"If it comes from a box its American - If it’s made from scratch its Russian."

Irene is 27 years old and was born in Kiev, Ukraine. She left with her family via Vienna and Italy, and came to Brooklyn, New York when she was 5. When she was in 5^th grade she moved to the Suburbs of Rockland County, where she still lives with her mother, Evelyn.  

Irene’s earliest food memories are of hot summers spent in Israel, eating hot soup for lunch. Every day there would be borscht, chicken soup, or a variety of vegetable soups. She says it must be a Russian thing because Americans never eat hot soup in the summer.

Irene says she learned about the differences between Russian and American food early on from her American and non-Russian school aged friends. “Their food was normal, our food was weird. They ate PB&J and sandwiches. I never ate that. We ate smoked fish, fish roe or simple caviar, liver, cow tongue.”

I asked how she would categorize Russian food. “Whatever my mom cooked from scratch.” For example, if her mother cooked chicken, rice and salad, which sounds like a pretty typical American dinner, it was made more “Russiany” by Evelyn. The chicken was ground up and made into Cutleti, the salad, unlike American salads, never had any lettuce, just fresh vegetables and olive oil as a dressing, and the rice might be Kasha.

What then is American food? “Anything that comes out of a box.”  Irene and her sister would make Rice a Roni or macaroni and cheese after school. “American food is much faster and easier to make than Russian food.” The answer was fast and simple.

The differences between Russian and American foods were easy for Irene to determine. Distinguishing the difference between Russian and Jewish foods was more difficult. Jewish food is “food that we eat on Jewish Holidays. Kugel, chicken, traditional things. It’s usually bland and over cooked. When I think of Jewish food I think of Kugel but we never made Kugel in my house.  I think of it because they always have it at synagogue on the holidays.”

So what about chopped liver? “Its Jewish-y but I consider it Russian food.  Olivier (Russian salad) is definitely Russian; we could eat it on Passover but we wouldn’t.  Jewish food is more American Ashkenazy style food that we eat at synagogue and at Jewish events. Herring? “Russian. Defintely Russian.”

We could have talked and even argued about food and ethnic categories all day, except there was delicious, homemade, decidedly Russian food to be eaten.

Chicken Soup

Since this blog is going to focus on food in the lives of Jewish Russian-Americans, I decided to ask Ukrainian mother and daughter duo Evelyn and Irene just what Jewish food, Russian food, and American food were. Before getting to the heart of the questions though, Evelyn gave us a thorough cooking lesson. We made chicken soup, kasha, salad and compote. In the end we couldn’t decide if it was Jewish or Russian, but it was most certainly delicious. Evelyn’s mother and a few friends joined us for dinner and the company, conversation and laughter made the Russian – Jewish experience even more authentic.



 

What is Soviet Salad?

The purpose of this blog is to explore culture, food and gender. As a Jewish American “foodie,” born to a Ukrainian mother, I would like to expand on these areas of research and focus a web blog on Jewish/Russian mother–daughter food culture.  More specifically, this social initiative would focus on Russian immigrants along with their American born (or “Americanized”) daughters to see if, and how, food culture, recipes, and attitudes towards food and cooking transcend borders and generations.

 

By using food as a foundation, this blog will explore how American-born Jewish women of Russian backgrounds relate to and understand their immigrant mothers’ ideas and practices with regards to food. This food/culture/gender blog will highlight how important food from the Russian-Jewish Diaspora is in shaping a society, a culture, a family, and a woman. Additionally, the blog will be a forum for sharing and learning about recipes from all over the former Soviet Union.

 

Enjoy and feel free to open up the discussion or add a recipe!