Cooking on the Soviet Home Front during WWII

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  • Опубліковано 5 лис 2024

КОМЕНТАРІ • 4,9 тис.

  • @TastingHistory
    @TastingHistory  Місяць тому +7805

    Covering certain powers during this series will definitely make some uncomfortable, but I feel like skipping those would leave the series incomplete and do a disservice to history. I hope, for the sake of learning, you stick around for all of the episodes in this series.

    • @JakeWDavis17
      @JakeWDavis17 Місяць тому +1295

      It's important as it confirms everyone involved was a human being and had the same basic needs!

    • @sharon9807
      @sharon9807 Місяць тому +472

      The content and events covered here are as relevant today as they were back then. Keep going and don’t let any hate comments deter you! 🌸

    • @beowulfsrevenge4369
      @beowulfsrevenge4369 Місяць тому +522

      It's very important to show the truth of what happened during WW2.
      History is hardly a comfortable subject in all it's brutal reality, and it's important to not forget what happened so we can learn from our past. Simply burying it or ignoring it is no way to honor those who have come before and may have died for the freedoms we enjoy today.

    • @ELITE-xn3sh
      @ELITE-xn3sh Місяць тому +181

      Uncomfortable or not it will be lovely to listen to a topic never spoken again (cant get worse to describe than the Viking funeral vid)

    • @IssyMomentTTV
      @IssyMomentTTV Місяць тому +247

      History is full of questionable and uncomfortable acts by pretty much every party. It's important to have a full, honest view of history so that we can learn from it and realise our commonality with those who came before. Good on you for sticking to that, and for not simply brushing off the possible discomfort besides.

  • @coyoteroadkill
    @coyoteroadkill Місяць тому +3965

    I remember one story from the Leningrad Siege of a cat that helped keep a girl, her mother and grandmother alive by bringing them rats and pigeons. They all survived the war. When the cat died the grandmother secretly buried the cat at the edge of the human cemetery. They owed their lives to that cat.

    • @HolyKhaaaaan
      @HolyKhaaaaan Місяць тому +98

      I wonder if that is maybe the source of the cat and dogs' existence in 60 Seconds!.

    • @lady_sir_knight3713
      @lady_sir_knight3713 Місяць тому +199

      Vaska the cat!

    • @cptjeff1
      @cptjeff1 Місяць тому +198

      My cat growing up used to bring us things, including dropping a vole on my mother's lap during breakfast. Silly ungrateful us threw them out.
      But really, I'd far prefer that over the cannibalism that happened during the siege of Lenigrad.

    • @MsLeenite
      @MsLeenite Місяць тому +38

      Even if it didn't really happen, I like that story anyway.

    • @kjarakravik4837
      @kjarakravik4837 Місяць тому +27

      @@lady_sir_knight3713 It's kinda cute that she has a person name and not a cat name

  • @andrewptrm6170
    @andrewptrm6170 Місяць тому +3316

    Regarding the sugar in the recipe. I'm Russian and, when I was a kid, we ate millet porridge quite frequently. Tastes differ and some people prefer their porridge to stay more savory while others want a little bit of sweetness, so sugar would be served separately from the porridge itself. This way you can skip it or sprinkle over still hot porridge. It actually contributes greatly not only to taste but also texture, I LOVED slightly crunchy sugar parts

    • @XylitoI
      @XylitoI Місяць тому +138

      Yeah, as soon as Max brought up the question of the sugar in the ingredients, I imagined it would be used as an optional condiment. That's the way it works with porridge, too, yes? Or do they do something different outside of Europe? 😅If you're serving oatmeal or rye porridge with nothing to really accompany it (like berries/fruits or jam), then you can put some sugar or butter in it if you like.

    • @PeterT-i1w
      @PeterT-i1w Місяць тому +49

      I doubt that much sugar was available for the commoners during the war, so yes, it was "optional" for sure

    • @andrewptrm6170
      @andrewptrm6170 Місяць тому +73

      @@PeterT-i1w Well, during the war not at all. But as Max mentioned, the book wasn’t really targeted at common folks

    • @Cerg1998
      @Cerg1998 Місяць тому +35

      Can confirm, it is always "to taste" and goes into your plate/bowl rather than the cooking pot.

    • @ericstearns170
      @ericstearns170 Місяць тому +18

      I wondered if that was the case, similar to how traditional Cream of Wheat is eaten.

  • @quite1enough
    @quite1enough Місяць тому +376

    Hi there from St Petersburg, Russia! I'm originally from Nizhny Novgorod oblast, my grand-aunt is 92 now, she lived through all WW2 years, and more often than not they used to eat fried potato peels. In some severe circumstances people ate moss, but to my knowledge my grand-aunt didn't. Milk was somewhat a luxury during WW2. My grandma on the father's side lived through entire siege of Leningrad and told me a story once when she spent almost an entire day in searching for a single grain in her room, only to realize that she already ate it earlier. Horrifying, tragic time it was. Thank you for this video.

    • @janetprice85
      @janetprice85 Місяць тому +10

      Bless her!

    • @lunarose9
      @lunarose9 Місяць тому +17

      Fried potato peels are surprisingly good! I really hate food waste for envrironmental reasons, so if I make a mash, or something that doesn't require the peel, I save them back and bake them or roast them with some seasoning, similar to a potato wedge to have while watching a movie or something like that. The skin is the most nutritious part of the potato too.

    • @fritz3135
      @fritz3135 Місяць тому +2

      ​@@lunarose9 I'd like to do that too, but eating the peels of unorganic potatos doesn't sound to nice

    • @Logen23232
      @Logen23232 Місяць тому +15

      Ахахаа мой дед был в штрафом батальене обычно они жарили ежей если копали окопы или лягушек особым везеньем считалось если во время кнопки траншеи окопной попадалась нора сурка это считалось деликатесом

    • @kirbyculp3449
      @kirbyculp3449 28 днів тому +4

      ​@@Logen23232
      Damn. That is hardcore.

  • @danielhurst8863
    @danielhurst8863 Місяць тому +3585

    Leningrad actually did have farmland and it was used during the siege, the issue was that Leningrad held the Soviet Seed Bank, which was the largest in the World at the time. Certain rare seeds had to be planted, to keep the Seed Bank going or the seeds could be lost to humanity.
    A majority of scientists at the Seed Bank died of starvation, while tending crops, so the seeds would not be lost.

    • @Elizabeth-n3v2u
      @Elizabeth-n3v2u Місяць тому +451

      Wow. Real heroes. I teared up in admiration when reading this. I salute you, nameless soviet scientists.

    • @Ish_Fire
      @Ish_Fire Місяць тому +237

      Honestly can respect it. For the progress of science

    • @katiekawaii
      @katiekawaii Місяць тому +33

      Oh wow 😢

    • @IntrospectorGeneral
      @IntrospectorGeneral Місяць тому

      The tragedy is even darker. The seed bank was established by the remarkable biologist and geneticist Nikolai Vavilov who was arrested in 1940 at the behest of the head of Soviet agriculture, the loathsome Stalinist toady Trofim Lysenko who had made his reputation with fraudulent anti-geneticist claims about being able to 'educate' plants to grow in unsuitable envoronments. Agriculture as a political argument about nature versus nurture. Vavilov was starved to death (apparently deliberately) in a gulag without recanting his political fault of believing in genetics while many of his researchers at the Bureau of Applied Botany starved rather than eat the seed bank. One researcher reportedly died at his desk while clutch a packet of peanuts. Vavilov's driving ambition - to establish a seed bank and research to eliminate himan deaths from famine. Science doesn't have saints but these men and woment would be close.

    • @anamateurscripter2645
      @anamateurscripter2645 Місяць тому +130

      This is true; I’ve read about is elsewhere. Rather saddening, but understandable.

  • @Nobodyatall_1
    @Nobodyatall_1 Місяць тому +1190

    My grandfather grew up in Leningrad and was the little boy when the blockade started. He was “abandoned” by his parents so he could be registered as an orphan, so he could have a chance at survival. He was taken over the ice “road of life” he was taken to an orphanage in Siberia where he stayed for a few years. We were never allowed to throw away bread growing up.

    • @MossyMozart
      @MossyMozart Місяць тому +30

      Oh my. Sorry your father and all the others went through that

    • @greges8601
      @greges8601 Місяць тому +97

      This is some specific russian thing about bread. It feels like something sacred. Me, a russian, can't just throw bread in the trashcan. At least I'm gonna feed birds with bad bread, but not throw away

    • @srtrujillo
      @srtrujillo Місяць тому +55

      @@greges8601 I guess it's a pretty common thing among all countries or regions where people suffered the consequences of war. I'm from Spain my grandma would never throw any bread away. With old bread, she would make bread crumbles, or soak it in soup, or, my favorite as a child, serve it with hot milk and sugar for breakfast or afternoon snack.

    • @Your-Least-Favorite-Stranger
      @Your-Least-Favorite-Stranger Місяць тому +19

      ​@@greges8601Bread is a calorie dense staple for many cultures, but especially Slavic and Germanic peoples. Its a well-established part of the cultural foodways

    • @ВероникаКорсунова-ъ3ц
      @ВероникаКорсунова-ъ3ц Місяць тому +9

      both of my great-grandfathers (one from Altai and other from Donetsk regions) were defending the road of life, of course, they couldn't know they were to become a family one day. Both denied the combat ration in favor of their families. The respect for food is still alive in our family

  • @ChurroCandy
    @ChurroCandy Місяць тому +2073

    This video makes me think of the Vavilov Institute, the world's first seed bank. During the Siege of Leningrad, several scientists starved to death surrounded by food-- seeds, beans, potatoes, peanuts. They refrained from eating anything because they knew that the seeds would be instrumental in revitalizing the country's agriculture after the war. It's an incredible story that I recommend looking in to.

    • @evelynzlon9492
      @evelynzlon9492 Місяць тому +35

      Wow. They intentionally starved themselves to death? I admire them for their selflessness, and for playing the tape all the way to the end. If they ate their nation's only food source the Russians would just KEEP starving. Them and everybody else. I personally have difficulty playing the tape all the way to the end to make the necessary short-term sacrifices, even if my temporary suffering is much pettier.
      I also know exactly who is responsible for the plight of Russia post-WWI. The Russian mystic Grigori Rasputin who infiltrated the Russian Imperial Family wasn't Russian. He was German. He was Adolf Hitler in disguise. He had one Russian daughter named Maria whom he evacuated to America before he did his work in Russia. Hitler's most important female employee was also an Eastern European named Maria. Like his daughter she was also a professional dancer-turned-psychic. The reason I know this is because he's also my ancestor by yet another pseudonym of his. It's a slippery slope. You're less likely than others in your demographic group to actually die, but you're MORE likely to go totally insane.

    • @trustytrest
      @trustytrest Місяць тому

      @@evelynzlon9492 🤪🫵

    • @evelynzlon9492
      @evelynzlon9492 Місяць тому +6

      As far as my going insane, Hitler personally had a hand in that. He claimed to possess a chemical preparation which could extend a person's lifespan to several millennia. He did. He's also well-connected everywhere and can worm his way into any individual's life. Long story short, when I was a child he forced me to participate in a lengthy outdoor sporting event in 100 degree heat without drinking water. It was horrible. He followed this up with additional interactions periodically throughout my life. He did give me some choices and chances but it would've required a Herculean effort to utilize them. I'm too lazy. There are other people who've suffered a lot more at his hands, who jumped at the meager opportunities he DID afford them. He can totally encompass you like a prison guard, gradually hedging you into depending on his rations. In fact I think he may routinely practice on his family members before he decides to take his show on the road and really kick a**.

    • @Uruz2012
      @Uruz2012 Місяць тому +17

      Did they choose to starve or was there a prohinition on eating those seeds made by the state?
      There's a big difference between choosin of your own free will and choosing under the threat of imprisonment of your family. The gulags were no joke.

    • @crow-jane
      @crow-jane Місяць тому +214

      ⁠@@evelynzlon9492I cannot tell if this is bad performance art or if you’re genuinely having a mental crisis. If the later, I hope you are able to access help.

  • @dianabriggs1032
    @dianabriggs1032 Місяць тому +158

    I majored in Russian and studied in St. Petersburg in 2004. When we toured the Museum of the Blockade, we were fortunate to be joined by the grandfather of my friend’s host family. He had survived the Blockade as 13-year-old, and grimly but proudly pointed out the rifle he had carried, and an example of the ration he had received at the worst of the Blockade. It was a chunk of brown bread about the size of a box of Altoids. I spent the next few days walking down Nevsky Prospect transposing scenes from the war over the modern city. A million people died in the Blockade- it’s just unimaginable.
    But the city held the line against the Nazis. Hitler had his victory banquet in St. Petersburg all planned out, but he never got it.

    • @dianabriggs1032
      @dianabriggs1032 Місяць тому +11

      Oh yeah, and I have a 1953 copy of “The Guide to Healthy and Tasty Food” that’s one of my prized possessions. Big Soviet Food Nerd here! Also read Anya von Bremzen- her memoir/cookbook is heartbreaking and inspirational.

    • @Logen23232
      @Logen23232 Місяць тому +1

      Так почему мирным жителям руские не дали уйти по льду по дороге жизни?

    • @Logen23232
      @Logen23232 28 днів тому

      @@TonyKing-g9i с чего ты взял что я украинец во вторых глупо считать что руководство сср было интернациональный эта структура была руская иначе почему нет в управлении сср и в армии маршалов ссср не было татар Узбеков или Азербайджанцев. При том что эти народы заставляли идти на германский танки почти без оружия?

    • @mishazhadenov2058
      @mishazhadenov2058 28 днів тому +1

      This is silly!
      Stalin is Georgian, Khrushchev is Ukrainian, Brezniv is Ausitinian
      Gosh! ​@@Logen23232

    • @seb_1504
      @seb_1504 28 днів тому +11

      ​@@Logen23232there were Ukrainians and other ethnics within leadership?.
      Just do 5 minutes of research Stalin was literally Georgian.

  • @si-melamme7837
    @si-melamme7837 Місяць тому +4482

    My Grandma was born in Leningrad and survived the whole 900-ish days of the siege. No piece of bread, however moldy, was ever thrown away in our house while she lived, she'd scrape it and fry it and make us eat it. And to this day we've got a pantry bursting with jams, grain and canned food. Some nice generational trauma we've got going on here.

    • @creativechaosify
      @creativechaosify Місяць тому +377

      Same here, though my grandmother was born in Baranowicze (modern-day Belarus). I can or freeze everything from my garden and feel guilty when throwing away old food.

    • @vjaceslavsavsjaniks6431
      @vjaceslavsavsjaniks6431 Місяць тому +105

      We distilled a metric shitton of jam and then some and still something along the lines of 200 liters was thrown away

    • @obliviouscandybar
      @obliviouscandybar Місяць тому +238

      My grandma survived starvation in the USA in the 1930s and until her death we weren't allowed to throw out any food. Everything was saved and she always kept the pantry full. Those habits were passed down to me and I still struggle to throw away food scraps.

    • @suewyatt2546
      @suewyatt2546 Місяць тому +115

      The 1930's Great Depression spanned my mother's entire childhood, and since her father was too ill to work, the family was "on the dole." As an adult, mom was super-sparing of every resource (though never niggardly), and we always had a huge pantry (or two) stuffed to the hilt with non-perishable food. Lesson learned...

    • @render1802
      @render1802 Місяць тому +108

      Living in a place that deals with hurricanes, my family always kept a minimum of 1 month worth of dried and canned goods, and 2 weeks of water. Dealing with poverty and not knowing if I'll be able to afford food for months at a time, I've extended that to 5 months of food stored. ...nothing makes a steak dinner tastier than previously living off of 1200 daily calories of beans and discount canned pasta for two months.

  • @ToofaniZindagi
    @ToofaniZindagi Місяць тому +737

    His pronunciation of all these different languages is always so impressive!

    • @deniaridley
      @deniaridley Місяць тому +12

      For real!

    • @wraithcadmus
      @wraithcadmus Місяць тому +44

      I get the feeling there's some cuts, but it speaks well of Max that he'll keep trying until he gets a good take to splice in.

    • @angelinaduganNy
      @angelinaduganNy Місяць тому +17

      He puts effort into his videos...Not too many put effort in their videos on this app.

    • @easteuropecollusion468
      @easteuropecollusion468 Місяць тому +35

      As much as many YTbers go into "Eh, I don't speak the language so dont complain about my pronunciation", it is always extra respect for YTbers who actually try to pronounce foreign words correctly. This channel definitely earns this extra respect.

    • @mr.majkenocs
      @mr.majkenocs Місяць тому +14

      ​@@easteuropecollusion468Yes! Even when he doesn't get it perfectly, it's still close enough that you think that the dude TRIED to sound genuine.
      Much much better than the usual "I'm not gonna pronounce that correctly" bs

  • @Katterrena
    @Katterrena Місяць тому +2049

    My mum has always told me of when she was complimenting the beautiful silk wallpaper of one of her university friend’s babushka’s apartment during the late 1970s in the USSR. She offhandedly suggested that it must be from imperial times. Then the babushka replied in the most matter of fact voice “no, we ate all of the wallpaper during the siege.” My mum decided it was time for more vodka.

    • @dwhitman3092
      @dwhitman3092 Місяць тому +111

      This was noted in the film, "Attack on Leningrad". Horrendous situation.

    • @thejohnbeck
      @thejohnbeck Місяць тому +91

      USSR provided blood, UK provided time, US provided resources. All 3 needed

    • @R.P-e2z
      @R.P-e2z Місяць тому +132

      If someone who was alive during the Battle of Leningrad mentions the Battle of Leningrad, it's time for more vodka.

    • @agabrielhegartygaby9203
      @agabrielhegartygaby9203 Місяць тому +66

      I do not know how the Soviet civilians were able to manage.... compared to the Irish war of independence (1916 -1922, and then civil war through 1924) we were not burning each others houses or food....my grandmother told me that NOTHING compared to what the Soviets survived during the "great patriotic war" - and long before it was known in the West she used that phrase.....heartbreaking....

    • @cv990a4
      @cv990a4 Місяць тому +71

      We have a family friend who was born in Leningrad during the siege. Everyone came to see because live births were incredibly rare. Her survival was a real miracle, not just her birth, but survival through the remaining siege. Her family got out over Lake Lagoda over the ice. Then, of course, her mother died, I think of typhus. Survived the siege, got out, then died. Life's not remotely fair.
      Of course, as bad as that was, it was not as bad as what happened in the Poland-Ukraine-Belarus-Lithuania area.

  • @dogloversrule8476
    @dogloversrule8476 Місяць тому +97

    A traditional meal for Jews from the USSR part of the world is called chollent. It’s pretty much poradge/stew usually made with some kind of meat, potatoes, & some kind of grain that’s cooked low & slow for about 12 hours. We usually eat it on Saturdays though in certain parts of New York you can get chollent from gas stations on Thursday nights.

    • @Dabednego
      @Dabednego Місяць тому +8

      He did a video on Sephardic cholent a few years ago! It was called Adafina iirc

    • @smutz131
      @smutz131 Місяць тому +6

      from the USSR, France, Germany, Poland, Austria, Hungary, literally anywhere you can find Ashkenazi Jews you will find cholent, and where you can't find Ashkenazi Jews, you will find the Sephardic or Mizrahi Jews making hamin, which is also basically cholent.

    • @dogloversrule8476
      @dogloversrule8476 Місяць тому +3

      @@smutz131 exactly. I personally like putting soup croutons on my chollent

  • @sksk-bd7yv
    @sksk-bd7yv Місяць тому +277

    My father is elderly, and in poor health. But we made the Icelandic rye bread together. I haven't seen him so happy in a very long time. It was beautiful. Thank you, Max.

    • @PissNVinegar40
      @PissNVinegar40 Місяць тому

      THIS is what makes life worth all the hard times. Beautiful comment.

  • @c.isaacyadon9007
    @c.isaacyadon9007 Місяць тому +650

    Ahh. A SteveMRE reference. Proof that Max is a man of culture.
    To which I can only say... "Nice."

    • @tramadol42
      @tramadol42 Місяць тому +76

      Max and Steve should work together sometime:
      Steve first munches the original from a hundred years ago and then compares it with the one Max cooked...

    • @sven_86
      @sven_86 Місяць тому +48

      mmmkay, letsgetthisoutontoatray

    • @MarcsCupofTea
      @MarcsCupofTea Місяць тому +30

      ​@@tramadol42History of coffee type 2

    • @kaketv2225
      @kaketv2225 Місяць тому +6

      Nice!

    • @tylerwhorff7143
      @tylerwhorff7143 Місяць тому +7

      Let's get this out on the tray ✌️

  • @Riurik13
    @Riurik13 Місяць тому +646

    I actually got to meet a survivor of the siege when I traveled to St. Petersburg with my university. She’d been a little girl during the siege and her mother and father were conscripted into the work crews. She described diving into frozen shell holes to break the ice and get water doe their home. She had a bandolier of sorts just festooned with medals she and her parents had received as they had survived the siege and defended the city. It was heart wrenching to see this elderly woman getting choked up describing the artillery barrages and the cold and the hunger. I went back with my family not long after the trip for a vacation and my mother commented on all the little divots and ponds outside the city. I explained to her that those were shell holes left over from the siege. Needless to say she saw things very differently after that.

    • @tanzim37
      @tanzim37 Місяць тому +43

      And now, the same thing happening between Russia and Ukraine. War is truly horrible.

    • @smeeAndyEN
      @smeeAndyEN Місяць тому +41

      Shell holes are to be found in forest areas pretty much all around major European cities - fields have been plowed and evened since, but forests do have a bit longer memory. There is a ton of them litterally in the park infront of my appartment house. We used to play in them as kids, using some as a U-ramps for our bmx bikes. Sometimes we did discuss how horrible it had to be at the time of their origin. I guess it was pretty educational in some way. It's very obscure a war in Europe is happening again, I guess a certain man didn't play in the woods as a kid...

    • @Manaswap
      @Manaswap Місяць тому +18

      @@tanzim37 Not 'between'. Russia is doing this to Ukraine not the other way around.

    • @tanzim37
      @tanzim37 Місяць тому +14

      @@Manaswap sorry, I'm still learning the language, i don't know that i changed a meaning of the phrase in the transition.

    • @Harteo3917
      @Harteo3917 Місяць тому +4

      ​@@smeeAndyEN That makes sense why they planted mines throughout the forests to stop people getting wild food, they've got a demining operation on the way but it's going to take them years to remove them all.
      Obviously they did that so the ukrainian civilians couldn't get wild food when they can't get regular food which is more cruel than what they did back then and once again they are experience food insecurity😢

  • @fieryapple7020
    @fieryapple7020 Місяць тому +44

    My grandparents were teenagers when the war came to USSR and since they have learned not to waste food, ever. Always eat everything on your plate, always cook everything in your fridge, never let it go bad, never throw anything away. And if something goes bad, you can give it to stray animals, like giving stale bread to pigeons on streets. Thats's what they taught us, their grandkids.
    And, of course, there was hoarding canned or dry foods.

    • @neoqwerty
      @neoqwerty Місяць тому +3

      I'm always boggled at people going "always eat everything on your plate" being talked about like it's a rationing thing, 'cause it's just an obvious thing to me. Dogs are geniuses for licking the plates clean when they get the leftovers and my family dog taught me the wisdom of getting all the extra gravy even when there isn't any bread to mop it up when I was like, 6ish.
      Also stale bread's still edible, as long as it isn't mouldy. In fact you traditionally want stale bread for making into croutons or toast to go with soup or aglio e olio (garlic-and-oil pasta). It honestly can be delicious, especially if you've got the cheese to make a grilled cheese or the stuff for salads with croutons. Brushing it with herb-infused oil or butter is also really good. (also great for fondue dipping)

  • @lauraosswald5812
    @lauraosswald5812 Місяць тому +369

    My grandpa survived the siege in Leningrad, he was 8 years old when it started. He used to tell me awful stories abiut the cold, hunger and the bombs raining down. His teeth fell out when he was 12 because of the lack of nutrition from those times. The people of St.Petersburg are truly resilient and strong

    • @LeoMidori
      @LeoMidori Місяць тому +9

      Sounds like he caught scurvy.

    • @Logen23232
      @Logen23232 Місяць тому

      Что мешало свалить из города блокады не было можно было свалить по дороге после покрытия льдом по дороге жизни выходит солдаты красной армии не пускали уйти из города

    • @ndrechtseiter
      @ndrechtseiter 20 днів тому

      ​@@Logen23232во-первых, много кто как раз валил. Во-вторых, не всегда можно было это сделать: Ладога - большое озеро, замерзает долго, чтобы нормально пройти нужно постараться. В-третьих, чувак, город был В БЛОКАДЕ.

  • @Maria-gb8bv
    @Maria-gb8bv Місяць тому +1440

    My family is from Moscow. My grandma was sent to live in an orphanage after her father was killed in the war and her mother couldn't feed 3 children on her own, and they used to serve this type of food there. Even now, sweet pumpkin is banned in her house because they fed it to them so often in the 40s and 50s.

    • @brianargo4595
      @brianargo4595 Місяць тому +125

      My dad has the same problem with asparagus. He grew up super poor, so he'd get sent out to pick asparagus from the ditches so they could have vegetables in addition to the squirrel and rabbit that they could hunt. I've kinda got him to come around through the use of seasoning and bacon, but it's still not his favorite. I love it. Oddly enough, he's big on succotash made from Lima beans and corn, maybe it was the best veg dish his parents could afford, I guess. Or he didn't have to be embarrassed being seen walking the ditches to pick it.

    • @darthplagueis13
      @darthplagueis13 Місяць тому +67

      I can definitely see that. Pumpkin has the kind of flavour that's nice once in a while but that you could get sick off really quick, so I imagine having to eat it in almost every meal because it's the only thing you got can turn you off it for good.

    • @mamadragon2581
      @mamadragon2581 Місяць тому +59

      My mom (who lived in France during the Nazi Occupation) was the same way about Jerusalem artichokes--something I hadn't known before I brought some home from the supermarket one day. She just about pitched a fit.

    • @MrG0DW1N
      @MrG0DW1N Місяць тому +27

      May God bless your grandmother and her parents. I cannot imagine the pain and grief of their family, being separated from their mother and having lost their father. God bless them.

    • @deamado8947
      @deamado8947 Місяць тому +34

      It was celery that was hated in my family at that time, and my husband hates celery too. His family was sick of canned seal meat from the USSR, sent to Cuba during his childhood in the sixties and seventies.

  • @lisahoshowsky4251
    @lisahoshowsky4251 Місяць тому +518

    My Baba (grandmother) was born in Ukraine during WWI and fled during WWII as the Germans invaded, my uncle was born in a Russian refugee camp before they eventually made it to Canada. I’m only in my 20’s, this history isn’t as long ago as I think some people would like to believe and it’s important to remember that regular people, kids, were also living and struggling through these times and it’s important to learn from it. My Baba spent some of the last years of her life writing everything she’d lived through down and there are parts that are heartbreaking to put it lightly. History needs to be remembered and I like that food is a very approachable and understandable way to address topics like this.

    • @EphemeralTao
      @EphemeralTao Місяць тому +16

      My paternal grandmother also came from Ukraine to Canada as an orphan around that time. She didn't really talk about it, though.

    • @RazomDoPeremohy
      @RazomDoPeremohy Місяць тому

      I think you mean ‘Babusya’ or ‘Babushka’.
      ‘Baba’ is a somewhat vulgar term which implies she’s a young woman with whom you’re in a sexual relationship. Not far from ‘my bitch’.

    • @Xiroi87
      @Xiroi87 Місяць тому +5

      Your grandmother was born 110 years ago and you are in your 20s... this doesn't add up.

    • @lisahoshowsky4251
      @lisahoshowsky4251 Місяць тому +49

      @@Xiroi87 not everyone has kids in their early 20’s🤦🏼‍♀️ You’re not entitled to my family members ages but just a little food for thought, the last American *Civil War* widow just died a couple years ago and that war ended in 1865. There is still a living grandson of the US’s 10th president, John Tyler who was born in 1790! (Sorry for only US facts, that’s all that came to mind). People get married and have kids at different ages than others and men can hypothetically have kids until they die of very old age, not every family has a new generation every 25 years. I just happen to be the child of two generations where they both had kids later in life, which was also historically common when people had a lot more kids and those youngest kids had large families with a youngest kid who had kids, large age gaps between grandparents and their grandchildren aren’t abnormal.
      **thanks for coming to my extra history on this tasting history😅

    • @mwater_moon2865
      @mwater_moon2865 Місяць тому +12

      @@Xiroi87 My grandfather was born in 1905, his wife in 1907. My aunt was born in 1952 and my mom in 1954 (her mom was 46 at her birth due to birthdays). Mom had me when she was in her late 20s, but if she had waited until she was old as her mom, or if I were the youngest child like she was, I would be 25. It happens, get over it.

  • @nikolaevsuch
    @nikolaevsuch Місяць тому +25

    Grandma told that being evacuated deep behind frontlines into rural area they cooked kasha from previous year` potatoes, semi-rotten fallen apples they digged under the snow during winter and spring, and during summer they added water caltrop nut. Few times they topped it with black caviar from Volga river.
    And yes, I was not allowed to throw away not a single peace of meal.

  • @juliam248
    @juliam248 Місяць тому +278

    I have a 50s edition of the "Книга о Вкусной и Здоровой Пище" from my grandparents. The illustrations are awesome, and very much aspirational - they were taken in the Kremlin cafeteria.
    My mom makes the pumpkin porrige, but with rice, not millet. It's delicious.

    • @kimandre336
      @kimandre336 Місяць тому +32

      The pumpkin porridge with rice looks very similar to the South Korean pumpkin porridge, proving that rice is the best ingredient when making porridge of any kind.

    • @DogsDogsAndMoreDogs
      @DogsDogsAndMoreDogs Місяць тому +5

      When I lived in Ukraine (2018-2020) a friend made me rice and pumpkin for breakfast when I was visiting. I made sure to bring back a traditional pot like the one she used.

    • @annpyingshek4693
      @annpyingshek4693 Місяць тому +2

      @@kimandre336 Nah, buckwheat is the best for savoury porridges

    • @truggvi5346
      @truggvi5346 Місяць тому

      ​@@kimandre336Anyone?

  • @canuckled
    @canuckled Місяць тому +271

    One historian I read put the Eastern front in North American terms for reference: It was New York City to Chicago Deep and New York City to Mexico City long. That's a huge area of devastation. No one should take food security for granted

    • @katiekawaii
      @katiekawaii Місяць тому +7

      Mind-boggling.

    • @bold810
      @bold810 Місяць тому

      Props to the CanucklesHead, and Right On!

  • @Flamerule13th
    @Flamerule13th Місяць тому +395

    You're too hard on tushonka Max, it's good stuff. Add it into boiled potatoes, kasha or pasta and you've got a hearty meal you can make basically anywhere you've got a pot of water and fire.

    • @ald1144
      @ald1144 Місяць тому +21

      My wife is Russian, from Khabarosvk. She said she had it as a child (which would mean the 80s to 90s) and she loved it.

    • @ksy4747
      @ksy4747 Місяць тому +23

      Omg yes. Tushonka is the SHT! I mmix mine with pasta or with rice. Soooo good! You just need a high quality one. Also depends if it's beef or pork.

    • @ksy4747
      @ksy4747 Місяць тому +1

      ​@ald1144 you guys don't have russian/eastern European food stores near you? Like a netcost?

    • @ald1144
      @ald1144 Місяць тому +4

      @@ksy4747 We live in Abu Dhabi. There's lots of Russians here, but nobody's opened that kind of market yet.

    • @ksy4747
      @ksy4747 Місяць тому +4

      @@ald1144 ooo okay, I thought maybe you were commenting from US. Hopefully someone will open a store soon so your wife can re-live the taste of her childhood.

  • @streips
    @streips Місяць тому +21

    I'm an American Latvian. My parents and their parents survived the war in Latvia until it was coming to an end, and then they fled to the West. My paternal grandmother in particular was a fabulous cook who had brought lots of recipes with her from Latvia. I watched this video (like all of your videos) with great interest. Thank you so much for producing them!

  • @brick6347
    @brick6347 Місяць тому +575

    I live in eastern Poland (about 5km from Ukranie) and my son basically lives on kasha, pickles, and kotlets. That and potato pancakes with sour cream. I worry that if we ever vacationed outside of central or eastern Europe he'd starve!

    • @thebigksmoosey
      @thebigksmoosey Місяць тому +37

      I live in the central US. My daughter eats apples, tortillas, cheese, peanut butter on toast, and plain buttered noodles.
      I have the exact same fear! I can't convince this kid to eat a carrot or a bowl oatmeal even...

    • @tja9212
      @tja9212 Місяць тому +9

      i am a poor german and i found millett to become my absolute saviour in feeding me.
      but it is somewhat hard to find, as not all supermarkets sell it.

    • @rinber13
      @rinber13 Місяць тому +6

      Every decent city has a Polish shop, he’d be fine!

    • @matthewkolakowski3701
      @matthewkolakowski3701 Місяць тому +11

      Amazing. I grew up in a Polish immigrant community in Canada. Sounds like my dinners every night haha!

    • @plomaturbo
      @plomaturbo Місяць тому +9

      If one is hungry enough they will try to eat anything

  • @cygnata
    @cygnata Місяць тому +425

    I'm surprised you didn't mention the Leningrad Seed Bank. The scientists in charge defended the seeds from desperate people without eating any themselves. The seeds were stored in case of disaster, so that crops could be replanted after the war.
    All but 1 or 2 of the scientists starved to death by the end of the seige, but the seeds were safe. Without those seeds, the Soviet Union's farms would not have recovered so quickly, if at all.

    • @eadweard.
      @eadweard. Місяць тому +1

      Why did they need those seeds, specifically?

    • @HopefullyUnoptimistic
      @HopefullyUnoptimistic Місяць тому +99

      @@eadweard. Just a guess from my on experience, acclimatization. Those samples would have come from the regions they grew in, and have adapted to those conditions in small ways. Not enough to categorize them as a new species, or even sub-species, but as a variant that grows well in that region, but _only_ that reason.
      My nana's roses are a good example of this. They're giant bush roses, beautiful, bloom longer, and keep longer than most when cut. But try and split the bush to take it 10 miles in any direction and they won't take root, they'll just die straight away. They've completely adapted to the combination of soil, local symbiotic bacteria, climate, and probably a dozen other things to the point they just do not grow anywhere else.

    • @eadweard.
      @eadweard. Місяць тому +8

      @@HopefullyUnoptimistic Oh yes. Thank you for taking the time to explain!

    • @NIckyFromDunedin
      @NIckyFromDunedin Місяць тому +1

      thank you for shearing this, i googled and am reading about it now

    • @cygnata
      @cygnata Місяць тому

      @@NIckyFromDunedin I learned about it from Dark Matters: Twisted But True! Excellent series on the darker side of science.

  • @jessmorri7194
    @jessmorri7194 Місяць тому +63

    Someone probably already mentioned this, but каша (kasha) is very much an umbrella term for all types of porridge. In my family we mostly eat kasha made from buckwheat, or oatmeal, or semolina (mannaya kasha). Personally I love buckwheat boiled until soft enough to eat but still in its individual grains (similarly to rice) and with cold milk and a bit of salt. It’s like cereal. Buckwheat is so versatile in general, my parents have it as a side with dinner sometimes. Anyway, great video and research as always :)

  • @rujimbob
    @rujimbob Місяць тому +26

    Thanks for being so inclusive of the actual experience at the time of the conflict and suffering. It lends an air of authenticity lacking in so many other shows.

  • @artheemisia
    @artheemisia Місяць тому +262

    Eduard Khil, later a famous singer, was 6 when he was separated from his family and shipped to an orphanage near Ufa. After two years, when his mother finally came to get him, he had suffered so much from hunger that he was unable to walk. He begged his mom for a piece a bread…
    And one of his favorite foods was indeed pumpkin kasha

    • @Kerithanos
      @Kerithanos Місяць тому +28

      Americans think "trololo" is a laugh. They don't realize it's an elegy to the horrors of the Eastern Front

    • @mercedesvelasquez8781
      @mercedesvelasquez8781 Місяць тому +4

      I am just being honest here as a American I personally never used that laughing phrase nor has anyone I known has used it either.
      I do greatly appreciate your comment though because it has firther my education on this subject and has mad eme aware noe that if I do see anyome using thay specfic laughing phrase or what they think is a laughing phrase welp I will educate them in the reality of what "trololo" actually means.. So thank you again🤗​@@Kerithanos

    • @happyjohn354
      @happyjohn354 Місяць тому +5

      @@Kerithanos Most Americans recognize it They just view the Soviets as a dog that bit the hand that fed it. As bad as the famine was it would have been worse without food aid from the US.
      Russaboo's and Talkie's like to claim that US lend lease did nothing to help their situation as most of the heavy vehicles came later in the war but the truth is early on basic materials and supplies like American food, bullets, and steel kept the USSR from collapsing.
      To put it into perspective Something like 20% of the USSR steel during the war came from the US and Stalin and his generals have openly admitted they would have lost the war without that alone but on top of that half of all small arms ammunition manufactured in the US was sent to the USSR. Hell in food alone the US sent the USSR OVER 5 MILLION TONS. due to submarines roughly 4 million tons arrived though. Its established that to keep people alive they need roughly a kilogram of food a day and the US sent over 4,000,000,000 kilograms worth. That ranges from 10% - 15% of the countries entire food supply at one point.

    • @Kerithanos
      @Kerithanos Місяць тому +1

      @@happyjohn354 Hey man, I agree with you about lend lease and all, and that's good information to share... but I'm totally perplexed by both these replies. I was just making a joke about Eduard Khil and his "trololo" song. I don't understand how that got interpreted as any kind of sincere or political commentary?

    • @deadoss3724
      @deadoss3724 Місяць тому

      ​​​​@@happyjohn354nah, wouldnt collapse, just would have taken more time to win, btw dont forget to take your reddit gold xir

  • @arinakozlovskaia8913
    @arinakozlovskaia8913 Місяць тому +667

    My grandpa, who was born in Moscow in 1939, has always remembered the US tushonka and chocolate he ate during the wartime as some of the tastiest things he's ever tried!

    • @gronthgronth2628
      @gronthgronth2628 Місяць тому +45

      I've heard many memories like that. Puts in perspective how utterly depressing was life in USSR if you remember basically a low grade canned meat (mostly fat) as "one of the tastiest things ever tried" your entire life.

    • @Edi-zp4wp
      @Edi-zp4wp Місяць тому +25

      An iconic moment that put this into perspective was Khrushchev’s visit to an American supermarket; he was in awe when seeing the shelves full of food lol

    • @phillav11
      @phillav11 Місяць тому +42

      @@gronthgronth2628Most of that is nostalgia from childhood, combined with the stress of wartime. People in the USSR had an equivalent, if not larger, caloric intake than Americans on average after the war. When you’re starving during a war that is deciding the fate of your people, anything is better than nothing.

    • @konstantin3374
      @konstantin3374 Місяць тому +2

      @@phillav11 caloric intake consisting of mostly cheap carbs.

    • @arinakozlovskaia8913
      @arinakozlovskaia8913 Місяць тому +19

      @@phillav11 I also think that for the most part it was a childhood nostalgia case, and also lend-lease food was presented as something exotic, something that sparked curiosity, so quite memorable. But I won't deny Soviet food was pretty damn bland and boring even in the best of times XD

  • @npataraya
    @npataraya Місяць тому +83

    My great-grandfather died of hunger in Leningrad during the siege.
    Thank you for covering this topic.

  • @sherila4834
    @sherila4834 Місяць тому +6

    Max, please consider putting together a book of the rememberances & life history stories shared on this channel. Even more important than your wonderful food recreations is the information you share about history many of us in the U.S. didn't learn in school. And even more important than that (IMHO), is this place, a uniquely safe place from trolls & ugly posts, where ordinary people (some truly extraordinary) can share their family's experiences of historical events that seem very far from us now. The voices here are important witnesses to this history, and are not necessarily heard elsewhere (at least in English, for a U.S. audience). Please consider making this part of your legacy in print. :) I just wrote all this while sick with Covid! To say that I love what you are doing is an understatement!

  • @Jetiko27
    @Jetiko27 Місяць тому +215

    "Kasha" is not a single recipe. It's a whole category, like soup. Basically any grain could be kasha, you just boil it with some salt n sugar, and add milk, or replace the water with milk entirely if you're living the good life.

    • @MalharetasLair
      @MalharetasLair Місяць тому +11

      ...the good life of the lactose-tolerant, you mean

    • @gi1dor
      @gi1dor Місяць тому +15

      Yes, this is exactly what porridge is, also the whole category, just less popular now than it was before

    • @gi1dor
      @gi1dor Місяць тому +20

      ​@@MalharetasLairlike the majority of people in Europe

    • @dandanovich6729
      @dandanovich6729 Місяць тому +4

      ​@@MalharetasLair plant milk works just as fine, people here use it too

    • @いするぎみお
      @いするぎみお Місяць тому +3

      @@MalharetasLairwe cooked just fine with water or broth as well in my family

  • @FonRize
    @FonRize Місяць тому +290

    I'm from Leningrad and the memories of the blockade and the 90's hunger are still fresh here. I still keep reconstructed 125g slice of bread which was given to the people as a daily(!) ration. That bread isn't the bread you know, sometimes they added substances like glue or other organic waste just to give it more weight, sometimes there were no wheat flour so they used any type of grain there was, sometimes even molded or rotten.
    I remember one day i was at the supermarket and i carelessly tossed a pack of cookies into my cart and my grandma said that i have no respect for food, that i didn't know hunger in my life. Good thing i don't know what hunger is and i hope i won't during this war.

    • @simoncleret
      @simoncleret Місяць тому +3

      When you say glue, do you mean collagen?

    • @joestrummer4106
      @joestrummer4106 Місяць тому +33

      Nope, literally glue. Glue was either made from horses or leftover pasta bits

    • @FonRize
      @FonRize Місяць тому +24

      @@simoncleret Sometimes they boiled leather for hours to squeeze every organic bit out of it, in the end they got this glue-like sticky ooze they put into food

    • @americancommunist6076
      @americancommunist6076 Місяць тому

      @@simoncleret no, adults and children sniffed glue during the 90s (92-99) in order to stave off hunger
      but at least they had democracy amirite?

    • @HolyKhaaaaan
      @HolyKhaaaaan Місяць тому +2

      @@FonRize The Donner Party also did this.

  • @threeinchcentaur5026
    @threeinchcentaur5026 Місяць тому +82

    My grandmother who was born in the USSR but lived as a refugee in various parts of eastern Europe during the war told me when I was little that what you could find was what you ate. She told me her mother (my great grandmother) would work in the fields or do whatever job she could find and then have to come home and cook and do housework at night since her husband (my great grandfather) was away fighting. My grandmother to this day suffers a lot of health problems from malnutrition as a small child during the war.

  • @Boris_Belomor
    @Boris_Belomor Місяць тому +11

    My grandmother still remember how she was digging burdock roots with her brothers when she was a child in 40's. It was used as additional food on the countryside of Soviet Union.

  • @NoMoreCrumbs
    @NoMoreCrumbs Місяць тому +95

    Leningrad was under siege for over 2 years. Bread rations were initially of decent quality, but as the supplies dried up the bakers were instructed to add burned flour to the dough. There have been some claims that sawdust was later added to increase volume. More than half the civilian population of the city died during the siege, including nearly all the children

    • @antcommander1367
      @antcommander1367 Місяць тому

      Karma is harsh bitch.
      If soviets didn't attacked it's small neighbor, Finland. and got humiliated
      Maybe Germans would actually kept their promised.
      As it would have kept image of soviet army stronk.

    • @resourcedragon
      @resourcedragon Місяць тому +5

      I'm pretty sure they would have used sawdust. Sawdust was one of the ingredients in British "raspberry jam"* during rationing and we know that the "bread" that Nazi concentration inmates were given (when they were given any food) had a large percentage of sawdust in it.
      * The sawdust in question was found by some university chemistry students who were curious as to what was in the rather shitty "food" that was available. Whether the sawdust was actually a _legal_ additive, I don't know.

    • @123qwe171
      @123qwe171 Місяць тому +3

      One should also note that as part of the Hungerplan food storages were deliberately bombed and shelled. One notable example is Badayev warehouses - flour and sugar burned, but whatever left (charred and water damaged) was collected and used to bake bread. Later on during siege people were digging up dirt that absorbed sugar and caramelised during fire and eating it.

  • @LilA-zl6tf
    @LilA-zl6tf Місяць тому +45

    When talking about Russian homeland food security gardens, there is one thing that cannot be missed - the Cabbage. It has also been customary, to use what nature offers, like collecting mushrooms and fishing.

  • @AlekseyVitebskiy
    @AlekseyVitebskiy Місяць тому +68

    One tip for Tushyonka is that you really want to cook it down, otherwise it's just a giant glob of fat with meat in the middle. Usually you would render it in a skillet, add some onions, pull the meat apart (think pulled pork), and add some kind of starch to sop up all the fat. Macaroni, potatoes, or any kind of "kasha" like millet are the most common. It's very simple, but delicious. Of course, if you had other veggies, you'd put them in, but onions are almost always added. Also garlic, the more the better, add it minced at the very end for some bite, though that's just a personal preference.

    • @lady_sir_knight3713
      @lady_sir_knight3713 Місяць тому +6

      That does sound good. Honestly, fat is good when you're not biting into it directly. It didn't sound like a bad food to me, it sounded like exactly what you want when you're cold, hungry, doing manual labor, and haven't had fat beyond a ration of hemp oil in months.

    • @bzqp2
      @bzqp2 Місяць тому

      jeez. You eat tushonka cold! I can't imagine eating it warmed up. O.o It's like eating hot Spam. Ew.

    • @AlekseyVitebskiy
      @AlekseyVitebskiy Місяць тому +4

      @@bzqp2 No, it's like eating nicely crisped up Spam... Tushonka is actually a lot more natural looking than Spam, but that's besides the point. Do you really like eating Spam cold, just out of the can? Let's just agree to disagree on that one...

    • @Vostok7789
      @Vostok7789 Місяць тому

      That's the only way I like spam lol

  • @Dan-y5e4f
    @Dan-y5e4f 19 днів тому +4

    Спасибо вам, за то, что вели свой рассказ не предвзято об истории нашей страны. Вы очень грамотный, интересный и притяный человек, вы делаете очень интересные и качественные выпуски, одно удовольствие смотреть и слушать вас, узнавать что-то новое, повторять английский язык. Продолжайте развивать своё дело, у вас это очень хорошо получается! Всех благ!

  • @mix-n-match834
    @mix-n-match834 Місяць тому +71

    One of the most interesting but very sad part of Siege of Leningrad was struggle of workers in Vavilov Institute of Plant Industry. Despite being surrounded by tons of edible seeds they decided to starve because they knew that these seeds will be crucial in the future. Right after the Siege ended the same seeds were planted on fields surrounding Leningrad and helped feeding people. Seed bank of Vavilov Institute later also was crucial in dealing with hunger worldwide long after WW II.
    Also story of Nicolai Vavilov itself is very interesting and as much tragic.

    • @esther_margolis
      @esther_margolis Місяць тому +2

      I know it isn't 'real' history, but you really learn a lot about this in the amazing book The Bronze Horseman

    • @marcusaurelius4941
      @marcusaurelius4941 Місяць тому

      Lots of comments talk about this. Is this a new Internet's favorite history factoid? How did it get popularized?

  • @SemiLobster
    @SemiLobster Місяць тому +173

    I know it's hardly the most well known theatre of the war, but with this series about WWII cooking, you GOTTA talk about the creation of Pad Thai because it's a really interesting story and because everybody forgets that... Thailand declared war on the US and UK and signed a military alliance with Japan, they then helped in the invasion of Malaysia and then just outright invaded Burma with the Japanese!

    • @giraffesinc.2193
      @giraffesinc.2193 Місяць тому +3

      Ohmigosh, really???? I wonder if they are still hated by surrounding countries?

    • @SemiLobster
      @SemiLobster Місяць тому +18

      @@giraffesinc.2193 Pad Thai was created due to the war cutting off rice supplies to Bangkok from China (who they were at war with), as well as a bad harvest (that also led to a famine in India) and Japanese troops stationed in Thailand eating a lot of rice. so they started stir frying noodles instead.
      No hard feelings really with its neighbours (except ongoing, older ethnic issues with Malaysians, Thailand also annexed several provinces of Malaysia during the war as well), because all of SE Asia was full of Japanese collaborators, many of whom would stay in power after the war across the region. Also Thailand had just fought the colonial Vichy French in the Franco-Thai War of 1940, and nobody really liked the French colonists.

    • @thomasijontichy5651
      @thomasijontichy5651 Місяць тому +3

      Thailand signed the treaty with Japan after being invaded by them, and then they declared war on the United States and the United Kingdom only after their mass bombings of Bangkok, but don't let that get in your way of rewriting history.

    • @scott2452
      @scott2452 19 днів тому

      @@thomasijontichy5651 I couldn’t find anything that was untrue in what both of you wrote…is it just that he missed out some important details?

    • @thomasijontichy5651
      @thomasijontichy5651 17 днів тому

      @@scott2452 The most "important detail" would be the disingenuous claim that Thailand had actual agency in its role in WW2. "They just outright invaded Malaysia (with the Japanese.")

  • @bluegrassborn74
    @bluegrassborn74 Місяць тому +80

    Man, I've been watching your show since you had under 500k subscribers. I remember when you made the "official" leap from Disney to the channel. That took a lot of courage. And now you're up to nearly 3M subscribers. Absolutely amazing. So happy for you.

  • @ДенисМонахов-ю7ц
    @ДенисМонахов-ю7ц Місяць тому +6

    Thank you,Max,for mentioning my hometown Leningrad(now St.Petersburg)with such sympathy,in its most difficult and grusom time during the 900-th day siedge .My grandmother was lived in city ,she lost her brother,Kolia and for the rest of her life blaming her self for that. She thinks that she was more resilient so she must share with him more food,and then he would be able to stay alive. It is obviously not true,but she just can't exept this -she survive,and her brother doesn't. For the rest of her life she never trow away any shred of food,even if it was spoiled or moulded. She always make stashes with rations of food, always be wery conservative with food, especially with bread. In Leningrad after the war bread got almost holy status,it was considered wery wasteful left any tiny pieces of bread uneaten after the meal,or throw it away in the trash. Even if slice of bread fall on the floor, often it just picked up and eaten.

  • @cara9648
    @cara9648 Місяць тому +100

    I read a book a long time ago about a family whos mother was a young adult in Russia during ww2 and how she had 2 or 3 freezers full of cooked frozen meals. The daughters hated it because they never ate the fresh cooked meals, just the frozen counterparts. However, the mother was scared to death to be put in another starving situation. It was a very interesting take on the war and the after math for survivors.

    • @Dabednego
      @Dabednego Місяць тому +4

      From what I’ve heard, food insecurity has a profound effect on your relationship to food, even years after you are in a better situation.

    • @cara9648
      @cara9648 Місяць тому

      @@Dabednego I've heard the same. The fear never leaves a person.

  • @JinJinDoe
    @JinJinDoe Місяць тому +94

    Although not Leningrad, my grandmother was born during WW2 in Belarus and she remembers how as a tiny girl, her family at times had nothing going for them but grass soup and potato peels. She taught us to be respectful to food and never waste anything.

    • @СергейНикольский-я2ц
      @СергейНикольский-я2ц Місяць тому +6

      Yeah my grandmother also taught us to be respectful to food and always said “bread is a head of everything”, “never drop food”, “clean your plate”(means “use black bread to pick up anything that left on the plane so the plate must be “clean” when you finished eating”), “never play with food” etc
      And also told a lot of stories from WWII (she was 9 when the war started). When I grew up I started recording those stories to not forget em but unfortunately I couldn’t record most of them cause didn’t spend enough time with her and as it often happens I understood how much she meant for me and how much I loved her only after she died

    • @OSTemli
      @OSTemli Місяць тому

      I have read all the history of countries in world war 2
      Belarus was hit the worst by finish and other n@zi criminals

    • @Naromuffy
      @Naromuffy Місяць тому +1

      Similarly my grandma was born close to Warsaw during WW2 covered in ulcers and barely breathing because her mom and their family had nothing to eat besides potato peels. She also never throws food away, if a piece of it falls to the ground she prays on it and gives it to the birds or cats

    • @Pakiu1306
      @Pakiu1306 Місяць тому

      Watched some videos on Tushyonka (or tushjonka if you’re using GOST 16876-71(2)). It’s way fattier than the Cantonese-style roast pork we have in Malaysia. Tropical country, we don’t need such fatty food

    • @Pakiu1306
      @Pakiu1306 Місяць тому +1

      Interesting. I’m from Malaysia. Under Japanese occupation, we had cassava

  • @prismaticc_abyss
    @prismaticc_abyss Місяць тому +320

    My grandma was born in the ussr during ww2, she told stories of how they had to eat boiled leather boots and how their cat would bring rhem rats which they would cook and consume and give a portion back to the cat

    • @kimandre336
      @kimandre336 Місяць тому +60

      Your grandmother survived under the Nazi invasion, so it's no surprise that she is a warrior in the homefront.

    • @SanniSandyBunny2000
      @SanniSandyBunny2000 Місяць тому +82

      So the Kitty 🐈 was actually helping the family 😢, cats are amazing.

    • @prismaticc_abyss
      @prismaticc_abyss Місяць тому +74

      @@kimandre336 actually when the Wehrmacht occupied her village, the soldiers would play with her (she was still very young) toss her into the air and catch her and such. A reminder soldiers are just people who were unlucky enough to be drafted into a conflict by their governments. But food was scarce. Not as bad as Leningrad, it was a village, not a metropolis, many still starved.

    • @bluegum6438
      @bluegum6438 Місяць тому +39

      ​@@prismaticc_abyss I imagine a lot of young men went through the war on the side of the Reich with steadily dawning horror and spent a lifetime as traumatised as anyone else

    • @alexhfgcs331
      @alexhfgcs331 Місяць тому +49

      @@prismaticc_abyss *some soldiers were unlucky enough to be drafted. Some were happy to do their part.

  • @EvieStevie-Ahgase
    @EvieStevie-Ahgase 16 днів тому +2

    My babushka was a little girl during ww2 and she lived in Odessa when Ukraine was part of the USSR. Her family was luckily able to catch fish since they were so close to the Black Sea, which is how they just barely survived during the worst times. I wish she was still alive so I could ask her more about her life, the little I do know about her past is so fascinating

  • @Katalowins
    @Katalowins Місяць тому +1190

    Our polish side family never sets a table without kashia. Ukraine is famous for being the most fertile land in Europe. So much cheap grain has fed armies since antiquity. It was called the bread basket of the Soviet Union.

    • @Konarcoffee
      @Konarcoffee Місяць тому

      Frank Costanza ate it in bed

    • @chemistryofquestionablequa6252
      @chemistryofquestionablequa6252 Місяць тому +211

      It being so fertile makes the engineered famine of the Holodomor that much more tragic. Ukraine is a beautiful country with a sad history (and present).

    • @joku02
      @joku02 Місяць тому +31

      Same goes for Egypt in the times of the Roman Empire. It was the breadbasket for them as well.

    • @Katalowins
      @Katalowins Місяць тому +116

      @@chemistryofquestionablequa6252 I have never met a Russian I liked personally. The history of my family and how they crushed our democracy, spent 123 years with their boots on our necks, and then another 83 of open hostility. I pray for our Ukrainian neighbors, and wish for peace and prosperity again.

    • @Strat0Patrick
      @Strat0Patrick Місяць тому +48

      ​@@Katalowins Thanks for kind words. For me as Ukrainian it is really heartwarming to read

  • @valkyrieneedsfood
    @valkyrieneedsfood Місяць тому +21

    Max, I originally followed you because I loved your Medieval/Renaissance food history but I really respect how you cover these more recent and more difficult historical stories as well. I always learn so much from you!

  • @cydvicious88
    @cydvicious88 Місяць тому +57

    I always have to watch these twice. I get distracted by reading the comments. So many people sharing their family stories is just as interesting as the topic of the episode. I love this comment section, definitely one of the coolest on youtube ❤

    • @beantheirishsetter
      @beantheirishsetter Місяць тому +2

      I'm impressed by the people Max has managed to pull together. Those who know a good deal about history or have family ties to the food

    • @NIckyFromDunedin
      @NIckyFromDunedin Місяць тому +2

      yes, i was just saying the comments are so interesting, so many heartbreaking

    • @elsiestormont1366
      @elsiestormont1366 Місяць тому +1

      I agree. This thread is exceptionally good for all the oral history being passed on. ❤

    • @user-gp5yz5yz4x
      @user-gp5yz5yz4x 26 днів тому

      As much as I love a good story, considering the number of people who are over 95 -- and would've been at least 14 by the time ww2 ended -- in Russia is like 20,000... Either we're seeing a statistical anomaly or a hell of a lot of people are lying.

    • @TOAODLB
      @TOAODLB 24 дні тому

      Absolutely! Me too… fascinating family histories.

  • @sashawarren9157
    @sashawarren9157 Місяць тому +2

    I actually love tushonka! My mum (who grew up in Siberia) and I used to pick it up from an Eastern European grocery store near where I grew up. If you have leftover rice or potatoes, frying everything up with the tushonka is so, so good (and a way to make the most of all the fat in there).

  • @yoboyfargoth1208
    @yoboyfargoth1208 Місяць тому +283

    We definitely need more Slavic recipes!

    • @weldonwin
      @weldonwin Місяць тому +18

      In the mean time, we have Life of Boris, at least for recipes though not the history to go with them

    • @mIRa-r4ve
      @mIRa-r4ve Місяць тому +5

      Yes! Please do Serbian Zito Max! It's a delicious walnut and wheat berry pudding steeped in history and tradition.

    • @EphemeralTao
      @EphemeralTao Місяць тому +1

      Kholodets!

    • @NeedForMadnessSVK
      @NeedForMadnessSVK Місяць тому +5

      I think the story of the Soviet obsession with mayonnaise and potato salad is super interesting, starting with Imperialist Russia, and ending once again with Anastas Mikhoyan.

    • @weldonwin
      @weldonwin Місяць тому +4

      @@NeedForMadnessSVK Also, the other absolute staple of Soviet era cuisine, Doctor's Sausage

  • @MrG0DW1N
    @MrG0DW1N Місяць тому +78

    It's such a difference hearing stories from the eastern side of the war. They never fail to remind me the horrors of war. It's painful to listen to but I hope we listen to more these stories. These will remind people what war actually is.

    • @WaterZer0
      @WaterZer0 Місяць тому +26

      I showed someone the graph of the casualties in ww2. I had to point to the almost invisible US part when they asked where we were.
      They didn't know China was even in the war.
      WW2 in Europe was won by Soviet blood, but I'm sure it could have been worse without foreign aid like the US lend lease.
      I almost teared up when he went over the letter between FDR and Stalin. Why can't we do that when there isn't a war?

    • @DogsDogsAndMoreDogs
      @DogsDogsAndMoreDogs Місяць тому +15

      Well, russia seems to have missed the lesson.

    • @HikuroMishiro
      @HikuroMishiro Місяць тому +16

      The US and the Ukraine have certainly missed the lesson.

    • @MandalorV7
      @MandalorV7 Місяць тому +12

      @@HikuroMishiroYep. If someone rolls across your boarder with tanks and the like just roll over. Maybe Stalin should have done the same when the Axis forces entered the Soviet Republics. Maybe the UK should have just made peace with Germany. Maybe the Chinese should have just surrendered to Imperial Japan and the US should have just kept on selling them oil.

    • @Helen_Of_Troy
      @Helen_Of_Troy Місяць тому +4

      @@HikuroMishiro most certainly 👍

  • @lars5174
    @lars5174 Місяць тому +144

    My grand mother was still a child when the war broke out (I am German.) She said she had it somewhat better because she was living in the countryside and her family could grow stuff. She is 92 now. She told me people were eating cats as "mock rabbit" in the nearby big city out of desperation (calling it "roof rabbit"). She also told me that she survived on just pumpkin and squash an entire year and this wasn't your good eating hokkaido pumpkin. This was animal fodder. To this day she will not eat pumpkin and squash come fall time. It makes her gag.

    • @livingandthriving
      @livingandthriving Місяць тому +2

      Reminds me of my grandfather. He was in occupied France and had to survive on a very similar diet and by the end he was so sick of it that when he married my grandmother he said if she ever served him pumpkin he'd consider it grounds for divorce. She never served him pumpkin.

    • @lars5174
      @lars5174 Місяць тому +3

      @@livingandthriving That's so funny and tragic at the same time. Pumpkin seems to have been a staple food for a lot of people back then. They pickled it and things like that to have something with a longer shelf life. Oh man war really sucks! Too bad humanity doesn't seem to have learned the lesson.

    • @lady_sir_knight3713
      @lady_sir_knight3713 Місяць тому +2

      @@lars5174 Pumpkins (squashes in general) grow easily with little tending and bear many fruits per plant, so they would have been popular as a victory garden plant. Every part of a squash or pumpkin is edible, including the seeds and flowers. I've harvested squash that grew out of cracks in the compost bin and were just left alone for months.

    • @sophiaschier-hanson4163
      @sophiaschier-hanson4163 Місяць тому +1

      I can sympathize with her. Poor thing! My dad once made “chicken and jack o lantern soup” out of a “free” bag of Halloween pumpkin guts he got from the neighbours for some unknowable reason. It was literally a rotisserie chicken plus pumpkin guts, boiled in a big pot, and we ended up eating it for a week. I have teased him about his (lack of) cooking ability ever since. We were not even poor. He was just cheap. 🤣

    • @truggvi5346
      @truggvi5346 Місяць тому

      ​@@lars5174In the USSR, there were mostly potatoes.The pumpkin was more for the southern regions.

  • @jackori6685
    @jackori6685 Місяць тому +5

    That earthy flavour is definitely the millet. I used to make a bsked millet dish as a side dish for roast chicken. I say used to, because once my husband saw a branch of millet in my son's birdcage, he said he wasn't eating birdseed anymore. I so enjoyed this recipe and history lesson. My mothers family came to Canada from Prussia before WW1 because they were pacifists and fascism was on the rise. Thank you, and thank Jose too. You are a great couple and team!

    • @incaseofimportantnegotiations
      @incaseofimportantnegotiations Місяць тому

      what stops you from cooking it for yourself

    • @incaseofimportantnegotiations
      @incaseofimportantnegotiations Місяць тому +2

      does he not eat bread anymore because birds are fed wheat?
      and stopped drinking beer because of barley?

    • @jackori6685
      @jackori6685 Місяць тому

      @@incaseofimportantnegotiations He doesn't drink beer because he is diabetic, and eats rye bread because it has less carbs.

    • @incaseofimportantnegotiations
      @incaseofimportantnegotiations Місяць тому +2

      @@jackori6685 rye is bird feed

    • @jackori6685
      @jackori6685 Місяць тому

      @@incaseofimportantnegotiations Shhh...don't tell him that.

  • @fattiger6957
    @fattiger6957 Місяць тому +108

    Though not common in North America, apparently millet is a staple grain for a large portion of the world's population. I didn't even know about it until I saw Seven Samurai some 20 years ago. The villagers ate millet while they fed the Samurai mercenaries rice.

    • @therongjr
      @therongjr Місяць тому +21

      We put it in birdseed, LOL

    • @theotherohlourdespadua1131
      @theotherohlourdespadua1131 Місяць тому +28

      That is because under Shogunate laws, peasants ARE NOT ALLOWED to eat the rice they grew. That is because they are, believe it or not, are considered money in those days. A Daimyo's wealth is measured by how many "Koku" of rice his domain can grow in a single year and thus he is taxed by the Shogunate based on that. The eating of rice by the general public is a rather recent reform made during the Meiji era (which led to the rise of Japanese Navy curry in JP gastronomy since the IJN discovered that rice is the main cause of Vitamin B deficiency, or rather the lack of side dishes to accompany rice).
      This period gave rice to Japan's own unique take on stock exchange and banks called "Rice brokerage" and the wealth generated due to the peace after the Sengoku period meant that rice merchants are the richest class of people in Japan. Also, merchants of any kind during that period occupy a social class lower than peasants (due to Buddhist prejudices looking down on folks basing their livelihood on material trading) but their wealth is directly responsible to many of Japan's most famous intangible cultural treasures like Kabuki and Sushi...

    • @edukid1984
      @edukid1984 Місяць тому +16

      MIllet was the main staple grain in ancient Northern China for centuries, before wheat took over.

    • @fattiger6957
      @fattiger6957 Місяць тому +3

      @@theotherohlourdespadua1131 Wasn't the samurai and noble classes a very tiny portion of the population?
      It just seems kind of strange to me that 90% of the population was producing food they they themselves couldn't eat. Or was rice production much lower than I assume? Or did a lot of it go to things the peasants could consume like sake (and that other, more thick kind of rice wine)?

    • @0neDoomedSpaceMarine
      @0neDoomedSpaceMarine Місяць тому +3

      @@theotherohlourdespadua1131 Makes me think of potatoes, certainly very edible and they have their own share of nutrients, but you really gotta fill in the gaps to avoid deficiencies.

  • @MiguelBalaraw
    @MiguelBalaraw Місяць тому +142

    Max looks so fresh and energized.

    • @Kymmee2100
      @Kymmee2100 Місяць тому +23

      That's because he got to work in a hardtack reference. 😂

    • @TheIndianaGeoff
      @TheIndianaGeoff Місяць тому +9

      @@Kymmee2100 And a Steve1986MRE reference too boot. Lets put that Tushonka out on a поднос для еды.

    • @MiguelBalaraw
      @MiguelBalaraw Місяць тому +1

      @@Kymmee2100 Always half-expecting a hardtack reference (and the accompanying clip of him tapping them together like a weird musical instrument). And a good very early morning from the Philippines Max. Did you know there's a Max's Restaurant here? It was built by fried chickens. 😉

    • @Raskolnikov70
      @Raskolnikov70 Місяць тому +1

      @@TheIndianaGeoff Nice.

  • @mikesummers-smith4091
    @mikesummers-smith4091 Місяць тому +85

    I'd guess that the sugar was sprinkled over the serving rather then used in the cooking; as a Scot might do with porridge, if they had such a luxury available.

    • @lady_sir_knight3713
      @lady_sir_knight3713 Місяць тому

      There is a comment nearer the top that says you're right

    • @truggvi5346
      @truggvi5346 Місяць тому +1

      Верно говоришь товарищ.
      That's right, sugar still needs to be obtained.

  • @debvoz
    @debvoz Місяць тому +197

    This was a great history lesson. As Americans, we tend to forget that about28 Million people in the Soviet Union died in WWII. Thanks for not ignoring the Russian home front Max, it's important that we remember

    • @Lasciatemi_Guidare
      @Lasciatemi_Guidare Місяць тому +17

      IIRC Russian WWII casualties are close to all of the other Allies combined.
      Makes you wonder how much different modern day Russia would be if we hadn’t gotten bogged down in the Cold War immediately after and instead helped them rebuild their decimated country.

    • @fate3071
      @fate3071 Місяць тому +6

      Russia lost more soldiers than all of the european axis powers combined​@@Lasciatemi_Guidare

    • @gareginnzhdehhimself
      @gareginnzhdehhimself Місяць тому

      ​@@Lasciatemi_GuidareIf Trotsky had come to power instead of Lenin the USSR would probably still exist today and have tens of millions more people

    • @lioncub7601
      @lioncub7601 Місяць тому +9

      Let me point out that it shouldn't be reffered to Russia's sacrifice,but URSS countries sacrifiece.
      That army had people from all over of east europe and central asia/Caucasian(georphical area) countries.All of them were forced to front lines ,or else they'd be thrown into syberian concentration camp as enemies

    • @AllanCaetano_SP
      @AllanCaetano_SP Місяць тому +4

      @@gareginnzhdehhimself Better yet, if the Bolsheviks hadn't deposed the Kerensky government, Russia might have been a liberal democracy for more than a hundred years, instead of a threat to peace and stability.

  • @sweetsol8758
    @sweetsol8758 Місяць тому +301

    As a Russian it was so cute to see how Max properly pronounces the name of the cookbook. I don't know, there's something inherently wholesome in it. x)

    • @Dabednego
      @Dabednego Місяць тому +85

      I love how seriously he takes pronouncing words from other languages properly.

    • @TastingHistory
      @TastingHistory  Місяць тому +167

      I practiced so much for that one.

    • @sweetsol8758
      @sweetsol8758 Місяць тому +56

      @@TastingHistory it actually shows! Good job! I mean, Russian is so different pronounciation-wise from English, that your effort is definitely worth a praise. :33

    • @deniaridley
      @deniaridley Місяць тому +11

      @@TastingHistory I'm always so impressed!

    • @FonRize
      @FonRize Місяць тому +11

      @@TastingHistory You are doing so well on the pronunciation front with every language! I admire and respect that.

  • @yankl
    @yankl Місяць тому +41

    My grandmother and great-grandmother were evacuated to Central Asia during WWII. Starvation was one of the memories she often talked about. One of the dishes she remembered was what she called a "blue" soup: water, onion, and dumplings made of flour, salt, and water.

    • @Levacque
      @Levacque Місяць тому +6

      I would guess they were using purple onions, normally that makes a pale blue colour when boiled.

    • @Uruz2012
      @Uruz2012 Місяць тому +1

      That's what dumplings and onion soup are usually made with. Yes, that's poor people food but it isn't exactly bad for you.

  • @napillnik
    @napillnik 29 днів тому +2

    From my own practice, having spent my early childhood in the USSR, I'd say the sugar goes into the pumpkin part. This dish works extremely well with rice too.

  • @Mazaroth
    @Mazaroth Місяць тому +25

    I'd really like to see you cover some WW2 Finnish foods on the homefront, like "pettuleipä" which was made from by adding the kambium and phloem (layers right between bark and wood) of pine trees to bread flour.
    Pettuleipä was also eaten during the famines of 1860's.

  • @jansenart0
    @jansenart0 Місяць тому +128

    GULAG is actually an acronym for "Main Directorate of Correctional Labor Camps" in Russian.

    • @szariq7338
      @szariq7338 Місяць тому

      Yeah, we know that single camp under gulag was called lagyer, just Western circle doesn't care.

    • @st.altair4936
      @st.altair4936 Місяць тому +1

      I find it funny how westerners talk about gulags like they're uniquely evil for a prison or something, when the USSR's prison system was more humane than the Tsarist system's before it, the capitalist system Russia has now, and those of western powers at the same time.

    • @pressb
      @pressb 22 дні тому

      In Australia they call them "Centres for National Resilience".

  • @puffapuffarice
    @puffapuffarice Місяць тому +187

    In 1973 I travelled to USSR on a school trip from Canada. We had a university student tour guide. There was a very common poster around town & when asked we were told "It says remember the 900 days. They don't have oranges in the shops so they do this every time something like that runs low. so people know how good they have it"

    • @lunarose9
      @lunarose9 Місяць тому +7

      My dad told me that around that time when he was growing up in the uk, he only got one pomigranitte a year as a treat, because they were expensive and very seasonal, and that was normal. I don't like how we have everything availible and force grown out of season for the supermarkets. it's not natural.

    • @hazeltade3679
      @hazeltade3679 3 дні тому

      @@lunarose9agreed, while it’s nice the environmental impact can be pretty bad

  • @aaalyo
    @aaalyo 16 днів тому +1

    That book was rather inspirational even in the 80s,when I was a child. Loved to watch pictures in it 😁

  • @weasel7581
    @weasel7581 Місяць тому +229

    Hats off for being neutral and respectful to the people of the Soviet Union / USSR / "Russia", the detailed explanation of the rationality behind rationing ... and also, the pronunciation of Russian words - a level of dedication, that is rarely found on YT.

    • @jlshel42
      @jlshel42 Місяць тому +20

      Max tends to put out just the food and the facts out for us. It’s why he’s one of the best.

    • @oldhunterundol3243
      @oldhunterundol3243 Місяць тому +13

      Doing history justice

    • @st.altair4936
      @st.altair4936 Місяць тому +47

      I wouldn't say neutral... His pinned comment comparing the USSR to capitalist/f*scist powers like Germany and Japan is very disrespectful; would be more fitting to compare those to the US.
      Good video otherwise though.

    • @stargazer1998
      @stargazer1998 Місяць тому +26

      @@st.altair4936it really wouldn’t be more appropriate though. The USSR were not truly the good guys. They were just the less bad guys.

    • @st.altair4936
      @st.altair4936 Місяць тому +50

      @@stargazer1998 Claiming the people who ended the holocaust are "less bad guys" is wild lmao.
      That would be true if you said it about the US though, which was deliberately exacerbating a British-caused famine in India at the time that resulted in 3 million deaths.

  • @barbaranytes-baron7377
    @barbaranytes-baron7377 Місяць тому +10

    This is history as it was. As a history major I appreciate this series. Please include everything you are planning on including. Great job.

  • @mariiafilatova3979
    @mariiafilatova3979 Місяць тому +17

    I'm from the family with great grandma living in Leningrad from one side and peasant great grandma from the other side. Food has always been an ultimate priority in our family. My granny's first childhood memories is how she was trying to find food because she was hungry!

  • @veronikabliznets8112
    @veronikabliznets8112 Місяць тому

    Thank you for being this informative and respectful! My great-grandparents survived the siege of Leningrad, and in their house (and by extension in my house growing up) there's always been a stash of grains, canned meat and some sugar, and if you took something from that stah you had to replace what you took as soon as you could. That habit helped them in the 90s, and since they made sure to pass the habit onto us, it came in handy in 2020 lockdown.
    P.s: you did great on the pronunciation!

  • @megablazeiken8977
    @megablazeiken8977 Місяць тому +35

    Glad to see Bombas as a sponsor, I can speak from personal experience to the good work they do. I worked in a homeless resource center in Pittsburgh last year, and easily 2/3 of the socks and 1/5 of the t-shirts we would give away were from Bombas. Being able to have the guarantee of always being able to provide people with good quality socks was a beautiful thing, as people living on the streets tend to go through socks daily.

    • @polarbearsaysyummy5845
      @polarbearsaysyummy5845 Місяць тому

      I was homeless for a a couple of months. Those Bombas socks were wonderful.

    • @babsluo
      @babsluo Місяць тому +1

      Can concur as a shelter worker - these guys are great. Socks are one of the most-needed items at shelters, especially in the winter, and Bombas has come in clutch for us year after year.

  • @justinweidenbach3699
    @justinweidenbach3699 Місяць тому +17

    No era throughout history corners the market on human suffering. Basic sustenance is something many do not have to this day. Those of us who have food on our table and clean water to drink are truly fortunate. Love this channel.

  • @Herodude60
    @Herodude60 Місяць тому +370

    My grandmother was an Ingrian Finn and a survivor of the war. She had to endure the beginnings of the siege of Leningrad and the Nazi occupation of her Village. Her mother, father and 3 siblings all starved to death, because the Nazis stole their food. She and her brother were the only two survivors. Luckily for her, she and her brother eventually got evacuated to Finland which saved their lives. They both got exiled to Siberia for it after the war. But after the collapse of the Soviet union she was finally able to move to Finland permanently.
    She was one of the kindest people I've ever known.

    • @rudragirik745
      @rudragirik745 Місяць тому +5

      I am glad she and her brother had eachother to endure such sadness and difficulty with. ❤

    • @thirdbells
      @thirdbells Місяць тому

      @chartreux1532 did you even watch the video? I seriously doubt your ability as a historian if you're claiming that there was fair compensation for supplies by the Axis powers in any sort of systemic way. Max specifically cites "der Hungerplan/der Backe-Plan" as a wide sweeping plan to starve and genocide the Soviets in order to feed the Germans and weaken the Soviet state. Perhaps individual Nazis or command groups compensated civilians, but it wasn't "law" at the time at all, regardless of whatever reparations are or were implemented in the post-war period.
      Cite your sources or get out of here with that Nazi apologism.

    • @123qwe171
      @123qwe171 Місяць тому +11

      @@chartreux1532 by law called “Erlass über die Ausübung der Kriegsgerichtsbarkeit im Gebiet „Barbarossa“ und über besondere Maßnahmen der Truppe" German troops were allowed to do whatever they wanted with noncombatants (up to their commander to punish or not for any crimes).

    • @alanywalany6460
      @alanywalany6460 Місяць тому +5

      ​@@chartreux1532You don't know about the Hungerplan?

    • @LeafyK
      @LeafyK Місяць тому +11

      Another Ingrian Finn descendant! Hello!! My grandfather escaped the invasion in 1944. They were Inkeri from near Narva. His family farm became pinched between the German and Red fronts: they slept in a trench to survive the crossfire.
      They fled on foot one night and walked across the frozen strait into Finland. My grandfather was about 4 then, and he learned 5 languages in the next 3 years of fleeing deportation. (Finland succumbed to the order to return refugees to Russia, then Sweden, then Ireland housed them temporarily, and they settled in Canada.)
      I am learning Finnish now with he hope to learn Inkeri before it dies out. My grandfather did not pass on his language due to the horrible shame instilled in him during the assimilation process in Canada. He was a jovial man loved by everyone.
      Sounds like your grandmother and my great-grandmother would have gotten along well. She was generous, strong, and kind.
      I wish you well, cousin.

  • @bionicwoman3166
    @bionicwoman3166 Місяць тому

    i truly adore you voice and your delivery, the way you speak with such intelligence and compassion. well done sir

  • @1mpr0
    @1mpr0 Місяць тому +22

    Speaking of famine foods, you should try to make some bark bread, made with pine tree bark and regular flour. Eaten in Scandinavia and Finland during famines

    • @georgiafrye2815
      @georgiafrye2815 Місяць тому +1

      Ground acorns for flour mentioned in the PBS series "Atlantic Crossing" in Norway.

  • @LilA-zl6tf
    @LilA-zl6tf Місяць тому +14

    I did ask google about tushonka, and after seeing the info and the opened cans - I think our well loved "version" of this here in Finland is "sika-nauta" - literally, pork'n beef. That is a perfect canned meat for almost anything. Lasts forever, so you can always have it in stock. My father actually used to make the old sailors food Lapskoussi / Lobscouse by slithly overcooking and partly smashing peeled and cut potatoes, and by adding a can of "sika-nauta", plus some butter and a little salt. It was - and is delicious to me. And easy to make!

    • @Kinotaurus
      @Kinotaurus Місяць тому +3

      And this is why the people of Liverpool, who adopted this dish many years ago from visiting Scandinavian sailors, are called "scousers".

  • @PavelKostromitinov
    @PavelKostromitinov Місяць тому +34

    80 years has passed. I am much younger than that, but I still have to stop the video from time to time wand wash away the tears, after watching the pieces of those chronicles.
    And also wash away the tears of shame, now that we are now doing almost the same thing to Ukraine...

  • @yorimoo3838
    @yorimoo3838 Місяць тому +1

    I never knew the history behind my favourite kasha which my mum has been cooking for us every cold season. I moved to the UK 2 years ago and millet with pumpkin is certainly something that I miss - it always brings me home, along with buckwheat with sugar sprinkled on top (and a splash of milk if I feel like it). Just yesterday I thought that I need to make it again because I finally found millet at the shop and suddenly I see this video!
    Thank you for talking about this part of history, it made me feel many different emotions from sorrow and anger to sweet nostalgia.

  • @Getpojke
    @Getpojke Місяць тому +47

    Haha, was just thinking about Steve 1989 when you mentioned him yourself. Tushonka isn't that bad, it may not look or smell great when cold in a just opened tin, but the application of heat really dispels both of those problems. Though if you're hungry, or worse starving your body makes you crave fat & you'd really enjoy it. I got a taste for it when climbing with Eastern bloc climbers years ago. After weeks of cold weather & eating fat poor dehydrated food, getting a tin of tushonka was a wonderful treat.

    • @Tydorstus
      @Tydorstus Місяць тому +2

      Same went straight to thinking about steve

    • @jeff-crankyxer1931
      @jeff-crankyxer1931 Місяць тому +2

      Nice!

    • @rcrawford42
      @rcrawford42 Місяць тому +2

      Well, he tried a ration from the Boer War, so a vintage can of Tushonka wouldn't phase him.
      (The ration had degraded into essentially dirt. He didn't actually eat any of it.)

    • @Raskolnikov70
      @Raskolnikov70 Місяць тому +3

      @@rcrawford42 He did eat the hardtack from the 1860's though. The age probably gave it a bit of flavor after 150 years.

    • @Getpojke
      @Getpojke Місяць тому +2

      @@jeff-crankyxer1931 "Let's get this out on a tray!" Would be fun if Max & Steve teamed up to do some MRE history sometime.🥄

  • @ninja011
    @ninja011 Місяць тому +19

    In the '90s, as CCCP was collapsing, and food in the village I lived was scarce, dishes as this was how family and I staved off hunger. Seeing you talk on and show dishes like this gives me odd joy.

  • @kingeternal_ap
    @kingeternal_ap Місяць тому +22

    2:32 satisfactory, comrade.

  • @FluidKaos
    @FluidKaos Місяць тому +1

    A friend of mine is Palauan. She makes a very similar dish from her home county quite often. Hers is a squash coconut rice porridge. Pretty much the same idea, just swapping one grain for another, and your choice of squash. Delicious dish really.

  • @peabody1976
    @peabody1976 Місяць тому +43

    PSL = Pumpkin Soviet Lunch!
    I come from a people who love pumpkin year round, in soups and in rice, so this kasha would be something we would eat if we had millet. I am liking this series so far, and I can't wait for next week's edition. Thank you, Max!

    • @В.А.Никитин-ъ2ж
      @В.А.Никитин-ъ2ж Місяць тому +2

      Millet and couscous are actually not very different from each other. You can replace one with the other to try the recipe.

  • @nyklich9227
    @nyklich9227 Місяць тому +99

    my grandma is a russian german who got forcibly deported out of her village when the war started. she told me one time that she and the other children were stealing pumpkin rinds to eat them raw and it was the tastiest thing she ate in a while. i have the utmost respect for this woman and i hope the world doesn't return to a war like that ever again.

    • @9inchsradius
      @9inchsradius Місяць тому

      The soviets didn't need a war to start the Holodomor, they just had to be communist.

  • @olegeronen
    @olegeronen Місяць тому +11

    My grandpa was evacuated from besieged Leningrad when he was 3. He always talked about this time as the best time of his life cause he was not going hungry as opposed to the city and these were his core memories. Thanks for doing this video, you did a pretty good job.

  • @ChiefUmejesi
    @ChiefUmejesi Місяць тому +21

    I'm Russian. My grandma survived WWII, she was telling me of the times when she managed to earn enough money to buy mittens, and he and her friend only had enough for one pair, so they used to share those mittens in the winter, holding hands. Even my mom lived through rationing in the 90s and I remember the USAID powdered milk help we had back then. Thank you Max for bringing light to our history here

  • @wonderingruiva3031
    @wonderingruiva3031 Місяць тому +12

    I lived in a Central Asian Country that was part of The USSR back in the day. I have fond memories of the Stalovaeya and Kasha, which was what we ate for breakfast every morning with doktorska sausage. Max maybe you could do a history of Domtorska Sausage. It has a rich history of the different food the goverment made for its citizens as rations at first then turned into a staple even eaten all over the former USSR.

  • @Nixx0912
    @Nixx0912 Місяць тому +35

    "Kasza" is usually in every kitchen cupboard in Poland, there are different sorts but my personal favourite is always "kasza gryczana"-buckwheat.

  • @finnwilliams92
    @finnwilliams92 Місяць тому +14

    Thank you for a realistic and scholarly approach to the USSR. You're a class act, Max!

  • @TheKirik71
    @TheKirik71 Місяць тому +2

    dont hate on tushonka. its a very efficient product. you can fry potatoes on a separated fat from can and then add meat and you got yourself a full hearty meal anywhere you need

  • @patole1648
    @patole1648 Місяць тому +56

    Max, If you haven't read it yet I strongly recommend reading "What's Cooking in the Kremlin: From Rasputin to Putin, How Russia Built an Empire with a Knife and Fork". The writer (who's worked in a restaurant himself) has gathered stories told by different people who worked with food (bakers, cooks from Kremlin, Chernobyl, astronaut training centres and so on) who witnessed the biggest events of the Soviet history. An absolutely fascinating read 😊 it actually has a chapter about the great famine and it was the saddest thing I ever read - bakers threatened with death if they ate from the bread they baked, a mother forbidding her child to ever come close to a neighbor who was known for eating human meat and the general morbidity of people starving to death everyday... Just horrible.

    • @americancommunist6076
      @americancommunist6076 Місяць тому +3

      dude that sounds like bullshit

    • @neoqwerty
      @neoqwerty Місяць тому

      @@americancommunist6076 Nope, is correct.
      "Historian uncovers diaries from Nazi siege of Leningrad documenting cannibalism during famine", The Independent
      > A historian has unearthed previously unseen diaries documenting the fall of Leningrad and the consequential famine that ripped across the Russian city, plunging many of its residents into cannibalism.
      [...] Professor Alexis Peri from Boston University discovered the diaries during the course of his research in Russian archives, and first-hand accounts provide a fresh view of the level of deprivation that faced many people.
      [...] Dr Peri collated the diary entries and published them in a book called The War Within: Diaries From the Siege of Leningrad."

  • @aliasfakename3159
    @aliasfakename3159 Місяць тому +29

    You can boil pine needles straight off the tree to make tea. The amount of Vitamin C in Pine tea is very high

    • @heidimisfeldt5685
      @heidimisfeldt5685 Місяць тому +1

      White cedar greens also make tea, with a somewhat strong flavor. Can be used a few times to make more.😊

    • @heidimisfeldt5685
      @heidimisfeldt5685 Місяць тому

      You want to just steep those long green pine needles in boiling water, turning it off immediately. If you boil it a long time, you destroy the vitamin C content.

    • @TDC7594
      @TDC7594 Місяць тому +5

      Spruce and some other evergreens, too. Arborvitae (tree of life) gets its name from saving French Canadian explorers from scurvy.

    • @truepeacenik
      @truepeacenik Місяць тому +3

      Douglas fir tip tea is delicious.

    • @elsiestormont1366
      @elsiestormont1366 Місяць тому +1

      Here in Interior Alaska, spruce tips are harvested to make spruce tip tea, syrup or jelly.

  • @PokhrajRoy.
    @PokhrajRoy. Місяць тому +93

    3:28 Max really said: “I have something for the Fall Girlies who love pumpkin!”

  • @kellysong2256
    @kellysong2256 Місяць тому +1

    I just discovered your videos today, Max, and I am loving them! Super informative and entertaining. I just subscribed 🙂🙂🙂

  • @durfkludge
    @durfkludge Місяць тому +33

    I'm never going to get tired of your hardtack-slapping clip that you cut into these videos whenever hardtack is mentioned :D

    • @Alyx-Arroyo
      @Alyx-Arroyo Місяць тому

      I'm very tired of it. It was never funny to begin with, he should stop forcing it into his videos.

    • @durfkludge
      @durfkludge Місяць тому

      @@Alyx-Arroyo Nobody asked you, dingleberry

  • @В.А.Никитин-ъ2ж
    @В.А.Никитин-ъ2ж Місяць тому +16

    Спасибо, Макс! Замечательный выпуск! Большое спасибо за исторические справки, которые не искажают историю (на сколько знаю её я). И отдельно хочу отметить хорошее произношение русских слов и правильную поговорку в конце ) Похоже, что консультировал кто-то из России. Отличная работа! Как всегда!

  • @lindamcneil711
    @lindamcneil711 Місяць тому +174

    During the war, my Russian professor in college was a mere boy. He was from Poland. One day, while he was in school, he was notified that both of his parent were killed and on that day, he and his brother was enlisted in the German army on the front line. When he was 10, he was in a heated battle and one of the American soldiers saw that it was a small boy shooting at them. The soldier shot him in the hand and the leg…. Then ran, disarmed him, and took him to the hospital. He was adopted by an American soldier and given an opportunity to live. He said he went from not eating that week and treated horribly every day yet he was expected to shoot at their enemy. When he was in the hospital, he realized how much he was lied to and finally had the opportunity to be taken care of. This man earned my respect and was such a wonderful professor and man.
    BTW, I loved your Russian accent and pronunciation. Well done.

    • @twentyninedoesnotlastforev5455
      @twentyninedoesnotlastforev5455 Місяць тому +4

      That's honestly really beautiful. I'm glad he's okay. But what about his brother?

    • @Twiddle_things
      @Twiddle_things Місяць тому +11

      Sort of reminds me of my great great too many greats uncle. I'll just call him my great uncle for simplicity. He was on the Italian battlefront during the Mussоlini BS. Soldiers didn't want to fight so they'd try to run away, often being killed in the process. My great uncle successfully escaped with his friends. I don't remember what happened to his friends, but he was eventually captured by the British. Of course they made him do manual labour, but he said he was always treated with respect and dignitity. One of the prison wardens treated him like his own son. After a few years of work they said "you know what? You've done enough. You're a free man now".
      IIRC after a while he then went back to Italy to see if his family was still alive. They were thanks to my great great aunt who I am named after :D she would sow pockets into her dresses and smuggle food from under the nаzis noses. Thanks to her my ancestors didn't starve to death. Thank you, Edith :)
      It's been tradition in my family for several generations to pass down stories of our ancestors. This is one of my favourites. Because of it our family still has a strange fondness of the British lol

    • @R-lyeh
      @R-lyeh Місяць тому

      Why would the Nazi army force polish kids into service and give them weapons? That doesn't make any sense, which army hands weapons to the people they try to kill?
      There was the Volkssturm at the end of the war, but those were german kids and older than 10.

    • @janetprice85
      @janetprice85 Місяць тому +5

      During WW2 my Dad was a B24 pilot who dropped money,personnel, and supplies to the resistance in single mission forays. Often at night with only latterns to guide the drop zone. He and the boys,and they were all so young,were sad to see civilians in the countries he flew into eating out of the trash cans outside of the soldiers's mess hall. The boys started leaving food on their trays not throwing it out.The Quartermasters too snuck food out too. Mom said we had rationing books in the USA but nothing like Europe went through.

    • @Logen23232
      @Logen23232 Місяць тому +1

      Ну да повезло твоему професору мой дед был сыном контревлюционого элемента попав в армию его оскорблял русский офицер и бил в один момент мой дед не выдержал и сломал челюсть офицеру за это его отправили в штрафной батальен и так воевал он до конца войны а потом его отправили в Магадан на север в тюрьму точней то что вы называете гулаг

  • @u-jin2030
    @u-jin2030 27 днів тому +1

    Tushonka is used in common recepies, most used ones and the best ones actually cost more then meat itself. And it is very good. I often use a can with rice, spaghetti or buckwheat.

  • @creativechaosify
    @creativechaosify Місяць тому +19

    The kasha actually looks quite nutritious. I have to say I was a bit apprehensive about the topic, but you covered it very respectfully and, to my knowledge, accurately. I would love to see something about victory gardens in the UK or preserves and their role in the war effort. 👍