Daily bread

A new chapter of memories

The childhood, adolescence and youth of the memoirist took place in half -starved Leningrad. Neither cinema, nor books, nor friendship could supplant the constant - and universal - the interest of people in food. The food was remembered in detail as an adventure!

Marina Efimova: There are already few those who remember the hungry times of the Great Patriotic War, even fewer - those who remember the blockade Leningrad hunger. And I have the most vivid memories of food - exactly that time. A new game "to the store" - near the open door of the buffet, where my grandmother gathered a sentence of NZ ahead of time - an inviolable stock. (In the Soviet Union, no one was ready for war, except for my grandmother. Firstly, she did not trust anyone, and secondly, she always counted on the worst version of events. By that time, she had already considered the past life on hunger: the first hunger in 1918–20, the second in the 30th ... Wait for the third). Therefore, in our ancient buffet, a similar configuration on Notre Dame, canvas bags with crackers, stacks of matchboxes, candles, bay leaf, bags of dry mustard, a battery of bottles with lean oil and vodka were accumulated; Bags of dry peas, beans, cereals, packs of salt, coffee, tea - with a wonderful smell of a grocery store. It is amazing how all this quickly ended in the blockade.

The blocking food for me, 4-5 years old, was divided into hated, “so-so” and her beloved. The hated "cherry" - a brew from a swan (a silver weed that grew on the wastelands); “So -so” was “Duranda” - a dry greenish cake is absolutely tasteless (it was good to nibble in the corner of the Ottoman, examining a book with pictures); Belonged pieces of glucose and a pinch of egg powder, which were poured in the buffet, were filled with loved ones. The delicacy was a jelly of carpentry glue. Glue was stored by tiles the size of chocolate. It was believed that before the war he was cooked from beef bones. The tiles were soaked, digested with a bay leaf, they were given to freeze and ate with mustard. Despite the prayers, they gave me one piece - “from a fork”, they were afraid that the children's stomach would not endure such a chemical attack. So he remained in his memory for the temptation. Gradually, normal food was forgotten, and I stopped asking with curiosity: "Grandma, why don't you feed me semolina?"

I don’t remember that I saw the adults at the blockade. Only once (if the memory does not change) I found a person for food, but delicacy told me to immediately turn away and leave. It was during the day and under the Sun (I note this circumstance, because in my memory all the blocked events took place in winter and evening), my grandmother and I went to some householder. Nobody spoke to the knock, but the door was open, and we entered. This woman was sitting at the table, and in front of her on a plate lay a smoking slide of small pearls illuminated by the sun - from the Aladin cave. He shimmered with a pearl radiance and, as they say, was breathing. The woman ate it with a teaspoon. She did not notice us, did not even turn her head. I remember that I came out the first, my grandmother is behind me. "What is it?" Grandmother gloomily said: "called rice." I did not feel hunger or envy, I just remembered forever.

"What is it?" Grandmother gloomily said: "called rice." I did not feel hunger or envy, I just remembered forever

The main tricks were invented from scurvy. They ate, until they ended, raw onions, yeast, sprouted peas. They laid a handful of peas between two wet rags, and after a few days it sprouted. Looking at the miniature plant, flattened between the swollen halves of the peas, I dreamed that in the summer in boxes on the balcony, the bean scouts, and we will eat their full bowls, with pork, like the poor heroes of the "Uncle Tom’s huts". When peas ended, a neighbor - a village woman - thought of making an infusion of needles. We went on a tram to Sosnovsky Park on Vyborg and collected bags of fresh pine needles. They laid them in large banks, poured with boiling water, added a little sugar and insisted for several days. It turned out a tart drink, similar to pine toilet water.

Quite a lot of acquaintances and strangers helped us in the blockade from hungry and cold death. I remember Captain Galkin (emerging from the unknown and immediately diving back into the unknown), who brought a truck of thin spruce trunks late in the evening, immediately hastily stuffed into our compartment of the communal basement. Another priceless gesture of anonymous generosity was remembered in the winter, apparently 1942, when mother became a donor. I do not think that there was a clean calculation in this decision, but the donors were given additional rations. Once in winter and evening we, together (I am 5 years old), entered the front door from the frost, where the walls were shook, but where the light was warm and the light burned (emergency, of course, blue). My mother left me on the landing, punishing me to wait, not leaving the place ("If that - Or!"), And went on the door to the right. I waited habitually, quietly dreamed, shuffling my back along the dirty wall. Suddenly the door to the right (where my mother and several other women went) opened, and my heart froze - otherworldly creatures in white began to leave the door. Even the feet, heads and half a face were closed by white. Only the eyes and hands remained. They walked with a goose, a silent half -welfare - through the landing past me - through the door to the left. The door slammed shut, and I never "yelled." There was no one on the stairs for a long time, and I lit up, howling with anxiety. Finally, the left door opened, and from there the white ones went again - in the opposite direction. Only then I realized that this is probably donors. Suddenly one white separated from the system and stepped towards me. I recoiled, but the white hand caught mine and shoved a gauze bag into it. I looked into the eyes of the mask - not a mother, but obviously a woman. The eye winked, I laughed in relief, but I forgot to say "thank you", and this then spoiled the joy of someone else's kindness for a long time. And in the gauze was a fragment of glucose.

In addition, he was a Jew, and this gave rise to far -reaching generalizations

We had houses in the house - swamps. Mom was not friends with them, but she was friends in a neighborly one. I even remembered their names: Misha and Nina (after all, gratitude was sometimes knocking on a selfish child’s heart). In our house, Misha was the only man "dug up in the rear", women-sathers despised him, I heard their gossip. In addition, he was a Jew, and this gave rise to far -reaching generalizations. Nina was Russian, but contempt spilled on her, because it was difficult to see Misha - he left the house in the morning darkness, and returned to the night. Mom said that Misha is an engineer. Many years later, I learned that he was a leading engineer at a military factory, where the blockade made shells for Katyush. The secrecy was observed such that poor Bolotin could not be justified. Once at the beginning of the blockade, they came to us and, with the permission of my grandmother, took me, then 4-year-old, "walk". We rode on the tram and arrived at a huge warehouse, littered with mountains of clothes and absolutely amazing my imagination. There, the swamps bought me a chigid fur coat - for growth - in which I overwinter the war. In the summer, my grandmother let me go with the swamps in Toksovo. Next to their cottage, a neat trench was dug in sandy soil, where I played with rapture - one, there were no other children (the children were generally a rarity in the blockade, although not like cats and dogs). In Toksovo, I tested a new blockage dish - soup from the nettle, which Nina and I collected, clutching the burning stems with his hands in gloves. Nina cooked delicious cabbage soup from nettles, flavoring them with small cubes of sausage from a jar, which, by my amazement, could be opened without a canned knife - a special key. After 35 years, I learned with excitement in the American supermarket these jars - with the inscription Spam.

In 1943, by a happy chance, I got on a warship, which stood on the repair in Lake Ladoga and took patronage over the school where my grandmother worked. My chef was the elderly midshipman Nikolai Ivanovich Selivanov. So our family was sent an angel-guardian in the rank of midshipman at the last blockade winter, and with him rations and armfuls of firewood. I don’t know on which ways, trams or patrol cars Nikolai Ivanovich got to us with his ship son - the sailor of Sasha. With their arrival, always unexpected, but always secretly expected, festive fuss began in the house. Smilers and candle cigarettes were lit, and in their cozy trembling light they won the backpacks and rolled cans (I screeching behind them under dusty furniture), the aroma of stew, cocoa and American “chocolate scrap” blurred around the room; The neighbor was invited, the pestephone started ...

And I saw for the first time a color Hollywood temptation - the film "Baghdad thief"

Of the “culinary” impressions of the blockade, another evening remained, apparently already in the winter of the 43rd, when my grandmother took me to the cinema, I even remember that it was a “Titan”-on the corner of Nevsky and Vladimir. The hall turned out to be full of bit. In the blockade, this was a rarity - so many people at once. And I first saw a color Hollywood temptation - the film "Baghdad thief". Ale, blockade! Remember how the thief on the eastern bazaar directly from the roof with a sixth pierced a huge, round, green fruit with red pulp with a crunch? What is it?! .. And the hall is with one breath: "Arbu-uz!" The stolen prince pulled a cake from the roasting and on the go waved into a traction, golden ... And what?! And the hall: "Me-Del!" I still brightly remember a frying pan with a fried, wandering sausage in the palm of the palm of the palm of your hand ... The rest is beautiful, but vaguely.

Apparently, in contrast with the blockade, an abundance of the post -war half -gathering was very remembered: omelets made of egg powder, hot from canned meat stew with onions and potatoes (I still consider a delicacious), rosehip syrup - viscous, sweet, and even mandatory, because vitamin. And the main dessert of my childhood: small pieces of chopped white bread, smeared with oil, with a chocolate candy smeared on it.

The blockade gave me a wonderful appetite for life. (Before the war, I ate sluggishly. They said that when I, a three -year -old, woke up after a daytime sleep, a short -lived cutlet was found behind my cheek). And after the blockade, I ate so that at a party they often put me at the table opposite children with poor appetite - so that they would become infected with mine.

And after the blockade, I ate so that at a party they often put me at the table opposite children with poor appetite - so that they would become infected with my

Now many of my peers have become gourmets (Foie Gra, Phil Minions, Ducks in Peking) ... And I still lick myself for a simple, but so inventively prepared food of the skinny Soviet era. After the war, no one was discouraged at the sight of a rusty herring. It was washed, removed the skin, removed the bones and insides (carefully preserving milk or caviar), cut it into small pieces, covered with a tear with a tear, covered with warm potatoes, slightly sprinkled with sunflower oil, slightly sprinkled with a green ray grown on the windowsill ... and, God, what a volume was! And the hard, but cheap and spectacular dish "Herbal under a fur coat"?! My Pennsylvanian neighbor Florence calls him "herring under the fur manto" (Herring Under the Fur Coat) and amazes them with his American guests - those that are most attended.

Half -starving time taught us to appreciate the pasture. From early childhood, I was able to collect forest nuts, sorrel, forest strawberries, blueberries, gonobol (gonobol not for long, otherwise the head will be rejoiced from the groove -to -do -made plant "Durs"), raspberry from prickly bushes (necessarily in sports trunks and blouse with long sleeves), and in the fall - cranberries and lingonia (not confusing it with it with it with it with it. Tolclic). From six years, I learned to distinguish between mushrooms. These were real delicacies: soup from fresh white mushrooms (imagine its restaurant price); chanterelles fried with potatoes and slopes; Little oils and saucers launched in milk bottles; Salty loads, or even bitter ones (soak for three days, changing water, and salting without cooking - like mushrooms).

I spent the post -war summer holidays with my mother on the Karelian Isthmus, in a strange, dull, fabulous place - Fort Ino. There, in the “forbidden zone”, requiring passage, among the forests and wound the blat, on the shores of the Gulf of Finland there was a summer camp of the Leningradsky Vita-a military engineering and technical school, where mother served as a librarian. The cadets lived in tents, and officers and civilians (among them and my mother and I) - in new huts who smelled of forest. They ate in the officer dining room. Flot pasta seemed to me the height of culinary art. (Then I tried to cook them, but I never turned out as tasty as in childhood).

In the Fortu camp, the company of officers who taught cadets construction disciplines, mine-subversive business, fortification and foreign languages looked after her mother. Among the officers there were three intelligent, cheerful young men who happily survived the first two years of the war, after which they were sent from the front to study. I remember how much they laughed. And I, along with them - from the joy of a summer, peaceful, idle childhood. To win the location of my demanding mother, they pamper me: they took with them to the cinema, rolled on a motorcycle. Once, all three victoriously burst into mom into the library with a backpack full of fresh, "right from the bed" of cucumbers - "for Marishka". It was a terrible rarity. I stroked and stroked the pimped skin of cucumbers, and sniffed and looked at. Then a can of honey appeared from the backpack. One of the officers insisted that there was no tastier dish than fresh cucumbers with honey. With enthusiasm, he gave everyone through my head this dubious appetizer, or dessert, and dripped my long hair with honey, which dried up, glued all my hair, and then my mother washed them and combed them all evening under my wagon.

My hero was an officer of a middle-aged and unhappy major who taught a mine-subsidiary business

My hero was an officer of a middle-aged and unhappy major who taught a mine-subsidiary business and lived alone in a large dugout on the edge of the landfill. He invited me and my mother to visit. His dugout, sheathed from the inside with boards, looked like a village hut, although three steps down from the ground into it. The windows were large and glazed, a cozy stake-bourgeois was drowned in the evenings in the evenings, and a bouquet of daisies in a huge sleeve from the shell was waiting for my mother on the table, and me-the manner of forest strawberries. Major heroically collected strawberries at his training ground, where she was incredibly large and fragrant. Heroically - because he had one eye. The second was covered by a black bandage, and the major reminded me of either a pirate from the "island of the treasures", then Admiral Nelson, then Kutuzov - as my readiness grows. From him, the first, I heard the story of the fort:

In one of his Russian periods-at the beginning of the 20th century-Fort (which was then called Nikolaev) modernized for a long time and was supposed to, like Kronstadt, to protect the entrance to the Gulf of Finland. By 1916, he became an impregnable fortress with powerful batteries, with an entire underground town and a five thousandth garrison. And two years later, in 1918, the fort, depopulated and besieged by the troops of independent Finland, was blown up on the orders of the revolutionary command, not making a single shot from his giant guns. A small detachment of his Red Guard defenders and part of the military equipment were evacuated on an icebreaker who arrived from Kronstadt. The remaining weapons in the future served the Finns on the Mannerheim line. Interestingly, in all descriptions of the story of the fort, an incredible abundance of forest strawberries in these places is mentioned.

In a dugout, sometimes the whole mother’s company gathered at the subversive training ground, and then they drank vodka, infused by the owner of the mountain ash himself, which romantically grew up at the entrance to his dugout. Beded with small dried fish. These fish all summer drove on the barbed wire surrounding the landfill. Under conversations and explosions (laughter), I dreamily covered up on a Mayor bunk, and then one of the officers in my arms carried me home. And on the way home, half asleep, I learned the secret of the sadness of my major. After removing the blockade, he neutralized the unexploded shells in St. Petersburg, which lurked along the ruins and basements. He had a team - six girls from the air defense forces. The shells found in the basements had to be discharged upstairs. They were taken out by the girls, and the major walked ahead and cleared the way from the wreckage. And once in the long corridor of the basement, he managed to wrap around the corner when the shell rushed.

On the contrary, I remember examples of male chivalry

I know no less than others about violence in the military and post -war period, about abuse of women and girls. But over the 8–9 post -war years that I spent a girl in the camp of Vita (where I dangled all day in the camp itself or in the near forest), no one has ever offended me. On the contrary, I remember examples of male chivalry. Does this mean that in the Soviet officer environment of that time a certain concept of honor was preserved, or in military universities there was a particularly strict discipline, or were I just lucky? Don't know. But when I read Bulgakov’s “White Guard” years later, I recalled vitushny cadets and officers of my childhood.

From the post -war time, there were many vivid impressions of food - from its novelty, from its unprecedentedness and unheard of. Два лета я провела в Литве, в местечке Игнолино, где не было разрухи, у хозяев была корова, и дети дачников вечером собирались с кружками у хлева и получали "парное молоко прямо из коровы". Я часами торчала на кухне, когда хозяйка пекла хлеб. Она месила темное тесто, укладывала в металлические корытца по форме буханок, оглаживала его мокрыми руками и на каждой буханке ставила пальцем крест. Только после этого задвигала ее в печь. А в амбаре хозяин делал сыр. Там были развешены марлевые мешки с творогом, с которых звонко капало в подставленные тазы (накапанное добавляли в пойло свинье). Хозяин брал один уже достаточно отжатый мешок, клал его на круглый каменный жернов, и потом они вдвоем с сыном придавливали мешок другим жерновом. Через несколько дней сыр был готов. Его нарезали толстыми продолговатыми кусками и клали на такие же продолговатые ломти серого хлеба. И никакие брынзы, мазареллы и фета-чизы не могут сравниться с божественным вкусом этого сыра. Я никогда больше его не ела и нигде не могла найти.

Половину каждого лета я проводила в пионерском лагере (того же ВИТУ, в том же форте Ино). Лагерь был ведомственный, и кормили неплохо, но ужин был в 7 часов, а в 10 снова хотелось есть. Жаловаться грех – в воспоминаниях, например, дочери писателя Сэлинджера описан вечерний голод у девочек в американском скаутском лагере. Маргарет Сэлинджер пишет, что в лесу она укрыла под ветками чемодан, запасала там еду, в темноте туда прокрадывалась и устраивала себе тайную трапезу. Вот тут, кстати, важное отличие моего пионерлагерного опыта. Родители подкармливали нас, посылая из города "передачи", но одним передачи приходили, другим – нет, поэтому присланной едой немыслимо было не поделиться – если не со всей палатой, то со своей компанией. Девочку, которая вечерами одна хрупала в спальне печеньем и посасывала припрятанные карамельки, презирали до глубины души. Мальчикам-хулиганам иногда удавалось стащить из кухни хлеб, и они рыцарственно угощали девочек, которые им нравились.

С витаминами все еще было туго. Помню на шеях у детей ужасно болезненные фурункулы. Меня они миновали – скорей всего, благодаря настырности бабушки, которая сразу после снятия блокады доставала для меня и заставляла пить не только тошнотворный рыбий жир (закусывая его кусочком селедки), но еще и горькие пивные дрожжи (уверяя, что это и есть настоящее пиво). Я выдерживала и эту пытку, намешивая в дрожжи сахар. Яблоки появлялись только ненадолго – осенью, мандарины были удовольствием Нового года – по несколько штучек детям, остальным – новогодний аромат, такой же любимый, как запах елки. Зато можно было купить один-два лимона, нарезать тонкими кружками и засыпать сахаром. Дня через два там образовывался сироп, в котором ломтики лимона хранились неделями. А в лагере мы жевали щавель и кислицу. Иногда нас водили в лес за черникой для общего киселя. Большинство детей возвращалось с пустыми кружками и с черными ртами. Меньшинство "сознательных" (я в том числе) приносили по полулитровой банке и сдавали на кухню. Но один раз (поэтому запомнилось) работники кухни сделали нам подарок. Они сами, "по-взрослому", набрали ягод, и на полдник каждого из нас ждала в столовой кружка отборной черники. Повара и посудомойки выглядывали из раздаточного окна, наши радостные вопли были им наградой, хотя, конечно, нас еще заставили хором, под дирижирование пионервожатой, сказать "Спа! Си! Бо!"

Именно с едой связан мой детский акт диссидентства

Именно с едой связан мой детский акт диссидентства. В 12 лет (в 1949 году) я заболела скарлатиной и попала зимой в Боткинские бараки строгого режима. Scarlatin is an infectious disease, so their parents were not allowed, they kept us in the hospital for 30 days, and all 30 days were not washed (and they did the right thing, otherwise they would have caught a cold in a huge cold bathroom that remained since Dr. Botkin). Я лежала в палате, которая казалась бескрайней – ряды коек уходили вдаль. Нянечек было мало, и малышей привязывали к кроватям широкими холщовыми набрюшниками – так, что они могли сидеть, но не могли скувырнуться на пол, правда, иногда они висели, замотанные холщовыми путами. We, who are older, took turns fed them from a spoon. У всех в палате была скарлатина, кроме мальчика, спрятанного в углу за ширмами, у которого был дифтерит. And closer to the recovery of us, who had cheering and gathered by companies on someone else's bed, could only calm down the threat of a deterioration in the state of an invisible boy behind the shirs.

Кормили в "бараках" обыкновенно, по-столовски, так что письмо домой (в котором я изощрялась в остроумии по поводу микроскопичности кусочков масла на завтрак) было написано из желания покрасоваться, а не пожаловаться. I, as always, gave a letter to the nanny. The next day, an unfamiliar woman with the face of a policeman and with my letter in her hand came to my bed. A loud reprimand followed, ending with a passage about how to me, an ungrateful complainant, should be ashamed. And I arrogantly said: "And I thought it was a shame to read other people's letters." Доктор прикрыл глаза рукой и отвернулся. Чем этот эпизод закончился, не помню, по-моему, доктор как-то увел опасную женщину. Но помню, что чувствовала себя победительницей.