Translated material
Second bread
Eh, potatoes!.. It would seem to be an eternal value, the basis of mass nutrition - and just 175 years ago the Russian people went to the tsar’s bayonets so that they would not be forced to plant this very overseas wonder. How simple Indian food gradually became Russian folk food - studied by The New Times
I undress you with a timid hand...
I wish I could see the body I want!
You are the most beautiful, the only one in the world,
my favorite is jacket potatoes.Folklore
Hello, sweet potato-potato-toshka,
Pioneers ideal-al-al!
He does not know pleasure-day-day,
Who hasn't eaten potatoes?Song
In the novel by A.K. Tolstoy’s “Prince Silver” is an amazingly beautiful description of bowing sunflowers, although the events taking place in the book happened much earlier than this now so familiar plant appeared in Russia. In the television series “The Master and Margarita,” Pontius Pilate has a pineapple on a platter on his table. Did the Phoenicians bring it across the Atlantic? The actor Makarsky in the role of Chevalier de Eon from the series “Pen and Sword” feasts on tomatoes in Moscow in the 18th century, although in those days tomatoes were grown exclusively as an ornamental plant, and the bright red fruits were considered poisonous. It seems to us that plants that arrived from America have always been in the Old World - which, of course, is not true.
Today’s “second bread”—potatoes—has come a long way to recognition. This close relative of the tomato was also considered poisonous for quite a long time, because out of ignorance they tried to cook green berries rather than tubers. The forced introduction of potatoes, when it was necessary to abandon the traditional and familiar turnip for the Russian peasant (this product is almost forgotten), and the actions of the government, which took away the best lands for potatoes from appanage (that is, belonging to the imperial family) peasants, even gave rise to potato riots - the first and most powerful occurred in 1834, that is, 175 years ago.
Turnip Wars
True, the potato itself first came to Russia almost one hundred and forty years before the first riot. It was Tsar Peter, using the slightly opened window to Europe, who sent a bag of potatoes from Holland and ordered that planting begin immediately. History is silent about what happened next. Most likely, that bag, as often happens with us, got lost somewhere, and the potatoes happily rotted. But besides this bag there was another one. It ended up with Pushkin’s great-grandfather Abram Hannibal, who became famous, among other things, for being the first in Russia to conduct experiments on the selection and, no less important, storage of potatoes. Moreover, the popular purple-skinned potato variety, colloquially referred to as “blue-eyed”, which is perfect for frying (but not the best, due to its boiliness, for boiling and baking), “according to science” should be called “Hannibal”. The great-grandson of the Arab Peter the Great had great respect for potatoes prepared in a special way, although the cooking method was simple. To prepare it according to the “our everything” recipe, you need to boil several tubers in their skins in salted water, cool, peel, dissolve butter in a frying pan (the more, the better), cut the potatoes into slices, fry until golden brown, and serve with finely chopped green onions and dill.
But another forty years passed before potatoes began to be grown in St. Petersburg in the so-called Apothecary Garden. The harvests were small, the product was expensive, and only the all-powerful temporary worker Biron could afford to feast on it. Catherine II passed a decree through the Senate, according to which the population was ordered to plant potatoes everywhere, imported from France and distributed throughout the country along with a manual for its cultivation, entitled “Instructions on the cultivation of earthen apples, called potetes.”
However, during the reign of Catherine, her son Paul and grandson Alexander, discontent with potatoes was latent and did not develop into open riots. Only Nicholas I, who said that he existed “to streamline public freedom and prevent its abuse,” faced direct disobedience to the august will. And in order to stop the destruction of crops by the peasants and the beatings of the commissioners sent to plant potatoes, he was forced to send punitive detachments and even ordered to shoot at the rioters with buckshot.
Thus the people's war for the native turnip was lost. The Old Believers did not help either, classifying potatoes along with tea, coffee and tobacco as anti-Christ obsessions, claiming that those who eat “cursed potatoes” will certainly burn in hell. Just as the beautiful legend did not help, that the potato is actually the apple of the underworld and was created by the devil out of envy of the fruits of paradise, and therefore cursed by the Lord. By the end of the 19th century, almost 1.5 million hectares were already under potatoes in Russia. Potatoes have become practically the staple food for the vast majority of the population. And even now Russia is among the main potato producers: an honorable second place after China.
To merchandisers
Gone are the potato riots of peasants under the “damned tsarism”, and the sending of Soviet citizens “to potatoes”, which, if you do not take into account rare refusals for ideological reasons, without any excesses. The professor and doctor of science from the film “Garage,” who put his business card in each bag of potatoes he sorted, is most likely a movie character. People from real life used any loopholes to simply evade potato duties, although many, on the contrary, took advantage of this opportunity to take a break from the swamp of some industrial research institute. The author of these lines could decorate his chest with several - if such a thing were established - honorary badges “Hero of the Potato”. Repeated trips to the collective farm and state farm for two or three weeks, trips to the vegetable base... How did it happen that now rural workers no longer need help from the capital’s “intelligentsia”? How are they coping? How did it happen that today’s vegetable warehouses, like heaven and earth, differ from the huge vegetable warehouses of the past? Where did the impenetrable mud go, where did the heaps of rotten, frost-bitten potatoes go, which the Manees of old had packed in paper bags? Where do the then warehouse managers, gloomy women in faded, once blue coats, work now? Have you repurposed yourself as a merchandiser or while away your retirement days at dachas in the Rublevo-Uspenskoye Highway area? But be that as it may, one memory remains of a paper shopping bag, where from three kilograms of a mixture of clods of earth and ugly tubers, at best, one and a half kilograms of a more or less acceptable product were obtained. What potatoes have we lost!
Potato eaters
Today, in addition to ordinary potatoes, which in many ways resemble the ones we lost, it is possible to find varieties with white, yellow, gray, and pink flesh. The peel is also varied - from light yellow to black. The average consumer does not need to understand the variety of varieties. You just have to remember that potatoes with white and yellow skins are better suited for boiling, while pink and purple tubers are better for frying. Where this or that variety came from is a topic more likely for professional breeders. The main thing is to “mash the potatoes” with good sense and appetite. But among potato eaters, the first places are occupied, by the way, not by our compatriots. Germans and Americans, Irish and Belgians are the true lovers of “earth apples”. The Irish were actually the first Europeans to switch to potatoes. In the 17th century, English colonialists began to take away arable land for pastures, so dependence on potatoes by both poor and rich Irish became widespread. When going in search of a better life outside the Emerald Isle, the Irish always took a bag of potatoes with them. Therefore, on the territory of what is now the United States, it appeared in a rather cunning way - not from South America, where it is home, but from Europe, from Ireland. The basis of Irish potato cuisine is, of course, Irish stew, the same thing that the British never tire of mocking, a simple dish (potatoes, onions, carrots, lamb, pepper, salt, bake in a pot, eat with strong dark beer), but tasty and satisfying. Besides, Irish stew still contains meat. Other potato dishes of Irish cuisine, at best, combine potatoes with herring, and so - potatoes are boiled, mashed, boiled cabbage, leeks, turnips (hello, Russia!), carrots, and onions are added. Shadowy Irish genius! The prose of Joyce, Beckett, O'Faolain, if it did not grow up on potatoes, then the taste of this tuber is felt there: from the simplicity of mashed potatoes on curdled milk to the complexities of the best prose of the twentieth century, it turns out, is one step.
The Germans also became famous in the field of potato cuisine. The main thing here is the famous “potato salad”, which, in addition to potatoes, includes finely chopped apples, pickled cucumbers, herring, and mayonnaise and mustard as a dressing. Well, it’s not worth talking about the Belgians: Van Gogh wrote his “Potato Eaters” not just anywhere, but in a Belgian mining town. In a year when there is an opportunity to celebrate, if not a round, but still significant date since the beginning of the potato riots, it would be useful to remember that the number of those who grow potatoes in their household plots and summer cottages is declining. Those who first plowed the coveted six hundred square meters for potatoes now prefer to buy them. But seriously, growing a good harvest is not easy. Therefore, it is better to celebrate the potato riot by preparing some kind of potato dish. Fortunately, the choice is huge!
So, so! We get to Skhodnya by bus, and there we go at a trot, and don’t moan! I suppose we all respect potatoes when you mash them with salt!
Vladimir Vysotsky
Potatoes began to be grown on a large scale as an agricultural crop in mainland Europe thanks to the Parisian pharmacist Antoine Auguste Parmatier. Being an enterprising man, Parmatier not only learned how to grow potatoes, but also demonstrated a variety of potato dishes to the royal court. In order for the French to get used to potatoes and for them to spread, Parmatier placed a guard in his field during the day and removed it at night. On the monument to Parmatier, erected in his homeland, in the city of Montdidier, is carved “Benefactor of Humanity” and the words of Louis XVI: “The time will come when France will thank you for giving bread to starving humanity.” 
Potatoes baked in the oven
Preheat the oven to 200 degrees, wash the potatoes thoroughly, do not peel the skins, dry with a napkin, rub each potato with olive oil and garlic, sprinkle with salt and bake until tender. Serve with thick sauce: mix 250 g of sour cream with grated Parmesan cheese, add salt, pepper (red and black), finely chopped dill, thyme, cilantro, mix thoroughly, keep in the refrigerator.
Wash 6 potatoes, peel, grate on a fine grater. Also grate one medium-sized onion, mix with the potato mixture, add 1 tbsp. a spoonful of sour cream, soda on the tip of a knife, 2 tbsp. spoons of flour, 4 finely chopped cloves of garlic, salt, black pepper to taste. Bake in a hot frying pan with a lid.
Peasant salad
Cut boiled potatoes and fresh cucumber into slices, onion into half rings. Sprinkle with dill, add salt and pour over unrefined sunflower oil.