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From the simplest products, they managed to prepare food not only nutritious, but also satisfying.
During the war and in the post-war years, there was no time for pickles. What was in the kitchen arsenal of our grandmothers and great-grandmothers? What did the military field kitchens feed the soldiers with? At that time, they knew how to cook dinner from the minimum set of products, and even not repeat it from day to day.
The recipes have not only been preserved – many of them still live, are used, and are passed down in families from older housewives to younger ones. We have collected those that will help you feel the connection between generations, mentally travel back to the time when everyone dreamed of Victory.
In the field, of course, there was no time for pies. But in the rear, they helped out. According to the recipe, the dough should be rich, but options are possible: yeast-free, flaky, with the addition of bran, rye or peeled flour. Anyway, anything – it was not for nothing that in those days bread was bitter because of the additives that replaced flour. What was not there – flour from quinoa, bark, birch branches … As for the filling, now you can add fried minced meat or stewed meat to buckwheat. But in times of famine, they often did without meat, and without everything else, seasoning buckwheat with onions, carrots and mushrooms, if they were able to collect them.
Ingredients: flour (any) – 500 g, water – 200 ml, yeast – 10-15 g, vegetable oil – 3 tbsp. l., boiled buckwheat – 200-300 g, onion – a large onion, mushrooms – 200-300 g, egg – 1 pc., salt, pepper – to taste.
Cooking
Dissolve the yeast in warm water, let stand for a while. Add salt, vegetable oil, salt. Sift the flour and add gradually to the yeast mixture, kneading the dough. Knead well and leave warm for half an hour, wrapped in foil. Then knead well again and let rise again.
At this time, fry the onions and mushrooms, mix with buckwheat. We make a pie with several holes or punctures in the top layer of the dough, grease with an egg or yolk. We bake in the oven for about 35 minutes at a temperature of 180 degrees – until golden brown.
Front porridge with garlic and onions
Most often it was military field millet. But the groats can be anything: pearl barley, buckwheat, rice. A special relish is a mixture of cereals: we take a little of each and cook in one pot or saucepan.
Ingredients: millet or other cereals – a glass, water – 3 cups, sunflower oil – for frying, a large onion, a head of garlic, salt, pepper – to taste.
Cooking
We wash the groats well, fill them with cold water and put them on fire.
While the water is boiling, cut the onion, chive and fry in vegetable oil.
Meanwhile, the porridge gurgled – add our roast, salt and cook, reducing the heat, for another 5-10 minutes.
Finely chop the remaining garlic (it is better not to press with a press, but to cut it).
Remove the porridge from the heat, add the garlic and mix well. Close it with a lid, wrap it in a blanket or another warm “fur coat” and leave it for at least half an hour. The porridge will steam out, become crumbly, soft and fragrant.
The tea leaves, of course, were not always at hand. More often they cooked homemade – from carrots. To do this, you need to peel an ordinary carrot (or just rinse it properly), grate and dry it in the oven or in a dry frying pan. For a dark color, crushed woody mushroom, chaga, was added. It also needs to be roasted in the oven along with carrots.
Another option is berries and herbal mixtures (linden blossom, oregano, thyme, bergenia, currant leaves). Herbs and berry additives could be different, depending on the region and season, and dried carrot shavings as a base gave a golden color and a pleasant sweetish taste.
Thick soup or liquid millet porridge with the addition of available products (cracklings or stew, potatoes, peas, onions) was borrowed from the national Ukrainian and Belarusian cuisine. But, since the dish is hearty and rich, and it is most convenient to cook it in field conditions, they cooked kulesh on all fronts.
Ingredients: millet (or pearl barley) – 200 g, water – 3 l, peas – 100 g, potatoes – 2-3 pcs., onions – 1 pc., bacon – 100 g, salt and pepper – to taste.
Cooking
Rinse cereals and peas, add water and put on fire. While it boils and begins to cook, peel the potatoes, cut into cubes and add to the saucepan. Reduce heat and simmer for another 30-40 minutes. Simultaneously melt the lard, cut into small cubes, in a frying pan, fry the onion in the same lard. Add the greaves with onions to the kale, season with salt and pepper, turn off the heat and simmer for another 10 minutes under the lid.
During the war, they were made from potato peelings and frozen potatoes. The cavardas turned out to be blue and sweetish. Now there is no such need, but the potatoes do not need to be peeled, just rinsed well.
Ingredients: peeled potatoes – 5 pcs., flour – 1-2 tbsp. l., salt, pepper to taste, vegetable oil for frying.
Cooking
Boil potatoes in their uniforms, cool. Grate on a coarse grater, add flour, salt and pepper. Mix well, make small cakes.
Fry the mess in oil on both sides like ordinary potato pancakes.
What else did they cook
Makalovka – stewed meat warmed up over a fire, to which chopped onions and a little water were added. They ate the makalovka not with a spoon, but with bread, dipping a piece into an appetizing mixture, hence the name.
Rear hodgepodge: a mixture of chopped potatoes and sauerkraut is stewed in a cast iron pot or saucepan with a little water. The cabbage can be pre-washed and kept in cold water for a while, and then drained. When the vegetables are quenched, fried onions, salt and spices are added to them, after which the hodgepodge comes on low heat for 5-10 minutes.
Rzhevsky bread – without flour, from potatoes with bran. The potatoes were cooked in their skins, passed through a meat grinder and cooled. After that, it was necessary to add a little salt, bran, quickly knead the dough and immediately bake, placing it in a greased form.
Front-line sandwich. A piece of bacon is finely cut with a knife, and then mixed until smooth with chopped garlic and onions. The mixture was thickly spread on black bread.
Camp prison – this is actually “soup from an ax.” The dish was almost without food: boiling water was poured into a plate, a spoonful of vegetable oil was added. Onions, fresh or lightly salted cucumber, and then black bread were also crumbled there. It was supposed to eat the jail immediately, until the bread softened and turned into porridge.
By the way
The Red Army had its own dietary standard. It was determined by the appendix to the GKO decree No. 662 of September 12, 1941. The fighter’s diet was calculated based on the norm of 2600-4000 kcal per day. When it was possible, of course. The main food product was rye wallpaper bread – 800 g per day in summer and 900 g in winter. Air Force flight personnel were entitled to increased allowances. The sailors additionally included 30 g of red wine per day, sauerkraut, pickles and raw onions in the diet to prevent vitamin deficiency and scurvy.