The Way Food Should Be: Food Policy, Culinary Advice Literature, and Socialist Identity in the Soviet Union and Russia
Hermes, Henry
Hermes, Henry
Abstract
This thesis contributes a focused and analytical view of Soviet food culture and strives to understand the specific nature of Soviet foodways that separate them from both pre- and post-Soviet iterations. Its analysis is rooted in broad political and economic survey, examination of Soviet-era culinary literature, and collation of personal recollections of Soviet-era food culture and argues that the Soviet state consciously inserted itself into food production, distribution, and consumption in a manner entirely new to Russian and perhaps European history and culture. In doing so, it rewrote prior relationships between food consumption and production, leading Soviet consumers to recognize and ascribe a greater sense of agency, ability, and responsibility to the state as a provider figure in everyday life. This new relationship would both help and hinder the state’s survival, as the population’s expectation that the state would provide for them regardless of circumstance created great instability when the Soviet economy faltered. Yet despite all its idiosyncrasies, the Soviet system of food distribution is remembered fondly, and is, in the minds of many post-Soviet individuals, evocative of the society that was lost during the fall of Communism. The three chapters of this thesis make separate yet supporting arguments: Chapter One argues that while the food supply issue occupied a prominent place in the minds of Soviet leaders, their repeated efforts to construct and later reform what would ultimately be an inherently flawed system were hampered by institutional resistance, material scarcity, and ideological limits. Chapter Two argues that the Book of Tasty and Healthy Food [Kniga o vkusnoi i zdorovoi pishche], the pre-eminent Soviet cookbook, reconstructs the relationship between food producers and consumers by demonstrating that in a modern, industrial society like the Soviet Union, food comes not from agriculture, but from the newly developed Soviet food industry. It also emphasizes that as the Soviet economy became more developed, workers would partake in more luxurious and cultured modes of culinary consumption – modes which are taught and demonstrated within the Book. Chapter Three argues that people remember the Soviet food system through three main motifs: the general scarcity of desirable goods, the perception that Soviet-era foodstuffs were healthier than modern alternatives, and the belief that Soviet-era dining was more fulfilling and communal than it is today. These motifs guide nostalgia for the Soviet days in contemporary Russia and their study illuminates the complex truths behind retrospection.
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Date
2025
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http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
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2027-05-05
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History