H. SUTHERLAND EDWARDS

The essential point in the service of the Russian dinner is—as is now generally known throughout Europe—that the dishes should be handed round instead of being placed on the table, which is covered throughout the meal with flowers, fruit, and the whole of the dessert. One advantage of this plan is, that it makes the dinner-table look well; another, that it renders the service more rapid, and saves much trouble to the host. The dishes are brought in one by one; or two at a time, and of the same kind, if a large number are dining. The ordinary wines are on the table, and nothing has to be changed except the plates. At the end of dinner, as the cloth is not removed, the dessert is ready served; and this has always been one of the great glories of a Russian banquet.

"I was particularly struck," says Archdeacon Coxe, "with the quantity and quality of the fruit which made its appearance in the dessert. Pines, peaches, apricots, grapes, pears, and cherries, none of which can in this country be obtained without the assistance of hot-houses,[1] were served," he tells us, "in the greatest profusion. There was a delicious species of small melon, which had been sent by land-carriage from Astrakhan to Moscow—a distance of a thousand miles. These melons," he adds, "sometimes cost five pounds apiece, and at other times may be purchased in the markets of Moscow for less than half-a-crown apiece." One "instance of elegance" which distinguished the dessert, and which appears to have made an impression on the Archdeacon, is then mentioned. "At the upper and lower ends of the table were placed two china vases, containing cherry-trees in full leaf, and fruit hanging on the boughs which was gathered by the company." This cherry-tree is also a favourite, and certainly a very agreeable ornament, in the present day. At the conclusion of the dessert coffee is served as in France and England. Men and women leave the table together, and after dinner no wine is taken. Later in the evening tea is brought in, with biscuits, cakes, and preserved fruits.

[Footnote 1: That is to say, not in the winter. In the summer, pears and cherries abound in Moscow, and every kind of fruit ripens in the south.]

The reception-rooms in Russian houses are all en suite; and instead of doors you pass from room to room through arches hung with curtains. The number of the apartments in most of the houses I remember varied from three to six or seven; but in the clubs and in large mansions there are more. Grace before or after dinner is never said under any circumstances; but all the guests make the sign of the cross before sitting down to table, usually looking at the same time towards the eastern corner of the room, where the holy image hangs. This ceremony is never omitted in families, though in the early part of the century, when the Gallomania was at its height, it is said to have been much neglected. In club dinners, when men are dining alone, it will be easily believed that the same importance is not attached to it; but the custom may be described as almost universal among the rich, and quite universal among the poor. Indeed, a peasant or workman would not on any account eat without first making the sign of the cross. In Russia, with its "patriarchal" society (as the Russians are fond of saying), it is usual to thank the lady of the house, either by word or gesture, after dining at her table; and those who are sufficiently intimate kiss her hand.

We now come to the composition of the Russian dinners; and here I must repeat with Archdeacon Coxe, that although the Russians have adopted many of the delicacies of French cookery, they "neither affect to despise their native dishes nor squeamishly reject the solid joints which characterize our own repasts." I was astonished, at one Russian dinner, which I was assured was thoroughly national in style, to meet with the homely roast leg of mutton and baked potatoes of my native land. Like the English, the Russians take potatoes with nearly every dish—either plain boiled, fried, or with parsley and butter over them. Plum-pudding, too, and boiled rice-pudding with currants in it, and with melted butter, are known in Russia—at all events in Moscow and St. Petersburg; and goose is not considered complete without apple-sauce. As in France, every dinner begins with soup; but this custom has not been borrowed from the French. It seems to date from time immemorial, for all the Russian peasants, a thoroughly stationary class, take their soup daily. The Russians are very successful with some kinds of pickles, such as salted cucumbers and mushrooms; and they excel in salads, composed not only of lettuce, endive, and beetroot, but also of cherries, grapes, and other fruits, preserved in vinegar. The fruit is always placed at the top, and has a very picturesque effect in the midst of the green leaves. Altogether it may be said that the Russian cuisine is founded on a system of eclecticism, with a large number of national dishes for its base. Of course, in some Russian houses, as in some English ones, the cooking is nearly all in the French style; but even then there are always a few dishes on the table that might easily be recognized as belonging to the country. We need scarcely remark, that only very rich persons dine every day in the sumptuous style described by Archdeacon Coxe, though the rule as to service may be said to be general—one dish at a time, and nothing on the table but flowers and the dessert. In the winter, when it is difficult and expensive to get dessert, those who are rich send for it where it can be obtained—perhaps to their own hot-houses; and those who are not rich, as in other countries, go without. At the traktirs, or restaurants, the usual dinner supplied for three-quarters of a rouble consists of soup, with a pie of mince-meat, or minced vegetables, an entrÉe, roast meat, and some kind of sweet. That, too, may be considered the kind of dinner which persons of moderate means have every day at home. Rich proprietors, who keep a head-cook, a roaster, a pastry-cook, and two or three assistant-cooks, would perhaps despise so moderate a repast; but from a little manual of cookery which a friend has been kind enough to send me from Russia, it would appear that the generality of persons do not have more than four dishes at each meal.

The most ancient and popular drinks in Russia are hydromel or mead (called by the same name in Russia), beer, and kvass. Mead, the fine old Scandinavian drink, is mentioned as far back as the Tenth Century; and in a chronicle of Novgorod of the year 989, it is stated that "A great festival took place, at which a hundred and twenty thousand pounds of honey were consumed." Hydromel is flavoured with various kinds of spices and fermented with hops. Gerebtzoff states that beer is mentioned (under the name of oloul—the present word being pivo) in the Book of Ranks, written in the Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries. But no drink is so ancient as kvass, which, according to the chronicle of Nestor, was in use among the Sclavonians in the first century of our era. Among the laws of Yaroslaff there is an old edict determining the quantity of malt to be furnished for making kvass to workmen engaged in building a town.

The Russians learnt to drink wine from the Greeks, during their frequent intercourse with the Eastern Empire, long before the Mongol invasion. During the Tartar domination there was less communication with Constantinople and the consumption of wine decreased, but it became greater again during the period of the Tsars. In the beginning of the Seventeenth Century wine was supplied to ambassadors, but the Russians for the most part still preferred their native drinks. The cultivation of the vine was introduced at Astrakhan in 1613, and a German traveller named Strauss, who visited the city in 1675, found that it had been attended with great success; so much so, that, without counting what was sold in the way of general trade, the province supplied to the Tsar alone every year two hundred tuns of wine, and fifty tuns of grape brandy. The wines of Greece were at the same time replaced by those of Hungary, which were in great demand when Peter came and introduced the vintage of France. This by many persons will be considered not the least of his reforms.

The Russians acquired the art of distilling from grain in the Fourteenth Century from the Genoese established in the Crimea, and seem to have lost no time in profiting by their knowledge. They soon began to invent infusions of fruit and berries, which under the name of "nalivka" have long been known to travellers, and which I for my part found excellent. "Raki," about the consumption of which by the Russian soldiers so much was written during the Crimean war, is a Turkish spirit, and is unknown in Russia. The Russian grain-spirit is called "vodka." The best qualities are more like the best whiskey than anything else, only weaker; but it is of various degrees of excellence as of price. The new common vodka, like other new spirits, is fiery; but when purified, and kept for some time, it is excellent and particularly mild. Travellers to Moscow who are curious on the subject of vodka may visit a gigantic distillery in the neighbourhood, to which it is easy to gain admission, and where they can obtain information and samples in abundance. Vodka is sometimes made in imitation of brandy, and there are also sweet and bitter vodkas; and, indeed, vodka of all flavours. But the British spirit which the ordinary vodka chiefly resembles is whiskey. There is one curious custom connected with drinking in Russia which, as far as I am aware, has never been noticed. The Russians drink first and eat afterwards, and never drink without eating. If wine and biscuits are placed on the table, everyone takes a glass of wine first, and then a biscuit; and at the zakouska before dinner, those who take the customary glass of vodka take an atom of caviare or cheese after it, but not before. It may also be remarked that, as a general rule, the Russians, like the Orientals, drink only at the beginning of a repast.

A hospitable Englishman entertaining a Russian, on seeing him eat after drinking, would press him to drink again, and having drunk a second time, the Russian would eat once more on his own account; which would involve another invitation to drink on the part of the Englishman. As a hospitable Russian, on the other hand, entertaining an Englishman, would endeavour to prevail upon him to eat after drinking, and as it is the Englishman's habit to drink after eating, it is easy to see that too much attention on either side might lead to very unfortunate results.

A great deal is said about the enormous quantity of champagne consumed in Russia. Champagne, however, costs five roubles (from sixteen to seventeen shillings) a bottle—the duty alone amounting to one rouble a bottle—and is only drunk habitually by persons of considerable means. Nor does the champagne bottle go round so frequently at Russian as at English dinners. It is usually given, as in France, with the pastry and dessert, and no other wine is taken after it. The rich merchants are said to drink champagne very freely at their evening entertainments; but the only merchant at whose house I dined had, unfortunately, adopted Western manners, and gave nothing during the evening but tea. However, at festivals and celebrations of all kinds—whether of congratulation, of welcome, or of farewell—champagne is indispensable. What Alphonse Karr says of women and their toilette—that they regard every event in life as an occasion for a new dress—may certainly be paraphrased and applied to the Russians in connection with champagne. Besides the champagne which is given as a matter of course at dinner-parties and balls, there must be champagne at birthdays, champagne at christenings, champagne at, or in honour of, betrothals, champagne in abundance at weddings, champagne at the arrival of a friend, and champagne at his departure. For those who cannot afford veritable champagne, Russian viniculture supplies an excellent imitation in the shape of "Donskoi" and "Crimskoi,"—the wines of the Don and of the Crimea. As "Donskoi" costs only a fifth of the price of real champagne, it will be understood that it is not seldom substituted for the genuine article, both by fraudulent wine merchants and economic hosts. However, it is a true wine, and far superior to the fabrications of Hamburg, which, under the name of champagne, find their way all over the north of Europe. It has often been said that the Russians drink champagne merely because it is dear. But the fact is, they have a liking for all effervescing drinks, and naturally, therefore, for champagne, the best of all. Among the effervescing drinks peculiar to Russia, we may mention apple kvass, kislya shchee, and voditsa. Kislya shchee is made out of two sorts of malt, three sorts of flour, and dried apples; in apple kvass there are more apples and less malt and flour. Voditsa (a diminutive of voda, water), is made of syrup, water, and a little spirit. All these summer-drinks are bottled and kept in the ice-house.