The book is organized by decade, beginning with the Russian Revolution in the 1910s and the memories of Anya's grandparents. Rich in real family histories, idiosyncrasies, and stories, Von Bremzen uses her sometimes fraught family life as a lens to examine the Soviet Union more closely than she had as a child.Īt its heart, this book is a paradoxical confession - while Anya and Larisa both hate the violence and conformity of the USSR (or CCCP, in Russian), they also long for the nostalgic tastes of their homeland, like black sourdough bread, Kazakh apples, crispy kotleta, highly processed kolbasa, and other difficult-to-procure tastes of Rodina ("Homeland" with a capital H). Von Bremzen and her mother Larisa chronicle their love-hate relationship with the Soviet Union and ultimate escape when Anya was ten years old. This book is first and foremost a memoir, not a cookbook, despite the cookbooky title.
Ever since I took a semester of Russian on a whim my senior year in college (which helped me properly pronounce the Russian words liberally sprinkled throughout the text), I've been intensely interested in Russian culture and especially food. As part of my new annual jolabokaflod, I ordered Mastering the Art of Soviet Cooking: A Memoir of Food & Longingby cookbook author and Soviet/Russian ex-pat Anya von Bremzen.
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