It seems to me that soon we will begin to regret very much that at one time we recorded little, talked little and preserved eyewitness accounts of the Great Patriotic War. The further, the more there will be all sorts of notions and fantasies in this regard. I really know several young people I know who talk about this war, and about other historical events from science fiction novels by famous writers. I was shocked to be honest.
Do you know what the soldiers ate in the war? This is how the front-line soldiers described the recipe for the then popular dish - "Kulesh". It was they who were fed to the tank crews in the early morning before one of the greatest tank battles of World War II - the Battle of the Kursk Bulge.
And here is the recipe:
-Take 500-600 grams of brisket on the bones.
-Cut off the meat, and throw the bones into water for 15 minutes (about 1.5 - 2 liters).
-Add millet (250-300 grams) to boiling water and cook until tender.
-Clean 3-4 potatoes, cut them into large cubes and throw them into the pan
In a skillet, fry the meat part of the brisket with 3-4 finely chopped onion heads, and add to the pan, cook for another 2-3 minutes. It turns out either a thick soup, or a thin porridge. Delicious and hearty dish …
Promotional video:
Here are some more of the soldiers' most significant dishes.
Millet porridge with garlic
Porridge needs millet, water, vegetable oil, onions, garlic and salt. For 3 glasses of water we take 1 glass of cereals.
Pour water into a saucepan, pour in cereals and put on fire. Fry the onion in vegetable oil. As soon as the water in the pan boils, pour our frying into it and salt the porridge. It cooks for another 5 minutes, and in the meantime we peel and finely chop a few cloves of garlic. Now you need to remove the pan from the heat, add the garlic to the porridge, stir, close the pan with a lid and wrap it in a “fur coat”: let it steam.
Such porridge turns out to be tender, soft, aromatic.
Tylovaya Solyanka
Writes Vladimir UVAROV from Ussuriysk, - “This dish was often prepared during the turbulent times of the war and in the hungry post-war years, my grandmother, now deceased. She put equal amounts of sauerkraut and peeled potatoes into the pot. Then the grandmother poured water so that it covered the cabbage and potato mixture.
After that, the cast iron is put on the fire - to stew. And 5 minutes before readiness, you need to add chopped onions, a couple of bay leaves fried in vegetable oil to the cast iron, pepper, if necessary to taste, then salt. When everything is ready, you need to cover the dish with a towel and let it sweat for half an hour.
I'm sure everyone will like such a dish. We often used my grandmother's recipe in hearty times and ate this "hodgepodge" with pleasure - even if not in a cast iron, but in an ordinary saucepan, it was stewed.
"Baltic" pasta in naval style with meat"
According to a neighbor, a front-line paratrooper in the country (a fighting man! In his right mind, at 90 years old runs 3 km a day, bathes in any weather), this recipe was actively used in the festive menu (on the occasion of successful battles or victories of the fleet) on ships of the Baltic Fleet during World War II:
In the same proportion we take pasta and meat (preferably on ribs), onions (about a third of the weight of meat and pasta)
- the meat is boiled until tender and cut into cubes (the broth is fashionable to use for soup)
-the pasta is boiled until tender
- the onions are simmered in a frying pan until golden brown
-meat, onion and pasta mix, put on a baking sheet (you can add a little broth) and put in the oven for 10-20 minutes at a temperature of 210-220 degrees.
Carrot tea
The peeled carrots were grated, dried and fried (I think they were dried) on a baking sheet in the oven with chaga, after which they were poured with boiling water. The tea was sweetish from carrots, and chaga gave a special taste and a pleasant dark color.
Bread of War
One of the most important factors helping to withstand, to defend their homeland, along with weapons has been and remains bread - the measure of life. The Great Patriotic War is a vivid confirmation of this.
Many years have passed and many more will pass, new books about the war will be written, but returning to this topic, descendants will ask the eternal question more than once: why did Russia stand on the edge of the abyss and won? What helped her to come to the Great Victory?
Much merit in this is the people who provided our soldiers, warriors, residents of the occupied and blockaded territories with food, primarily bread and breadcrumbs.
Despite the colossal difficulties, the country in 1941-1945. provided the army and home front workers with bread, sometimes solving the most difficult problems associated with the lack of raw materials and production capacity.
For baking bread, the production capacity of bakeries and bakeries was usually used, which were centrally allocated flour and salt.
Orders of military units were carried out as a matter of priority, especially since little bread was baked for the population, and capacity, as a rule, was free.
However, there have been exceptions.
So, in 1941, there were not enough local resources to support the military units concentrated in the Rzhev area, and the supply of bread from the rear was difficult. To solve the problem, the quartermaster services offered to take advantage of the old experience of creating floor ovens from available materials - clay and brick.
For the device of the furnace, clay soil with an admixture of sand and a platform with a slope or a pit 70 mm deep were needed. Such an oven was usually built in 8 hours, then dried for 8-10 hours, after which it was ready to bake up to 240 kg of bread in 5 turns.
Veterans of the Moscow battles told how in a ravine the foreman handed out hot bread to the soldiers, which he brought on a boat (like a sleigh, only without runners) drawn by dogs. The chief was in a hurry, green, blue, purple tracer missiles sweeping low over the ravine. Mines exploded nearby. The soldiers, having "hastily" ate some bread and washed it down with tea, prepared for a second attack …
Participant of the Rzhev operation V. A. Sukhostavskiy recalled: “After fierce battles, our unit was taken to the village of Kapkovo in the spring of 1942. Although this village was far from the fighting, the food business was poorly established. We cooked soup for food, and the village women brought him bread "Rzhevsky", baked from potatoes and bran. From that day on we began to feel relief."
How was Rzhevsky bread made? The potatoes were boiled, peeled, passed through a meat grinder. Spread the mass on a board sprinkled with bran, cooled. They added bran, salt, quickly kneaded the dough and placed it in greased molds, which were placed in the oven.