Cooking on the Soviet Home Front during WWII
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- Опубликовано: 16 сен 2024
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#tastinghistory #worldwar2
Covering certain powers during this series will definitely make some uncomfortable, but I feel like skipping those would leave the series incomplete and do a disservice to history. I hope, for the sake of learning, you stick around for all of the episodes in this series.
It's important as it confirms everyone involved was a human being and had the same basic needs!
The content and events covered here are as relevant today as they were back then. Keep going and don’t let any hate comments deter you! 🌸
It's very important to show the truth of what happened during WW2.
History is hardly a comfortable subject in all it's brutal reality, and it's important to not forget what happened so we can learn from our past. Simply burying it or ignoring it is no way to honor those who have come before and may have died for the freedoms we enjoy today.
Uncomfortable or not it will be lovely to listen to a topic never spoken again (cant get worse to describe than the Viking funeral vid)
History is full of questionable and uncomfortable acts by pretty much every party. It's important to have a full, honest view of history so that we can learn from it and realise our commonality with those who came before. Good on you for sticking to that, and for not simply brushing off the possible discomfort besides.
Regarding the sugar in the recipe. I'm Russian and, when I was a kid, we ate millet porridge quite frequently. Tastes differ and some people prefer their porridge to stay more savory while others want a little bit of sweetness, so sugar would be served separately from the porridge itself. This way you can skip it or sprinkle over still hot porridge. It actually contributes greatly not only to taste but also texture, I LOVED slightly crunchy sugar parts
Yeah, as soon as Max brought up the question of the sugar in the ingredients, I imagined it would be used as an optional condiment. That's the way it works with porridge, too, yes? Or do they do something different outside of Europe? 😅If you're serving oatmeal or rye porridge with nothing to really accompany it (like berries/fruits or jam), then you can put some sugar or butter in it if you like.
I doubt that much sugar was available for the commoners during the war, so yes, it was "optional" for sure
@@user-cr3ti1vj6f Well, during the war not at all. But as Max mentioned, the book wasn’t really targeted at common folks
Can confirm, it is always "to taste" and goes into your plate/bowl rather than the cooking pot.
I wondered if that was the case, similar to how traditional Cream of Wheat is eaten.
My grandfather grew up in Leningrad and was the little boy when the blockade started. He was “abandoned” by his parents so he could be registered as an orphan, so he could have a chance at survival. He was taken over the ice “road of life” he was taken to an orphanage in Siberia where he stayed for a few years. We were never allowed to throw away bread growing up.
Oh my. Sorry your father and all the others went through that
This is some specific russian thing about bread. It feels like something sacred. Me, a russian, can't just throw bread in the trashcan. At least I'm gonna feed birds with bad bread, but not throw away
@@greges8601 I guess it's a pretty common thing among all countries or regions where people suffered the consequences of war. I'm from Spain my grandma would never throw any bread away. With old bread, she would make bread crumbles, or soak it in soup, or, my favorite as a child, serve it with hot milk and sugar for breakfast or afternoon snack.
Leningrad actually did have farmland and it was used during the siege, the issue was that Leningrad held the Soviet Seed Bank, which was the largest in the World at the time. Certain rare seeds had to be planted, to keep the Seed Bank going or the seeds could be lost to humanity.
A majority of scientists at the Seed Bank died of starvation, while tending crops, so the seeds would not be lost.
Wow. Real heroes. I teared up in admiration when reading this. I salute you, nameless soviet scientists.
Honestly can respect it. For the progress of science
Oh wow 😢
The tragedy is even darker. The seed bank was established by the remarkable biologist and geneticist Nikolai Vavilov who was arrested in 1940 at the behest of the head of Soviet agriculture, the loathsome Stalinist toady Trofim Lysenko who had made his reputation with fraudulent anti-geneticist claims about being able to 'educate' plants to grow in unsuitable envoronments. Agriculture as a political argument about nature versus nurture. Vavilov was starved to death (apparently deliberately) in a gulag without recanting his political fault of believing in genetics while many of his researchers at the Bureau of Applied Botany starved rather than eat the seed bank. One researcher reportedly died at his desk while clutch a packet of peanuts. Vavilov's driving ambition - to establish a seed bank and research to eliminate himan deaths from famine. Science doesn't have saints but these men and woment would be close.
This is true; I’ve read about is elsewhere. Rather saddening, but understandable.
My Grandma was born in Leningrad and survived the whole 900-ish days of the siege. No piece of bread, however moldy, was ever thrown away in our house while she lived, she'd scrape it and fry it and make us eat it. And to this day we've got a pantry bursting with jams, grain and canned food. Some nice generational trauma we've got going on here.
Same here, though my grandmother was born in Baranowicze (modern-day Belarus). I can or freeze everything from my garden and feel guilty when throwing away old food.
We distilled a metric shitton of jam and then some and still something along the lines of 200 liters was thrown away
My grandma survived starvation in the USA in the 1930s and until her death we weren't allowed to throw out any food. Everything was saved and she always kept the pantry full. Those habits were passed down to me and I still struggle to throw away food scraps.
The 1930's Great Depression spanned my mother's entire childhood, and since her father was too ill to work, the family was "on the dole." As an adult, mom was super-sparing of every resource (though never niggardly), and we always had a huge pantry (or two) stuffed to the hilt with non-perishable food. Lesson learned...
Living in a place that deals with hurricanes, my family always kept a minimum of 1 month worth of dried and canned goods, and 2 weeks of water. Dealing with poverty and not knowing if I'll be able to afford food for months at a time, I've extended that to 5 months of food stored. ...nothing makes a steak dinner tastier than previously living off of 1200 daily calories of beans and discount canned pasta for two months.
My grandpa survived the siege in Leningrad, he was 8 years old when it started. He used to tell me awful stories abiut the cold, hunger and the bombs raining down. His teeth fell out when he was 12 because of the lack of nutrition from those times. The people of St.Petersburg are truly resilient and strong
Sounds like he caught scurvy.
I remember one story from the Leningrad Siege of a cat that helped keep a girl, her mother and grandmother alive by bringing them rats and pigeons. They all survived the war. When the cat died the grandmother secretly buried the cat at the edge of the human cemetery. They owed their lives to that cat.
I wonder if that is maybe the source of the cat and dogs' existence in 60 Seconds!.
Vaska the cat!
My cat growing up used to bring us things, including dropping a vole on my mother's lap during breakfast. Silly ungrateful us threw them out.
But really, I'd far prefer that over the cannibalism that happened during the siege of Lenigrad.
Even if it didn't really happen, I like that story anyway.
@@lady_sir_knight3713 It's kinda cute that she has a person name and not a cat name
This video makes me think of the Vavilov Institute, the world's first seed bank. During the Siege of Leningrad, several scientists starved to death surrounded by food-- seeds, beans, potatoes, peanuts. They refrained from eating anything because they knew that the seeds would be instrumental in revitalizing the country's agriculture after the war. It's an incredible story that I recommend looking in to.
Wow. They intentionally starved themselves to death? I admire them for their selflessness, and for playing the tape all the way to the end. If they ate their nation's only food source the Russians would just KEEP starving. Them and everybody else. I personally have difficulty playing the tape all the way to the end to make the necessary short-term sacrifices, even if my temporary suffering is much pettier.
I also know exactly who is responsible for the plight of Russia post-WWI. The Russian mystic Grigori Rasputin who infiltrated the Russian Imperial Family wasn't Russian. He was German. He was Adolf Hitler in disguise. He had one Russian daughter named Maria whom he evacuated to America before he did his work in Russia. Hitler's most important female employee was also an Eastern European named Maria. Like his daughter she was also a professional dancer-turned-psychic. The reason I know this is because he's also my ancestor by yet another pseudonym of his. It's a slippery slope. You're less likely than others in your demographic group to actually die, but you're MORE likely to go totally insane.
@@evelynzlon9492 🤪🫵
As far as my going insane, Hitler personally had a hand in that. He claimed to possess a chemical preparation which could extend a person's lifespan to several millennia. He did. He's also well-connected everywhere and can worm his way into any individual's life. Long story short, when I was a child he forced me to participate in a lengthy outdoor sporting event in 100 degree heat without drinking water. It was horrible. He followed this up with additional interactions periodically throughout my life. He did give me some choices and chances but it would've required a Herculean effort to utilize them. I'm too lazy. There are other people who've suffered a lot more at his hands, who jumped at the meager opportunities he DID afford them. He can totally encompass you like a prison guard, gradually hedging you into depending on his rations. In fact I think he may routinely practice on his family members before he decides to take his show on the road and really kick a**.
Did they choose to starve or was there a prohinition on eating those seeds made by the state?
There's a big difference between choosin of your own free will and choosing under the threat of imprisonment of your family. The gulags were no joke.
@@evelynzlon9492I cannot tell if this is bad performance art or if you’re genuinely having a mental crisis. If the later, I hope you are able to access help.
During the war, my Russian professor in college was a mere boy. He was from Poland. One day, while he was in school, he was notified that both of his parent were killed and on that day, he and his brother was enlisted in the German army on the front line. When he was 10, he was in a heated battle and one of the American soldiers saw that it was a small boy shooting at them. The soldier shot him in the hand and the leg…. Then ran, disarmed him, and took him to the hospital. He was adopted by an American soldier and given an opportunity to live. He said he went from not eating that week and treated horribly every day yet he was expected to shoot at their enemy. When he was in the hospital, he realized how much he was lied to and finally had the opportunity to be taken care of. This man earned my respect and was such a wonderful professor and man.
BTW, I loved your Russian accent and pronunciation. Well done.
That's honestly really beautiful. I'm glad he's okay. But what about his brother?
Sort of reminds me of my great great too many greats uncle. I'll just call him my great uncle for simplicity. He was on the Italian battlefront during the Mussоlini BS. Soldiers didn't want to fight so they'd try to run away, often being killed in the process. My great uncle successfully escaped with his friends. I don't remember what happened to his friends, but he was eventually captured by the British. Of course they made him do manual labour, but he said he was always treated with respect and dignitity. One of the prison wardens treated him like his own son. After a few years of work they said "you know what? You've done enough. You're a free man now".
IIRC after a while he then went back to Italy to see if his family was still alive. They were thanks to my great great aunt who I am named after :D she would sow pockets into her dresses and smuggle food from under the nаzis noses. Thanks to her my ancestors didn't starve to death. Thank you, Edith :)
It's been tradition in my family for several generations to pass down stories of our ancestors. This is one of my favourites. Because of it our family still has a strange fondness of the British lol
My mum has always told me of when she was complimenting the beautiful silk wallpaper of one of her university friend’s babushka’s apartment during the late 1970s in the USSR. She offhandedly suggested that it must be from imperial times. Then the babushka replied in the most matter of fact voice “no, we ate all of the wallpaper during the siege.” My mum decided it was time for more vodka.
This was noted in the film, "Attack on Leningrad". Horrendous situation.
USSR provided blood, UK provided time, US provided resources. All 3 needed
If someone who was alive during the Battle of Leningrad mentions the Battle of Leningrad, it's time for more vodka.
I do not know how the Soviet civilians were able to manage.... compared to the Irish war of independence (1916 -1922, and then civil war through 1924) we were not burning each others houses or food....my grandmother told me that NOTHING compared to what the Soviets survived during the "great patriotic war" - and long before it was known in the West she used that phrase.....heartbreaking....
We have a family friend who was born in Leningrad during the siege. Everyone came to see because live births were incredibly rare. Her survival was a real miracle, not just her birth, but survival through the remaining siege. Her family got out over Lake Lagoda over the ice. Then, of course, her mother died, I think of typhus. Survived the siege, got out, then died. Life's not remotely fair.
Of course, as bad as that was, it was not as bad as what happened in the Poland-Ukraine-Belarus-Lithuania area.
My family is from Moscow. My grandma was sent to live in an orphanage after her father was killed in the war and her mother couldn't feed 3 children on her own, and they used to serve this type of food there. Even now, sweet pumpkin is banned in her house because they fed it to them so often in the 40s and 50s.
My dad has the same problem with asparagus. He grew up super poor, so he'd get sent out to pick asparagus from the ditches so they could have vegetables in addition to the squirrel and rabbit that they could hunt. I've kinda got him to come around through the use of seasoning and bacon, but it's still not his favorite. I love it. Oddly enough, he's big on succotash made from Lima beans and corn, maybe it was the best veg dish his parents could afford, I guess. Or he didn't have to be embarrassed being seen walking the ditches to pick it.
I can definitely see that. Pumpkin has the kind of flavour that's nice once in a while but that you could get sick off really quick, so I imagine having to eat it in almost every meal because it's the only thing you got can turn you off it for good.
My mom (who lived in France during the Nazi Occupation) was the same way about Jerusalem artichokes--something I hadn't known before I brought some home from the supermarket one day. She just about pitched a fit.
May God bless your grandmother and her parents. I cannot imagine the pain and grief of their family, being separated from their mother and having lost their father. God bless them.
It was celery that was hated in my family at that time, and my husband hates celery too. His family was sick of canned seal meat from the USSR, sent to Cuba during his childhood in the sixties and seventies.
Man, I've been watching your show since you had under 500k subscribers. I remember when you made the "official" leap from Disney to the channel. That took a lot of courage. And now you're up to nearly 3M subscribers. Absolutely amazing. So happy for you.
I actually got to meet a survivor of the siege when I traveled to St. Petersburg with my university. She’d been a little girl during the siege and her mother and father were conscripted into the work crews. She described diving into frozen shell holes to break the ice and get water doe their home. She had a bandolier of sorts just festooned with medals she and her parents had received as they had survived the siege and defended the city. It was heart wrenching to see this elderly woman getting choked up describing the artillery barrages and the cold and the hunger. I went back with my family not long after the trip for a vacation and my mother commented on all the little divots and ponds outside the city. I explained to her that those were shell holes left over from the siege. Needless to say she saw things very differently after that.
And now, the same thing happening between Russia and Ukraine. War is truly horrible.
Shell holes are to be found in forest areas pretty much all around major European cities - fields have been plowed and evened since, but forests do have a bit longer memory. There is a ton of them litterally in the park infront of my appartment house. We used to play in them as kids, using some as a U-ramps for our bmx bikes. Sometimes we did discuss how horrible it had to be at the time of their origin. I guess it was pretty educational in some way. It's very obscure a war in Europe is happening again, I guess a certain man didn't play in the woods as a kid...
@@tanzim37 Not 'between'. Russia is doing this to Ukraine not the other way around.
@@Manaswap sorry, I'm still learning the language, i don't know that i changed a meaning of the phrase in the transition.
@@smeeAndyEN That makes sense why they planted mines throughout the forests to stop people getting wild food, they've got a demining operation on the way but it's going to take them years to remove them all.
Obviously they did that so the ukrainian civilians couldn't get wild food when they can't get regular food which is more cruel than what they did back then and once again they are experience food insecurity😢
My Baba (grandmother) was born in Ukraine during WWI and fled during WWII as the Germans invaded, my uncle was born in a Russian refugee camp before they eventually made it to Canada. I’m only in my 20’s, this history isn’t as long ago as I think some people would like to believe and it’s important to remember that regular people, kids, were also living and struggling through these times and it’s important to learn from it. My Baba spent some of the last years of her life writing everything she’d lived through down and there are parts that are heartbreaking to put it lightly. History needs to be remembered and I like that food is a very approachable and understandable way to address topics like this.
My paternal grandmother also came from Ukraine to Canada as an orphan around that time. She didn't really talk about it, though.
I think you mean ‘Babusya’ or ‘Babushka’.
‘Baba’ is a somewhat vulgar term which implies she’s a young woman with whom you’re in a sexual relationship. Not far from ‘my bitch’.
Your grandmother was born 110 years ago and you are in your 20s... this doesn't add up.
@@Xiroi87 not everyone has kids in their early 20’s🤦🏼♀️ You’re not entitled to my family members ages but just a little food for thought, the last American *Civil War* widow just died a couple years ago and that war ended in 1865. There is still a living grandson of the US’s 10th president, John Tyler who was born in 1790! (Sorry for only US facts, that’s all that came to mind). People get married and have kids at different ages than others and men can hypothetically have kids until they die of very old age, not every family has a new generation every 25 years. I just happen to be the child of two generations where they both had kids later in life, which was also historically common when people had a lot more kids and those youngest kids had large families with a youngest kid who had kids, large age gaps between grandparents and their grandchildren aren’t abnormal.
**thanks for coming to my extra history on this tasting history😅
@@Xiroi87 My grandfather was born in 1905, his wife in 1907. My aunt was born in 1952 and my mom in 1954 (her mom was 46 at her birth due to birthdays). Mom had me when she was in her late 20s, but if she had waited until she was old as her mom, or if I were the youngest child like she was, I would be 25. It happens, get over it.
Although not Leningrad, my grandmother was born during WW2 in Belarus and she remembers how as a tiny girl, her family at times had nothing going for them but grass soup and potato peels. She taught us to be respectful to food and never waste anything.
Yeah my grandmother also taught us to be respectful to food and always said “bread is a head of everything”, “never drop food”, “clean your plate”(means “use black bread to pick up anything that left on the plane so the plate must be “clean” when you finished eating”), “never play with food” etc
And also told a lot of stories from WWII (she was 9 when the war started). When I grew up I started recording those stories to not forget em but unfortunately I couldn’t record most of them cause didn’t spend enough time with her and as it often happens I understood how much she meant for me and how much I loved her only after she died
My grandpa, who was born in Moscow in 1939, has always remembered the US tushonka and chocolate he ate during the wartime as some of the tastiest things he's ever tried!
I've heard many memories like that. Puts in perspective how utterly depressing was life in USSR if you remember basically a low grade canned meat (mostly fat) as "one of the tastiest things ever tried" your entire life.
An iconic moment that put this into perspective was Khrushchev’s visit to an American supermarket; he was in awe when seeing the shelves full of food lol
@@gronthgronth2628Most of that is nostalgia from childhood, combined with the stress of wartime. People in the USSR had an equivalent, if not larger, caloric intake than Americans on average after the war. When you’re starving during a war that is deciding the fate of your people, anything is better than nothing.
@@phillav11 caloric intake consisting of mostly cheap carbs.
@@phillav11 I also think that for the most part it was a childhood nostalgia case, and also lend-lease food was presented as something exotic, something that sparked curiosity, so quite memorable. But I won't deny Soviet food was pretty damn bland and boring even in the best of times XD
Ahh. A SteveMRE reference. Proof that Max is a man of culture.
To which I can only say... "Nice."
Max and Steve should work together sometime:
Steve first munches the original from a hundred years ago and then compares it with the one Max cooked...
mmmkay, letsgetthisoutontoatray
@@tramadol42History of coffee type 2
Nice!
Let's get this out on the tray ✌️
I've thankfully been on the receiving end of Bombas free socks. The ones they give away are legitimately high quality socks just like the retail ones, no double standard here. Respect to Bombas!
Same here. Great company.
Bro....wait when did anyone mention socks.
@@silverlightfox6621 sponsor at 3:39
His pronunciation of all these different languages is always so impressive!
For real!
I get the feeling there's some cuts, but it speaks well of Max that he'll keep trying until he gets a good take to splice in.
He puts effort into his videos...Not too many put effort in their videos on this app.
As much as many YTbers go into "Eh, I don't speak the language so dont complain about my pronunciation", it is always extra respect for YTbers who actually try to pronounce foreign words correctly. This channel definitely earns this extra respect.
@@easteuropecollusion468Yes! Even when he doesn't get it perfectly, it's still close enough that you think that the dude TRIED to sound genuine.
Much much better than the usual "I'm not gonna pronounce that correctly" bs
My father is elderly, and in poor health. But we made the Icelandic rye bread together. I haven't seen him so happy in a very long time. It was beautiful. Thank you, Max.
THIS is what makes life worth all the hard times. Beautiful comment.
Hi there from St Petersburg, Russia! I'm originally from Nizhny Novgorod oblast, my grand-aunt is 92 now, she lived through all WW2 years, and more often than not they used to eat fried potato peels. In some severe circumstances people ate moss, but to my knowledge my grand-aunt didn't. Milk was somewhat a luxury during WW2. My grandma on the father's side lived through entire siege of Leningrad and told me a story once when she spent almost an entire day in searching for a single grain in her room, only to realize that she already ate it earlier. Horrifying, tragic time it was. Thank you for this video.
I'm surprised you didn't mention the Leningrad Seed Bank. The scientists in charge defended the seeds from desperate people without eating any themselves. The seeds were stored in case of disaster, so that crops could be replanted after the war.
All but 1 or 2 of the scientists starved to death by the end of the seige, but the seeds were safe. Without those seeds, the Soviet Union's farms would not have recovered so quickly, if at all.
Why did they need those seeds, specifically?
@@eadweard. Just a guess from my on experience, acclimatization. Those samples would have come from the regions they grew in, and have adapted to those conditions in small ways. Not enough to categorize them as a new species, or even sub-species, but as a variant that grows well in that region, but _only_ that reason.
My nana's roses are a good example of this. They're giant bush roses, beautiful, bloom longer, and keep longer than most when cut. But try and split the bush to take it 10 miles in any direction and they won't take root, they'll just die straight away. They've completely adapted to the combination of soil, local symbiotic bacteria, climate, and probably a dozen other things to the point they just do not grow anywhere else.
@@HopefullyUnoptimistic Oh yes. Thank you for taking the time to explain!
thank you for shearing this, i googled and am reading about it now
@@NIckyFromDunedin I learned about it from Dark Matters: Twisted But True! Excellent series on the darker side of science.
I'm from Leningrad and the memories of the blockade and the 90's hunger are still fresh here. I still keep reconstructed 125g slice of bread which was given to the people as a daily(!) ration. That bread isn't the bread you know, sometimes they added substances like glue or other organic waste just to give it more weight, sometimes there were no wheat flour so they used any type of grain there was, sometimes even molded or rotten.
I remember one day i was at the supermarket and i carelessly tossed a pack of cookies into my cart and my grandma said that i have no respect for food, that i didn't know hunger in my life. Good thing i don't know what hunger is and i hope i won't during this war.
When you say glue, do you mean collagen?
Nope, literally glue. Glue was either made from horses or leftover pasta bits
@@simoncleret Sometimes they boiled leather for hours to squeeze every organic bit out of it, in the end they got this glue-like sticky ooze they put into food
@@simoncleret no, adults and children sniffed glue during the 90s (92-99) in order to stave off hunger
but at least they had democracy amirite?
@@FonRize The Donner Party also did this.
My grandmother still remember how she was digging burdock roots with her brothers when she was a child in 40's. It was used as additional food on the countryside of Soviet Union.
Our polish side family never sets a table without kashia. Ukraine is famous for being the most fertile land in Europe. So much cheap grain has fed armies since antiquity. It was called the bread basket of the Soviet Union.
Frank Costanza ate it in bed
It being so fertile makes the engineered famine of the Holodomor that much more tragic. Ukraine is a beautiful country with a sad history (and present).
Same goes for Egypt in the times of the Roman Empire. It was the breadbasket for them as well.
@@chemistryofquestionablequa6252 I have never met a Russian I liked personally. The history of my family and how they crushed our democracy, spent 123 years with their boots on our necks, and then another 83 of open hostility. I pray for our Ukrainian neighbors, and wish for peace and prosperity again.
@@Katalowins Thanks for kind words. For me as Ukrainian it is really heartwarming to read
Eduard Khil, later a famous singer, was 6 when he was separated from his family and shipped to an orphanage near Ufa. After two years, when his mother finally came to get him, he had suffered so much from hunger that he was unable to walk. He begged his mom for a piece a bread…
And one of his favorite foods was indeed pumpkin kasha
Americans think "trololo" is a laugh. They don't realize it's an elegy to the horrors of the Eastern Front
I am just being honest here as a American I personally never used that laughing phrase nor has anyone I known has used it either.
I do greatly appreciate your comment though because it has firther my education on this subject and has mad eme aware noe that if I do see anyome using thay specfic laughing phrase or what they think is a laughing phrase welp I will educate them in the reality of what "trololo" actually means.. So thank you again🤗@@Kerithanos
@@Kerithanos Most Americans recognize it They just view the Soviets as a dog that bit the hand that fed it. As bad as the famine was it would have been worse without food aid from the US.
Russaboo's and Talkie's like to claim that US lend lease did nothing to help their situation as most of the heavy vehicles came later in the war but the truth is early on basic materials and supplies like American food, bullets, and steel kept the USSR from collapsing.
To put it into perspective Something like 20% of the USSR steel during the war came from the US and Stalin and his generals have openly admitted they would have lost the war without that alone but on top of that half of all small arms ammunition manufactured in the US was sent to the USSR. Hell in food alone the US sent the USSR OVER 5 MILLION TONS. due to submarines roughly 4 million tons arrived though. Its established that to keep people alive they need roughly a kilogram of food a day and the US sent over 4,000,000,000 kilograms worth. That ranges from 10% - 15% of the countries entire food supply at one point.
@@happyjohn354 Hey man, I agree with you about lend lease and all, and that's good information to share... but I'm totally perplexed by both these replies. I was just making a joke about Eduard Khil and his "trololo" song. I don't understand how that got interpreted as any kind of sincere or political commentary?
@@happyjohn354nah, wouldnt collapse, just would have taken more time to win, btw dont forget to take your reddit gold xir
I'm an American Latvian. My parents and their parents survived the war in Latvia until it was coming to an end, and then they fled to the West. My paternal grandmother in particular was a fabulous cook who had brought lots of recipes with her from Latvia. I watched this video (like all of your videos) with great interest. Thank you so much for producing them!
My grandma was born in the ussr during ww2, she told stories of how they had to eat boiled leather boots and how their cat would bring rhem rats which they would cook and consume and give a portion back to the cat
Your grandmother survived under the Nazi invasion, so it's no surprise that she is a warrior in the homefront.
So the Kitty 🐈 was actually helping the family 😢, cats are amazing.
@@kimandre336 actually when the Wehrmacht occupied her village, the soldiers would play with her (she was still very young) toss her into the air and catch her and such. A reminder soldiers are just people who were unlucky enough to be drafted into a conflict by their governments. But food was scarce. Not as bad as Leningrad, it was a village, not a metropolis, many still starved.
@@prismaticc_abyss I imagine a lot of young men went through the war on the side of the Reich with steadily dawning horror and spent a lifetime as traumatised as anyone else
@@prismaticc_abyss *some soldiers were unlucky enough to be drafted. Some were happy to do their part.
One historian I read put the Eastern front in North American terms for reference: It was New York City to Chicago Deep and New York City to Mexico City long. That's a huge area of devastation. No one should take food security for granted
Mind-boggling.
Props to the CanucklesHead, and Right On!
Max, your ability and care to pronounce languages in the correct accent is truly amazing to me. It always sounds great, and it is a great testament to your respect of any culture. Inspiring
I live in eastern Poland (about 5km from Ukranie) and my son basically lives on kasha, pickles, and kotlets. That and potato pancakes with sour cream. I worry that if we ever vacationed outside of central or eastern Europe he'd starve!
I live in the central US. My daughter eats apples, tortillas, cheese, peanut butter on toast, and plain buttered noodles.
I have the exact same fear! I can't convince this kid to eat a carrot or a bowl oatmeal even...
i am a poor german and i found millett to become my absolute saviour in feeding me.
but it is somewhat hard to find, as not all supermarkets sell it.
Every decent city has a Polish shop, he’d be fine!
Amazing. I grew up in a Polish immigrant community in Canada. Sounds like my dinners every night haha!
If one is hungry enough they will try to eat anything
I know it's hardly the most well known theatre of the war, but with this series about WWII cooking, you GOTTA talk about the creation of Pad Thai because it's a really interesting story and because everybody forgets that... Thailand declared war on the US and UK and signed a military alliance with Japan, they then helped in the invasion of Malaysia and then just outright invaded Burma with the Japanese!
Ohmigosh, really???? I wonder if they are still hated by surrounding countries?
@@giraffesinc.2193 Pad Thai was created due to the war cutting off rice supplies to Bangkok from China (who they were at war with), as well as a bad harvest (that also led to a famine in India) and Japanese troops stationed in Thailand eating a lot of rice. so they started stir frying noodles instead.
No hard feelings really with its neighbours (except ongoing, older ethnic issues with Malaysians, Thailand also annexed several provinces of Malaysia during the war as well), because all of SE Asia was full of Japanese collaborators, many of whom would stay in power after the war across the region. Also Thailand had just fought the colonial Vichy French in the Franco-Thai War of 1940, and nobody really liked the French colonists.
I'd really like to see you cover some WW2 Finnish foods on the homefront, like "pettuleipä" which was made from by adding the kambium and phloem (layers right between bark and wood) of pine trees to bread flour.
Pettuleipä was also eaten during the famines of 1860's.
My grandmother was an Ingrian Finn and a survivor of the war. She had to endure the beginnings of the siege of Leningrad and the Nazi occupation of her Village. Her mother, father and 3 siblings all starved to death, because the Nazis stole their food. She and her brother were the only two survivors. Luckily for her, she and her brother eventually got evacuated to Finland which saved their lives. They both got exiled to Siberia for it after the war. But after the collapse of the Soviet union she was finally able to move to Finland permanently.
She was one of the kindest people I've ever known.
I am glad she and her brother had eachother to endure such sadness and difficulty with. ❤
@chartreux1532 did you even watch the video? I seriously doubt your ability as a historian if you're claiming that there was fair compensation for supplies by the Axis powers in any sort of systemic way. Max specifically cites "der Hungerplan/der Backe-Plan" as a wide sweeping plan to starve and genocide the Soviets in order to feed the Germans and weaken the Soviet state. Perhaps individual Nazis or command groups compensated civilians, but it wasn't "law" at the time at all, regardless of whatever reparations are or were implemented in the post-war period.
Cite your sources or get out of here with that Nazi apologism.
@@chartreux1532 by law called “Erlass über die Ausübung der Kriegsgerichtsbarkeit im Gebiet „Barbarossa“ und über besondere Maßnahmen der Truppe" German troops were allowed to do whatever they wanted with noncombatants (up to their commander to punish or not for any crimes).
@@chartreux1532You don't know about the Hungerplan?
Another Ingrian Finn descendant! Hello!! My grandfather escaped the invasion in 1944. They were Inkeri from near Narva. His family farm became pinched between the German and Red fronts: they slept in a trench to survive the crossfire.
They fled on foot one night and walked across the frozen strait into Finland. My grandfather was about 4 then, and he learned 5 languages in the next 3 years of fleeing deportation. (Finland succumbed to the order to return refugees to Russia, then Sweden, then Ireland housed them temporarily, and they settled in Canada.)
I am learning Finnish now with he hope to learn Inkeri before it dies out. My grandfather did not pass on his language due to the horrible shame instilled in him during the assimilation process in Canada. He was a jovial man loved by everyone.
Sounds like your grandmother and my great-grandmother would have gotten along well. She was generous, strong, and kind.
I wish you well, cousin.
My grand mother was still a child when the war broke out (I am German.) She said she had it somewhat better because she was living in the countryside and her family could grow stuff. She is 92 now. She told me people were eating cats as "mock rabbit" in the nearby big city out of desperation (calling it "roof rabbit"). She also told me that she survived on just pumpkin and squash an entire year and this wasn't your good eating hokkaido pumpkin. This was animal fodder. To this day she will not eat pumpkin and squash come fall time. It makes her gag.
Reminds me of my grandfather. He was in occupied France and had to survive on a very similar diet and by the end he was so sick of it that when he married my grandmother he said if she ever served him pumpkin he'd consider it grounds for divorce. She never served him pumpkin.
@@livingandthriving That's so funny and tragic at the same time. Pumpkin seems to have been a staple food for a lot of people back then. They pickled it and things like that to have something with a longer shelf life. Oh man war really sucks! Too bad humanity doesn't seem to have learned the lesson.
@@lars5174 Pumpkins (squashes in general) grow easily with little tending and bear many fruits per plant, so they would have been popular as a victory garden plant. Every part of a squash or pumpkin is edible, including the seeds and flowers. I've harvested squash that grew out of cracks in the compost bin and were just left alone for months.
No era throughout history corners the market on human suffering. Basic sustenance is something many do not have to this day. Those of us who have food on our table and clean water to drink are truly fortunate. Love this channel.
I have a 50s edition of the "Книга о Вкусной и Здоровой Пище" from my grandparents. The illustrations are awesome, and very much aspirational - they were taken in the Kremlin cafeteria.
My mom makes the pumpkin porrige, but with rice, not millet. It's delicious.
The pumpkin porridge with rice looks very similar to the South Korean pumpkin porridge, proving that rice is the best ingredient when making porridge of any kind.
When I lived in Ukraine (2018-2020) a friend made me rice and pumpkin for breakfast when I was visiting. I made sure to bring back a traditional pot like the one she used.
Leningrad was under siege for over 2 years. Bread rations were initially of decent quality, but as the supplies dried up the bakers were instructed to add burned flour to the dough. There have been some claims that sawdust was later added to increase volume. More than half the civilian population of the city died during the siege, including nearly all the children
Karma is harsh bitch.
If soviets didn't attacked it's small neighbor, Finland. and got humiliated
Maybe Germans would actually kept their promised.
As it would have kept image of soviet army stronk.
I'm pretty sure they would have used sawdust. Sawdust was one of the ingredients in British "raspberry jam"* during rationing and we know that the "bread" that Nazi concentration inmates were given (when they were given any food) had a large percentage of sawdust in it.
* The sawdust in question was found by some university chemistry students who were curious as to what was in the rather shitty "food" that was available. Whether the sawdust was actually a _legal_ additive, I don't know.
One should also note that as part of the Hungerplan food storages were deliberately bombed and shelled. One notable example is Badayev warehouses - flour and sugar burned, but whatever left (charred and water damaged) was collected and used to bake bread. Later on during siege people were digging up dirt that absorbed sugar and caramelised during fire and eating it.
11:03 it sounds like his voice broke there when he said "exactly"
In 1973 I travelled to USSR on a school trip from Canada. We had a university student tour guide. There was a very common poster around town & when asked we were told "It says remember the 900 days. They don't have oranges in the shops so they do this every time something like that runs low. so people know how good they have it"
My grandmother who was born in the USSR but lived as a refugee in various parts of eastern Europe during the war told me when I was little that what you could find was what you ate. She told me her mother (my great grandmother) would work in the fields or do whatever job she could find and then have to come home and cook and do housework at night since her husband (my great grandfather) was away fighting. My grandmother to this day suffers a lot of health problems from malnutrition as a small child during the war.
I'm Russian. My grandma survived WWII, she was telling me of the times when she managed to earn enough money to buy mittens, and he and her friend only had enough for one pair, so they used to share those mittens in the winter, holding hands. Even my mom lived through rationing in the 90s and I remember the USAID powdered milk help we had back then. Thank you Max for bringing light to our history here
my grandma is a russian german who got forcibly deported out of her village when the war started. she told me one time that she and the other children were stealing pumpkin rinds to eat them raw and it was the tastiest thing she ate in a while. i have the utmost respect for this woman and i hope the world doesn't return to a war like that ever again.
The soviets didn't need a war to start the Holodomor, they just had to be communist.
I read a book a long time ago about a family whos mother was a young adult in Russia during ww2 and how she had 2 or 3 freezers full of cooked frozen meals. The daughters hated it because they never ate the fresh cooked meals, just the frozen counterparts. However, the mother was scared to death to be put in another starving situation. It was a very interesting take on the war and the after math for survivors.
A traditional meal for Jews from the USSR part of the world is called chollent. It’s pretty much poradge/stew usually made with some kind of meat, potatoes, & some kind of grain that’s cooked low & slow for about 12 hours. We usually eat it on Saturdays though in certain parts of New York you can get chollent from gas stations on Thursday nights.
Hats off for being neutral and respectful to the people of the Soviet Union / USSR / "Russia", the detailed explanation of the rationality behind rationing ... and also, the pronunciation of Russian words - a level of dedication, that is rarely found on YT.
Max tends to put out just the food and the facts out for us. It’s why he’s one of the best.
Doing history justice
I wouldn't say neutral... His pinned comment comparing the USSR to capitalist/f*scist powers like Germany and Japan is very disrespectful; would be more fitting to compare those to the US.
Good video otherwise though.
@@st.altair4936it really wouldn’t be more appropriate though. The USSR were not truly the good guys. They were just the less bad guys.
@@stargazer1998 Claiming the people who ended the holocaust are "less bad guys" is wild lmao.
That would be true if you said it about the US though, which was deliberately exacerbating a British-caused famine in India at the time that resulted in 3 million deaths.
This was a great history lesson. As Americans, we tend to forget that about28 Million people in the Soviet Union died in WWII. Thanks for not ignoring the Russian home front Max, it's important that we remember
IIRC Russian WWII casualties are close to all of the other Allies combined.
Makes you wonder how much different modern day Russia would be if we hadn’t gotten bogged down in the Cold War immediately after and instead helped them rebuild their decimated country.
Russia lost more soldiers than all of the european axis powers combined@@Lasciatemi_Guidare
@@Lasciatemi_GuidareIf Trotsky had come to power instead of Lenin the USSR would probably still exist today and have tens of millions more people
Let me point out that it shouldn't be reffered to Russia's sacrifice,but URSS countries sacrifiece.
That army had people from all over of east europe and central asia/Caucasian(georphical area) countries.All of them were forced to front lines ,or else they'd be thrown into syberian concentration camp as enemies
@@gareginnzhdehhimself Better yet, if the Bolsheviks hadn't deposed the Kerensky government, Russia might have been a liberal democracy for more than a hundred years, instead of a threat to peace and stability.
I’m engaged to a Pole and if you go there today and visit any suburb you will see a great leftover from the food insecure time under the Warsaw pact: Everyone grows food.
If I stand on the 1st story balcony of my father in laws office I can see all the back gardens do the street and I am not kidding when I say that people run industrial-sized greenhouses, keep goats and rabbits - even pidgeons - and have large scale growth o fruit trees. Besides what can fit in their gardens a lot of people also have a lot somewhere near their home that is only used for growing food.
Polish food is the best in Europe for a reason.
One of my best friends from school had Polish parents, her father had been a prisoner of war of the Germans and her mother had been put in a concentration camp (Ravensbruck) - I don't know why, she had just finished high school at the time and she wasn't Jewish. They came to Australia as refugees following world war 2.
They grew a great deal of their own food like you describe, and I believe they even grew their own flax one year. I can confirm that my friend's mother was a very good cook.
@@resourcedragon Your friend's mother could have been put in that camp for any number of reasons, but the Germans in general targeted eastern Europeans a lot more harshly than western. She could have committed any minor offence and depending on the officer's mood it would have been enough to stick her in a camp just because she was Polish
@@resourcedragon The reason is simple: she was Polish. The usual estimate is that about six million Poles perished in the camps, out of a total population of ~35 million. Poles are Slavs, Slavs are Untermenschen, and Untermenschen were to be removed from the gene pool.
From the start, the plan was to depopulate Poland in order to make 'living-space' for Germans (Lebensraum). Mass deprivation (e.g. the calories in the civilian rations were very low) and terminal slavery (in such places as Hugo Boss' factories) were the primary methods, but there was no reason to discourage random killings by the Wehrmacht.
If you turn your gaze over to Ukraine, the official policy was laid out in General Plan East: exterminate the indigenous population by starvation (shipping all the food back to Germany, where the population ate better than any other faction in the war) and eventually replace them with German colonists. The plan for Russia was much the same, though they would have to fight their way through the 'Asiatic Hordes' before they could impose their will.
When people say the Soviet Union was as bad as WW2 Germany, they are wrong. The former was bad (it was all to willing to kill lots of people to achieve domination, or to sacrifice lots of people to achieve things like industrialisation), but the latter was terrible on an unparalleled scale (and they killed lots of people just so that those people would be dead). The closest you can get is another country also driven by an ideology based on palingenetic ultranationalism* (albeit with a shallow veneer of socialism), the Khmer Rouge's 'Democratic' Kampuchea, though they were a lot weaker and perhaps even more delusional (e.g. thinking that invading Vietnam in 1978 was a good idea).
*A backwards-looking belief that the nation needs to go through some process of rebirth to restore an idealised past, and that all individual identity must be subsumed by the national identity (which maximised the centralisation of power but is inherently unstable). In contrast, socialist states like the USSR were forward-looking, working towards a utopian future, with an international, class-based identity (I mean, incompetence, paranoia, ect. may have caused it to all go horribly wrong in practice, but that was the genuine intent throughout).
@@Connor-m4w what exactly went horribly wrong? The USSR took the poorest, least industrialized populations in Europe (under the Russian Empire) and made it one of the most advanced nations on earth, ended WWII and the Holocaust, and recovered from three of the biggest wars on earth three times in 27 years. Looks like it went right to me.
@@onikwa Those are nice headlines, but the devil is in the detail.
One tip for Tushyonka is that you really want to cook it down, otherwise it's just a giant glob of fat with meat in the middle. Usually you would render it in a skillet, add some onions, pull the meat apart (think pulled pork), and add some kind of starch to sop up all the fat. Macaroni, potatoes, or any kind of "kasha" like millet are the most common. It's very simple, but delicious. Of course, if you had other veggies, you'd put them in, but onions are almost always added. Also garlic, the more the better, add it minced at the very end for some bite, though that's just a personal preference.
That does sound good. Honestly, fat is good when you're not biting into it directly. It didn't sound like a bad food to me, it sounded like exactly what you want when you're cold, hungry, doing manual labor, and haven't had fat beyond a ration of hemp oil in months.
jeez. You eat tushonka cold! I can't imagine eating it warmed up. O.o It's like eating hot Spam. Ew.
@@bzqp2 No, it's like eating nicely crisped up Spam... Tushonka is actually a lot more natural looking than Spam, but that's besides the point. Do you really like eating Spam cold, just out of the can? Let's just agree to disagree on that one...
That's the only way I like spam lol
You're too hard on tushonka Max, it's good stuff. Add it into boiled potatoes, kasha or pasta and you've got a hearty meal you can make basically anywhere you've got a pot of water and fire.
My wife is Russian, from Khabarosvk. She said she had it as a child (which would mean the 80s to 90s) and she loved it.
Omg yes. Tushonka is the SHT! I mmix mine with pasta or with rice. Soooo good! You just need a high quality one. Also depends if it's beef or pork.
@ald1144 you guys don't have russian/eastern European food stores near you? Like a netcost?
@@ksy4747 We live in Abu Dhabi. There's lots of Russians here, but nobody's opened that kind of market yet.
@@ald1144 ooo okay, I thought maybe you were commenting from US. Hopefully someone will open a store soon so your wife can re-live the taste of her childhood.
Thanks for being so inclusive of the actual experience at the time of the conflict and suffering. It lends an air of authenticity lacking in so many other shows.
"Kasha" is not a single recipe. It's a whole category, like soup. Basically any grain could be kasha, you just boil it with some salt n sugar, and add milk, or replace the water with milk entirely if you're living the good life.
...the good life of the lactose-tolerant, you mean
Yes, this is exactly what porridge is, also the whole category, just less popular now than it was before
@@MalharetasLairlike the majority of people in Europe
@@MalharetasLair plant milk works just as fine, people here use it too
@@MalharetasLairwe cooked just fine with water or broth as well in my family
My great-grandfather died of hunger in Leningrad during the siege.
Thank you for covering this topic.
My grandparents were teenagers when the war came to USSR and since they have learned not to waste food, ever. Always eat everything on your plate, always cook everything in your fridge, never let it go bad, never throw anything away. And if something goes bad, you can give it to stray animals, like giving stale bread to pigeons on streets. Thats's what they taught us, their grandkids.
And, of course, there was hoarding canned or dry foods.
I'm always boggled at people going "always eat everything on your plate" being talked about like it's a rationing thing, 'cause it's just an obvious thing to me. Dogs are geniuses for licking the plates clean when they get the leftovers and my family dog taught me the wisdom of getting all the extra gravy even when there isn't any bread to mop it up when I was like, 6ish.
Also stale bread's still edible, as long as it isn't mouldy. In fact you traditionally want stale bread for making into croutons or toast to go with soup or aglio e olio (garlic-and-oil pasta). It honestly can be delicious, especially if you've got the cheese to make a grilled cheese or the stuff for salads with croutons. Brushing it with herb-infused oil or butter is also really good. (also great for fondue dipping)
As a Russian it was so cute to see how Max properly pronounces the name of the cookbook. I don't know, there's something inherently wholesome in it. x)
I love how seriously he takes pronouncing words from other languages properly.
I practiced so much for that one.
@@TastingHistory it actually shows! Good job! I mean, Russian is so different pronounciation-wise from English, that your effort is definitely worth a praise. :33
@@TastingHistory I'm always so impressed!
SLAVA UKRAINE🇺🇦🇺🇦
It's such a difference hearing stories from the eastern side of the war. They never fail to remind me the horrors of war. It's painful to listen to but I hope we listen to more these stories. These will remind people what war actually is.
I showed someone the graph of the casualties in ww2. I had to point to the almost invisible US part when they asked where we were.
They didn't know China was even in the war.
WW2 in Europe was won by Soviet blood, but I'm sure it could have been worse without foreign aid like the US lend lease.
I almost teared up when he went over the letter between FDR and Stalin. Why can't we do that when there isn't a war?
Well, russia seems to have missed the lesson.
The US and the Ukraine have certainly missed the lesson.
@@HikuroMishiroYep. If someone rolls across your boarder with tanks and the like just roll over. Maybe Stalin should have done the same when the Axis forces entered the Soviet Republics. Maybe the UK should have just made peace with Germany. Maybe the Chinese should have just surrendered to Imperial Japan and the US should have just kept on selling them oil.
@@HikuroMishiro most certainly 👍
I majored in Russian and studied in St. Petersburg in 2004. When we toured the Museum of the Blockade, we were fortunate to be joined by the grandfather of my friend’s host family. He had survived the Blockade as 13-year-old, and grimly but proudly pointed out the rifle he had carried, and an example of the ration he had received at the worst of the Blockade. It was a chunk of brown bread about the size of a box of Altoids. I spent the next few days walking down Nevsky Prospect transposing scenes from the war over the modern city. A million people died in the Blockade- it’s just unimaginable.
But the city held the line against the Nazis. Hitler had his victory banquet in St. Petersburg all planned out, but he never got it.
Oh yeah, and I have a 1953 copy of “The Guide to Healthy and Tasty Food” that’s one of my prized possessions. Big Soviet Food Nerd here! Also read Anya von Bremzen- her memoir/cookbook is heartbreaking and inspirational.
One of the most interesting but very sad part of Siege of Leningrad was struggle of workers in Vavilov Institute of Plant Industry. Despite being surrounded by tons of edible seeds they decided to starve because they knew that these seeds will be crucial in the future. Right after the Siege ended the same seeds were planted on fields surrounding Leningrad and helped feeding people. Seed bank of Vavilov Institute later also was crucial in dealing with hunger worldwide long after WW II.
Also story of Nicolai Vavilov itself is very interesting and as much tragic.
I know it isn't 'real' history, but you really learn a lot about this in the amazing book The Bronze Horseman
Lots of comments talk about this. Is this a new Internet's favorite history factoid? How did it get popularized?
When talking about Russian homeland food security gardens, there is one thing that cannot be missed - the Cabbage. It has also been customary, to use what nature offers, like collecting mushrooms and fishing.
This is history as it was. As a history major I appreciate this series. Please include everything you are planning on including. Great job.
My grandmother and great-grandmother were evacuated to Central Asia during WWII. Starvation was one of the memories she often talked about. One of the dishes she remembered was what she called a "blue" soup: water, onion, and dumplings made of flour, salt, and water.
I would guess they were using purple onions, normally that makes a pale blue colour when boiled.
That's what dumplings and onion soup are usually made with. Yes, that's poor people food but it isn't exactly bad for you.
Max, If you haven't read it yet I strongly recommend reading "What's Cooking in the Kremlin: From Rasputin to Putin, How Russia Built an Empire with a Knife and Fork". The writer (who's worked in a restaurant himself) has gathered stories told by different people who worked with food (bakers, cooks from Kremlin, Chernobyl, astronaut training centres and so on) who witnessed the biggest events of the Soviet history. An absolutely fascinating read 😊 it actually has a chapter about the great famine and it was the saddest thing I ever read - bakers threatened with death if they ate from the bread they baked, a mother forbidding her child to ever come close to a neighbor who was known for eating human meat and the general morbidity of people starving to death everyday... Just horrible.
dude that sounds like bullshit
@@americancommunist6076 Nope, is correct.
"Historian uncovers diaries from Nazi siege of Leningrad documenting cannibalism during famine", The Independent
> A historian has unearthed previously unseen diaries documenting the fall of Leningrad and the consequential famine that ripped across the Russian city, plunging many of its residents into cannibalism.
[...] Professor Alexis Peri from Boston University discovered the diaries during the course of his research in Russian archives, and first-hand accounts provide a fresh view of the level of deprivation that faced many people.
[...] Dr Peri collated the diary entries and published them in a book called The War Within: Diaries From the Siege of Leningrad."
4:30 Kitten!
Kitten :3
80 years has passed. I am much younger than that, but I still have to stop the video from time to time wand wash away the tears, after watching the pieces of those chronicles.
And also wash away the tears of shame, now that we are now doing almost the same thing to Ukraine...
I always have to watch these twice. I get distracted by reading the comments. So many people sharing their family stories is just as interesting as the topic of the episode. I love this comment section, definitely one of the coolest on youtube ❤
I'm impressed by the people Max has managed to pull together. Those who know a good deal about history or have family ties to the food
yes, i was just saying the comments are so interesting, so many heartbreaking
I just want to appreciate how the history was handled in this episode, You often hear insane sensationalist stories about the USSR around this time so I'm glad your telling of the history was more neutral and academic.
Agreed, but I am also curious if anyone has been able to find any sources on the claims made about party members eating well during the siege and being insulated from hunger?
The specific diaries cited on the screen are almost impossible to find info on and the claim about cake inside Smolny in particular seems to be entirely unsourced. The book referenced during the part about the little girl whose father worked in supply is “Blockade Diary,” but in that book there is no such claim that the author’s family ate better.
Not doubting Max per se but I am curious if anyone can help back up his claims in the video.
7:35 if you're wondering who is in the right of Stalin, who in later photos would be 'vanished' his name is Nikolai Yezhov the third Head of the secret police, he had his predecessor shot and he himself would be shot by his successor, Lavrenti Beria
Imagine that Glassdoor review.
I was hoping that he would have shown the edited photo as well, it’s a really stark reminder of how ruthless Stalin was.
Harsh exit interview.
Yezhov wasnt vanished, he and his fellow conspirators had a public trial iirc. Yezhov however did vanish innocent people to undermine the soviets, which is why he got shot
Beria was later disappeared and executed himself.
I'd guess that the sugar was sprinkled over the serving rather then used in the cooking; as a Scot might do with porridge, if they had such a luxury available.
There is a comment nearer the top that says you're right
Max, I was born in Leningrad, and heard the stories from my family. You crushed this video, amazing job. As even a take on a difficult subject as I could have hoped for after your first American war front video.
You must have had a hell of a time figuring out how to transition out of the horror of war back to the cooking, I sympathize!
Though not common in North America, apparently millet is a staple grain for a large portion of the world's population. I didn't even know about it until I saw Seven Samurai some 20 years ago. The villagers ate millet while they fed the Samurai mercenaries rice.
We put it in birdseed, LOL
That is because under Shogunate laws, peasants ARE NOT ALLOWED to eat the rice they grew. That is because they are, believe it or not, are considered money in those days. A Daimyo's wealth is measured by how many "Koku" of rice his domain can grow in a single year and thus he is taxed by the Shogunate based on that. The eating of rice by the general public is a rather recent reform made during the Meiji era (which led to the rise of Japanese Navy curry in JP gastronomy since the IJN discovered that rice is the main cause of Vitamin B deficiency, or rather the lack of side dishes to accompany rice).
This period gave rice to Japan's own unique take on stock exchange and banks called "Rice brokerage" and the wealth generated due to the peace after the Sengoku period meant that rice merchants are the richest class of people in Japan. Also, merchants of any kind during that period occupy a social class lower than peasants (due to Buddhist prejudices looking down on folks basing their livelihood on material trading) but their wealth is directly responsible to many of Japan's most famous intangible cultural treasures like Kabuki and Sushi...
MIllet was the main staple grain in ancient Northern China for centuries, before wheat took over.
@@theotherohlourdespadua1131 Wasn't the samurai and noble classes a very tiny portion of the population?
It just seems kind of strange to me that 90% of the population was producing food they they themselves couldn't eat. Or was rice production much lower than I assume? Or did a lot of it go to things the peasants could consume like sake (and that other, more thick kind of rice wine)?
@@theotherohlourdespadua1131 Makes me think of potatoes, certainly very edible and they have their own share of nutrients, but you really gotta fill in the gaps to avoid deficiencies.
Someone probably already mentioned this, but каша (kasha) is very much an umbrella term for all types of porridge. In my family we mostly eat kasha made from buckwheat, or oatmeal, or semolina (mannaya kasha). Personally I love buckwheat boiled until soft enough to eat but still in its individual grains (similarly to rice) and with cold milk and a bit of salt. It’s like cereal. Buckwheat is so versatile in general, my parents have it as a side with dinner sometimes. Anyway, great video and research as always :)
Bombas started out bit that long ago with ads promising to donate a pair of socks for each pair sold. I thought it was a good intention but a bad idea. Two years later, they were going strong and had donated one million pairs! To see what they've done since then is amazing.
"Kasza" is usually in every kitchen cupboard in Poland, there are different sorts but my personal favourite is always "kasza gryczana"-buckwheat.
During the winter 1944-1945 there was a famine in the Western part of the Netherlands, 70.000 people died of starvation and the ones who lived had nothing, no heat, no power, no wood because the Germans stole everything that could be move. Not to diminish the starvation in Russia
Oddly, the Germans actually allowed the British and US air forces to drop food into the Netherlands during the last weeks of the war.
Operation Chowhound (US) and Operation Manna (UK) if I remember correctly.
Of course a bit too late for many Dutch as the starvation conditions had gone on for months by that point.
@@nocomment3677 Id have to research it myself to be sure but from my general knowledge i doubt it was a kindly 'oh help feed these people' gesture but instead because the Luftwaffe barely existed and most substantial AA weaponary was being shipped east along with manpower and material being too rare to just go out and steal all the supply drops themselves.
@@nocomment3677 the germans didn't have a fucking airforce
My father lived through the “hunger winter” - they sent him to a “fat camp” after the war - up until the day he passed you couldn’t get him near apple butter which is what they fed them to fatten them up
No, it's actually good to mention this to counteract the nazi propaganda that USSR was the only ones starving and that it was their own fault
Grandma told that being evacuated deep behind frontlines into rural area they cooked kasha from previous year` potatoes, semi-rotten fallen apples they digged under the snow during winter and spring, and during summer they added water caltrop nut. Few times they topped it with black caviar from Volga river.
And yes, I was not allowed to throw away not a single peace of meal.
We definitely need more Slavic recipes!
In the mean time, we have Life of Boris, at least for recipes though not the history to go with them
Yes! Please do Serbian Zito Max! It's a delicious walnut and wheat berry pudding steeped in history and tradition.
Kholodets!
I think the story of the Soviet obsession with mayonnaise and potato salad is super interesting, starting with Imperialist Russia, and ending once again with Anastas Mikhoyan.
@@NeedForMadnessSVK Also, the other absolute staple of Soviet era cuisine, Doctor's Sausage
GULAG is actually an abbreviation for "Main Directorate of Correctional Labor Camps" in Russian.
Yeah, we know that single camp under gulag was called lagyer, just Western circle doesn't care.
I find it funny how westerners talk about gulags like they're uniquely evil for a prison or something, when the USSR's prison system was more humane than the Tsarist system's before it, the capitalist system Russia has now, and those of western powers at the same time.
I remember reading that during the siege of Leningrad, all of the stray cats in the city were eaten by the starving people. Likely all the pets too. It's hard to imagine how difficult it must have been to feed a family in those days.
3:28 Max really said: “I have something for the Fall Girlies who love pumpkin!”
You can boil pine needles straight off the tree to make tea. The amount of Vitamin C in Pine tea is very high
White cedar greens also make tea, with a somewhat strong flavor. Can be used a few times to make more.😊
You want to just steep those long green pine needles in boiling water, turning it off immediately. If you boil it a long time, you destroy the vitamin C content.
Spruce and some other evergreens, too. Arborvitae (tree of life) gets its name from saving French Canadian explorers from scurvy.
Douglas fir tip tea is delicious.
My grandmother was a kid and later adolescent in Moscow when the war was happening. She was always making sure everyone would be fed and that there would be supplies, and it was much the same for her entire generation.
We live in such blessed times to see most of the world free of horrors of hunger. Hopefully one day no person and no country go through it again!
Max, I originally followed you because I loved your Medieval/Renaissance food history but I really respect how you cover these more recent and more difficult historical stories as well. I always learn so much from you!
Max looks so fresh and energized.
That's because he got to work in a hardtack reference. 😂
@@Kymmee2100 And a Steve1986MRE reference too boot. Lets put that Tushonka out on a поднос для еды.
@@Kymmee2100 Always half-expecting a hardtack reference (and the accompanying clip of him tapping them together like a weird musical instrument). And a good very early morning from the Philippines Max. Did you know there's a Max's Restaurant here? It was built by fried chickens. 😉
@@TheIndianaGeoff Nice.
This video literally helped me stay calm during a hurricane. To everyone at Tasting History, thank you so much!
Glad to see Bombas as a sponsor, I can speak from personal experience to the good work they do. I worked in a homeless resource center in Pittsburgh last year, and easily 2/3 of the socks and 1/5 of the t-shirts we would give away were from Bombas. Being able to have the guarantee of always being able to provide people with good quality socks was a beautiful thing, as people living on the streets tend to go through socks daily.
I was homeless for a a couple of months. Those Bombas socks were wonderful.
Can concur as a shelter worker - these guys are great. Socks are one of the most-needed items at shelters, especially in the winter, and Bombas has come in clutch for us year after year.
I'm from the family with great grandma living in Leningrad from one side and peasant great grandma from the other side. Food has always been an ultimate priority in our family. My granny's first childhood memories is how she was trying to find food because she was hungry!
My parents lived during that time (Latvians) and I was born in 1983 so while I might not remember that much, I do recall some things, but thank god no one tried to make a porridge like that. However, just as pretty much anything back then, a lot of things were standardised. Most people ate pretty much the same things at the cantina (during the good times) - borsch, solanka, salad Olivier, potatoes with gravy and maybe a sausage and meat balls. There were quite a few porridges too, sadly. There were plenty of times when food was rationed and only people who were lucky enough to live at a farm could get by with plenty of things (and that was also during the 80s). While there was no starvation in the 80s, people at the country side would grow things naturally and sold them to folks in the city. Canned goods were a thing, mushrooms, berries from the forest were essential. This is why Latvians still love to go mushroom picking. I remember there was one time where people were given coupons and those would allow you to buy bread or some other item. Tushonka is basically like fatty pork. They sell it here in Latvia too, great with some pasta - onions in a pan, add tushonka, sauté a bit and then add to boiled pasta - was popular with students since it was cheap food. When you live trough times like that, everything you see these days feels so lucky and great. The choices and possibilities, fantastic. I remember at times the adults could not even get coffee or some items that today seemed so simple. So yeah, it was not just during the WWII, it came back during the 80s sadly. Long lines, lack of food.
"Maybe SteveMRE will eat it" lmao
Steve ate a ration from the Second Boer War. No food can stop him.
@@jlshel42 that was one of nastiest things I've seen, not sure how he never seems to get sick
@@swordcollectorvalon7997 I dunno how he smokes old cigarettes from ww2 rations, not sure how carcinogens age.
PSL = Pumpkin Soviet Lunch!
I come from a people who love pumpkin year round, in soups and in rice, so this kasha would be something we would eat if we had millet. I am liking this series so far, and I can't wait for next week's edition. Thank you, Max!
Millet and couscous are actually not very different from each other. You can replace one with the other to try the recipe.
Hearing stories like the ones talked about in the video and shared in the comments is why everyone should be a “prepper”
In the '90s, as CCCP was collapsing, and food in the village I lived was scarce, dishes as this was how family and I staved off hunger. Seeing you talk on and show dishes like this gives me odd joy.
Being ashkenazi jewish, my mom always makes kasha vanishkas on holidays with schmaltzy onions-- I can't say it's objectively fine dining or anything, but it definitely feels like the food of my ancestors from this part of the world
My mother makes a similar dish although it's a Latin American version with Fig leaf gourds instead of pumpkins
The tradition is what gives it the most flavor!
Kasha Varnishkas are why I always thought Kasha = buckwheat until now.
Yum! I grew up eating this also, but never on holidays. Very interesting!
@@warppizzasame here
Thank you for being this informative and respectful! My great-grandparents survived the siege of Leningrad, and in their house (and by extension in my house growing up) there's always been a stash of grains, canned meat and some sugar, and if you took something from that stah you had to replace what you took as soon as you could. That habit helped them in the 90s, and since they made sure to pass the habit onto us, it came in handy in 2020 lockdown.
P.s: you did great on the pronunciation!
my family is from east germany and as a young woman my eldest aunt spent some time in russia (to become russian teacher here) and kasha is one word that is stuck in my mind from her tellings. She was very much into healthy and simple foods, to my mother's detriment when her sister came back ^^; no sugar or pumpkin there
I'd actually be really interested in food from the time of the big divide in europe
For a happier story from the USSR immediately after the war: In the Postwar conferences with the other allied powers, Marshal Georgy Zhukov began a mutual friendship with then General and future President Dwight Eisenhower. And it was there he was introduced to and took a liking to Coca-Cola, however he obviously couldnt be seen drinking it back home, Coke was then a symbol of international captialism and being seen with it would put a lot of suspicion onto himself. So he wrote to Eisenhower, asking if he could disguise it somehow and ship it to him. Thus Coca-Cola made a special batch of completely clear coke just for Zhukov, and he happily accepted it.
Later on after he retired, Zhukov was still writing back and forth with Eisenhower, and at one point described his fondness for going out fishing when he could get out of town for a few days. So as a gift Eisenhower sent Zhukov a fully kited out set of fishing tackle, and he ended up using it for the rest of his life.
As a person who has and does face housing insecurity, I have been given many, many clothing items donated to charitable organizations by Bombas Socks. I can attest that they are true to their word about donating clothing items, especially socks, to the degree that among the unhoused community a pair of Bombas socks is a sought after commodity due to their quality and ubiquity. I will say, their socks and other clothing items are worth every penny you'll pay. I personally find that the socks don't wick moisture as well as 100% cotton socks, but that's only a problem if you wear them with boots and don't change them regularly. Otherwise, they are soft, stretchy, luxurious socks made to the highest quality of manufacture. And their other clothing items are just as good if not better! Their underwear is so comfortable I have purchased pairs myself, and their t shirts are durable and comfortable, as well as tagless. Bombas is an honorable and charitable company, and manufactures durable, quality products. I cannot recommend them highly enough. And Max, though you may not read this comment, I would like to thank you personally for choosing them as a sponsor. It speaks volumes to your character.💯🙌
Anastas Mikoyan NEEDS A VIDEO on his own. His life in relation to food and agriculture is just as interesting as his entire diplomatic career.
True. Like how he tried to import burgers into the Soviet Union, and succesfully imported bologna, making it much better in process
Haha, was just thinking about Steve 1989 when you mentioned him yourself. Tushonka isn't that bad, it may not look or smell great when cold in a just opened tin, but the application of heat really dispels both of those problems. Though if you're hungry, or worse starving your body makes you crave fat & you'd really enjoy it. I got a taste for it when climbing with Eastern bloc climbers years ago. After weeks of cold weather & eating fat poor dehydrated food, getting a tin of tushonka was a wonderful treat.
Same went straight to thinking about steve
Nice!
Well, he tried a ration from the Boer War, so a vintage can of Tushonka wouldn't phase him.
(The ration had degraded into essentially dirt. He didn't actually eat any of it.)
@@rcrawford42 He did eat the hardtack from the 1860's though. The age probably gave it a bit of flavor after 150 years.
@@jeff-crankyxer1931 "Let's get this out on a tray!" Would be fun if Max & Steve teamed up to do some MRE history sometime.🥄
So..... how long before starbucks sees this, adds pumpkin spice to it and tries to sell it for $20 a bowl with their coffee
When I was in Russia in the early 2000s, it never failed to fascinate me how much of the history and cuisine from this period was still really paid attention to.