What Did The New Year's Table Look Like In Soviet Times?

Jacket potatoes, carrots and eggs are cooling in a large metal pan on the balcony. Then we will cut them into a large crystal salad bowl.

Jacket potatoes, carrots and eggs are cooling in a large metal pan on the balcony. Then we will cut them into a large crystal salad bowl. You can get a scolding for tangerines, because you can eat them only during a feast, and not a day earlier. Chicken with a crust seems to be the pinnacle of culinary creativity and, of course, schoolchildren indicate it as a favorite dish in their questionnaires. Well, next to my mother's friend, you need to put a straw glass with napkins and bread, she loves to dip it in oil from sprats. Yes, and the same "Irony of Fate" on TV, congratulations from the President and champagne!

 

This year, many will celebrate the New Year exactly according to the same scenario as their parents, grandparents did. Someone may wrinkle their nose and say "oh no, again!". But "Olivier" and sausage cuts may well become a guarantor of stability in such a changeable time. May we always be full and surrounded by friends and loved ones!

So, a typical Soviet New Year's table is unthinkable without salads "Olivier", "Mimosa", "Herring under a fur coat", baked chicken, cold cuts, jelly (or jelly), sandwiches with sprats, tangerines with a black sticker and Soviet champagne.

Baked chicken in the oven

 

At the head of the New Year's table of the times of the USSR is baked chicken. With a fine crust, with soaking a baking sheet, with a potato garnish. Modern ovens are not able to repeat that grandmother's crust from an old gas oven. For many, this crust is the taste of childhood.

The recipe for chicken cooked in the oven in the sleeve is here >>>

Olivier salad

 

The folk version of the salad "Olivier" is a set of diced doctor's sausage, boiled potatoes and carrots, pickles, canned peas. Dress the salad with mayonnaise. Usually they prepared a huge bowl of such a salad and ate it for several days afterwards.

Today, "Olivier" can be found without mayonnaise, and with fish, and with chicken, and in a vegetarian version. This salad is the most popular association associated with the New Year.

A selection of salad recipes "Olivier" >>>

Mimosa

 

"Mimosa" was cooked with saury in oil, and also with boiled potatoes, carrots, raw onions (drained with boiling water in rare cases). Some add grated cheese to the salad, some add a layer of grated butter. In all cases, the top layer is grated boiled yolk. And decorate well with a branch of dill! A very tender salad that you always want.

How to prepare Mimosa salad, see here >>>

Sprats

 

Baltic sprats were laid out on a plate and eaten with their tails, and they also prepared sandwiches with black bread and butter. At the end of the celebration, someone dipped bread into butter and ate everything to the last drop, and some could even drink sprat oil straight from the jar!

Smoked sausage

 

On the rich New Year's table there was always a plate with sausage cuts. Cherished loaves in the store were wrapped in brown paper. Oh, and now few people will refuse a couple of thin circles of salami with cucumber! 

Aspic

 

Kholodets or jelly was boiled in large quantities, served with potatoes or black bread, horseradish. And now jelly is more often prepared on holidays. This process is too long and laborious. Boiled carrot flowers were a must!

How to cook jelly >>>

Herring under a Fur Coat

 

A more tender herring under a fur coat was obtained with an apple. Let it darken in the salad. Mayonnaise was a scarce product, they got it before the holidays. But not everyone carefully cleaned the herring, and they did not choose small bones, they ate with them or spit. Fortunately, excellent peeled fillets of any kind and taste are now sold in stores.

Here you will find a recipe for a luxurious snack cake "Herring under a fur coat" >>>

tangerines

 

The smell of tangerines teased and beckoned. Children on New Year's Eve ate them until they fell asleep, and adults ate stronger drinks. Slices of tangerines were sometimes added to jelly, laid out with fancy flowers, but more often they were simply placed in a glass vase on the table.

Soviet champagne

 

Popular sparkling wine, available to everyone, was poured into glasses immediately after the chiming clock. Noisy congratulations, confetti, fireworks. Some still managed to write a wish on pieces of paper, burn and drink the ashes along with wine. They were probably talking about love. I really want to believe that all love must have happened!