushrooms, sicheniki (chopped cutlets) and, of course, the famous Ukrainian dumplings, glorified in the future by the writer in the story “ Christmas Eve ” (1831-1832):

Patsyuk opened his mouth, looked at the dumplings, and opened his mouth even more. At this time, the dumpling splashed out of the bowl, slapped it into the sour cream, turned over to the other side, jumped up and just got into his mouth. Patsyuk ate and opened his mouth again, and the dumpling went again in the same order. He only took on the task of chewing and swallowing.
"Look, what a miracle!" thought the blacksmith, his mouth gaping in surprise, and at the same time he noticed that the dumpling was climbing into his mouth and already showed his lips with sour cream. Pushing the dumpling away and wiping his lips, the blacksmith began to think about what miracles there are in the world.

The secret of the real Poltava dumplings - in a dough, unusually airy and soft, which is prepared exclusively on “ sour”- sour milk (curdled milk). Modern version- kefir, yogurt, whey or a mixture thereof. Soda is never quenched. Once in a fermented milk environment, it is extinguished on its own. Vareniki amaze a true gourmet with a variety of fillings - with cabbage, potatoes, liver, mushrooms, meat, cottage cheese, poppy seeds, etc. Often they make a mixture of fillings: potato-cabbage, potato-liver, cabbage-mushrooms, etc. In the Poltava region they cook dumplings with boiled peas mashed with viburnum. Dumplings are served with sour cream, onion frying or cracklings. Especially famous are sweet dumplings with fruit. Before serving, they are sprinkled with sugar or served with syrup, honey or jam. Cherry dumplings are a classic of Ukrainian cuisine.

Sift flour, combine it with soda and salt. Beat the egg, adding sugar. In a deep bowl, mix flour, egg, yogurt and knead a soft, not too dense dough. The finished dough should “rest” for 30 minutes. Then roll the dough into a “sausage”, cut it into pieces, roll each of which with a rolling pin into a circle (not thin).
Put the filling on each circle of dough, pinch the edges. Cook dumplings in salted boiling water until they float (about 5 minutes). Using a slotted spoon, remove the dumplings, transfer to a dish and pour over the melted butter so as not to stick together.
Filling for dumplings with cherries. Previously, remove the stones from the cherries, mix the cherries with sugar and leave for 30 minutes to let the juice flow. Drain the juice and digest it with sugar to make a syrup.
Put 3-4 cherries on each circle of dough, pinch the edges. Boil dumplings in boiling water. Serve ready-made dumplings to the table, filling with prepared syrup.

Gogol's Evenings on a Farm Near Dikanka " And " Mirgorod” opened to the reading public Ukrainian cuisine, practically unknown in Russia. Gogol himself, having moved to St. Petersburg and yearning for the peaceful life of provincial life, often arranged Ukrainian dinners with friends, where he personally prepared his favorite dishes.
“A disheveled forelock, a colorful tie around his neck and an apron on his stomach - among his friends he looked like a rooster who swaggers on the threshold of his kitchen”. ( )

As you know, Gogol was not distinguished by good health. “ I feel sickness in the most noble part of the body - in the stomach, ”he wrote to N. Ya. Prokopovich. Despite this, the writer could never resist some regular “yummy”". Abundant meals led to sad consequences. Suspicious beyond measure, Nikolai Vasilyevich in letters to friends described in detail the features of his digestion and bitterly complained about the need for a diet. But the slightest improvement in health immediately ended with another "culinary" spree. The passion for discovering new taste sensations found its realization abroad - in Germany, France, Italy.

French cuisine quickly won Gogol's favor, and he will always remember Parisian restaurants with nostalgia. He also liked the famous cafe Tortoni on Italian Boulevard, which was famous for excellent coffee and especially ice cream (lemon, raspberry, vanilla, etc.). But the writer received a real culinary shock in Rome, becoming a passionate admirer of Italian cuisine until the end of his days. Gogol called Italy "the birthplace of his soul." Here he lived for more than 4 years, and “The Overcoat”, “Taras Bulba”, “Dead Souls” were written here. “ You fall in love with Rome very slowly, little by little, and for the rest of your life. In a word, the whole of Europe in order to watch, and Italy in order to live”.

In Rome, Gogol constantly went to, which was a kind of international art club, and he loved to eat in numerous local trattorias, fully surrendering to culinary and gastronomic joys. M. P. Pogodin left curious memories of Gogol's “light afternoon snack” in the Falconi trattoria.

He sits down at the table and orders: macaroni, cheese, butter, vinegar, sugar, mustard, ravioli, broccoli ... The boys begin to run and bring him both. Gogol, with a beaming face, takes everything from their hands at the table, in complete pleasure, and orders: he lays out all the supplies in front of him - heaps of all kinds of greens rise, a bunch of glass bottles with light liquids ... Here pasta is brought in a cup, the lid opens, steam poured down club from there. Gogol throws butter, which immediately spreads, sprinkles it with cheese, and strikes a pose like a priest preparing to make a sacrifice, takes a knife and begins to cut ... At this moment, our door opens with a noise. With laughter, we all run to Gogol. “So, brother, your appetite is not good, your stomach is upset? For whom did you prepare all this?' Gogol was embarrassed for a moment, but then he immediately found himself and answered with annoyance: Well, why are you shouting, of course, I have no real appetite. This is an artificial appetite, I deliberately try to excite him with something, but damn it, I’ll excite him, no matter how! I will eat, but reluctantly, and everything seems to have eaten nothing. Sit down better with me; I'll treat you... Hey, chamberlain, bring the next dishes...' The feast began, very cheerful. Gogol wrote for four and proved everything that it was so, that it all meant nothing, and his stomach was upset”.

A. O. Smirnova-Rosset recalls Gogol's reverent love for ravioli, which she constantly ordered from her Italian cook, waiting for the writer for dinner.
Ravioli - small square dumplings. They are prepared from unleavened dough with a wide variety of fillings - meat, fish, vegetable, cheese. The most popular is minced chicken with parmesan, spinach and parsley.

ravioli recipe

Ingredients :
400 gr wheat flour
4 eggs (approximately 70 gr each)
A pinch of salt
1-2 tbsp. spoons of warm water

Sift the flour, make a well in the center and crack the room temperature eggs one by one. Add salt and knead a tight dough, adding 1-2 tablespoons of warm water if necessary. Wrap the dough in plastic wrap and leave in a cool place for 30 minutes. Roll out the dough into a thin layer and cut into squares. After placing the filling in squares, blind the ravioli. In Italy, ravioli is molded using special tools, placing the filling between two layers of dough.

Recipe for ravioli.
Ricotta and spinach . Rinse 500 g of spinach and sauté lightly in olive oil with garlic. When cool, finely chop with a knife. Mix the spinach with 300 g ricotta (can be replaced with cottage cheese), a handful of grated Parmesan cheese, 2 egg yolks, salt, pepper and nutmeg.
Meat filling. Grind 400 g of fried or stewed beef, add 150 g of finely chopped ham, beaten egg, a handful of grated parmesan cheese. Season with nutmeg, salt and pepper.
Boil the finished ravioli in boiling salted water until they float.

Returning to his homeland, Gogol intensively promoted Italian cuisine, preparing macaroni and cheese for his many acquaintances. Zhukovsky called it "pasta pleasures in broth."

Standing on his feet in front of the bowl, he rolled up the cuffs and with haste, and at the same time with accuracy, first put in a lot of butter and began to mix pasta with two sauce spoons, then put salt, then pepper and finally cheese and continued to stir for a long time. It was impossible to look at Gogol without laughter and surprise; he was so wholeheartedly engaged in this business, as if it were his favorite craft, and I thought that if fate had not made Gogol a great poet, he would certainly have been an artist-cook ”

(S. T. Aksakov, “The story of my acquaintance with Gogol” )

Gogol had a special passion for various sweets - sweets, honey gingerbread, bagels. Princess Repnina, knowing this weakness behind him, personally prepared compote for the writer, which Nikolai Vasilievich called “ commander in chief of all compotes”.

At the time of Gogol, compote was a dessert made from fruits and berries boiled in sugar syrup, which they did not drink, but ate. Orange or lemon peel, cinnamon, cloves and other spices, as well as grated coconut, candied fruits or raisins were added to the syrup. Sometimes flavored with wine or rum and served with whipped cream.
Among drinks, Gogol preferred pear kvass, which he himself prepared from pickled pears.

Knowing about Gogol's addiction to food, it is hard to believe that his death was caused by a complete refusal to eat (as it is now believed, under the influence of manic-depressive psychosis motivated by religious fanaticism). He practically starved himself to death, punishing himself for the sin of gluttony and non-observance of fasts. Almost 20 years before his death, Gogol described the death of the old-world landowner Pulcheria Ivanovna, as if foreseeing the tragic end of his own life:

“Her confidence in her imminent death was so strong and her state of mind was so tuned in to this that in fact, after a few days she fell ill in bed and could no longer take any food. Afanasy Ivanovich turned into attentiveness and did not leave her bed. “Perhaps you could eat something, Pulcheria Ivanovna? ' he said, looking into her eyes with concern. But Pulcheria Ivanovna said nothing. Finally, after a long silence, as if she wanted to say something, she moved her lips - and her breath flew away.

Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol lived a short life, only 42 years old, nevertheless, he managed to create works that have become classics not only of domestic, but also of world literature. He lived " torn by a passion for great ideas and sumptuous dinners, with eternal love for Italy and nostalgia for vile Russia, with worship of the cult of beauty and a desire to portray ugliness, with a claim to sincerity and the need to cry, deceive, fork in order to avoid the judgment of contemporaries”. (Henri Troyat, “Nikolai Gogol”, 1971 )
His unusual controversial personality left behind many mysteries, both in terms of personal life and creativity, which many generations of literary critics, psychologists and ordinary readers are trying to unravel.