Folk cuisine of Karelians before the 19th century. Karelian cuisine: features of preparing national Karelian dishes

The Republic of Karelia, located in northwestern Russia, is often called the lake region. It’s not surprising: there are really a lot of lakes in this region. It must be said that Karelia is not only a Russian region. The provinces of South and North Karelia are also in neighboring Finland. The population of Karelia consists of Russians, Karelians, Finns and Vepsians (a small Finno-Ugric people also living in the Leningrad and Vologda regions of the Russian Federation).

Karelia is a region visited by quite a large number of tourists. They are attracted here by the already mentioned numerous lakes - beautiful, restrained, strict northern beauty, the famous islands: Kizhi (with monuments of wooden architecture) and Valaam (Valaam Monastery). Karelian cuisine, without a doubt, also cannot but arouse interest among those who come to Karelia, and among those who simply love culinary experiments, expanding the geography of the dishes they prepare.

Fish

It is not for nothing that this small virtual culinary journey began with the mention of numerous Karelian lakes. The fact is that fish, which abounded in local reservoirs for a long time, is the main food of the people who inhabited the region. They used it in a variety of forms: they cooked it fresh, salted it (in Karelian - suolattu kala), fermented it, dried it (ahavoittu kala), but almost never smoked it.

To store salted fish by grade, special pits were used, as well as wooden barrels and tubs. The fish was covered with a splinter on top and a heavy stone oppression was placed - the brine was supposed to cover it. North Karelians cooked fish “with flavor” (kevätkala). In addition, northerners often ate raw salted fish, while southern and middle Karelians always cooked it, and even pre-soaked it.

Sushik (kabakala) - dried fish fines - was very popular. They made strong fish soup from the dry soup. For medicinal purposes, they ate fish oil melted from the insides of pike or perch. The consumption of fish by Karelians can be called almost waste-free: flour was made from fish bones. Basically, however, it was added to livestock feed. However, sometimes they were also used to prepare fish soup. The scales of large fish were used for jellied meat. Valuable caviar, as a rule, was sold, and the rest was often baked in the oven (even caviar pancakes were made) and eaten hot or cold.

Fish soup (kalaruoka) was and remains the main Karelian first course. A typical Karelian fish soup is made from whitefish. There may also be milk soup, and also fish soup made from pickled fish. However, the latter is now rarely prepared, except in villages. The fact is that, following the traditional recipe, before the end of cooking (about five minutes), such fish soup should be passed through a layer of birch charcoal - this will relieve the fish soup of bitterness and possible unpleasant odor. Agree, in urban conditions birch charcoal is not always at hand... Chicken eggs are added to Karelian fish soup. In general, unlike Russian fish soup - transparent, Karelian fish soup is cloudy. After all, in addition to milk and eggs, it may also contain Icelandic moss, birch and pine buds, sourdough and rye flour.

By the way, it is worth special mention about the influence of the Russian oven on the Karelian culinary tradition. Its appearance in Karelian homes changed the technology of cooking. Karelians cooked, stewed or baked their food in a Russian oven. There is no word for “fry” in the Karelian language. Even some types of pies that were actually fried in oil were called keitinpiiroa - "boiled (in oil) pies."

All the rest

Let's return to the first courses - in addition to fish soup, Karelians ate something else. They prepared, for example, cabbage soup or soup (both were called in one word: ruoka). Shchi was made from fresh or pickled cabbage leaves. They also added onions, turnips, and later potatoes (when they began to grow them), as well as barley. These cabbage soup were common, everyday Karelian food. They had lunch or dinner. Sometimes meat was added to cabbage soup. Karelian potato soup is also known, which is prepared from only potatoes and seasoned with sour cream. However, if the housewife had stored mushrooms (pickled or dried them), they and onions were added to the soup. In addition, the ancient Karelian soup with wheat flour, potatoes and linseed oil is famous.

Meat. In ancient times, Karelians ate little. Basically, it was meat from wild animals (elk, deer, wild boar, game birds). Later, when the Karelians mastered cattle breeding and agriculture, they also began to eat livestock meat (beef, sometimes lean lamb, less often pork). Mostly meat was eaten during haymaking and in winter. To keep it for a long time, like fish, it was salted and dried. They often took dried meat with them on long journeys.

Turnip is the main root vegetable of Karelian cuisine. Many different dishes were prepared from it: soups, casseroles, porridges, stewed fruit, kvass, and dried. Potatoes replaced it only at the beginning of the last century. Other vegetables consumed by Karelians: radish, onion, cabbage, rutabaga, and carrots in small quantities. Vegetable gardening in Karelia was previously quite poorly developed.

Karelians loved (and love) milk, as well as products made from it. Cottage cheese is especially popular. Many Karelians prepared cottage cheese during the spring-summer period, and from it for the winter they made homemade cheese (muigiemaido), which was eaten with boiled potatoes and sour cream. In addition, the cottage cheese was dried. There was also yogurt on Karelian tables. It was often served mixed with unleavened milk. Goat milk became widespread among the Karelians only in the 1930s. It is also worth remembering colostrum - the milk of the first milk yield. In some areas of Karelia it was baked in pots, producing a product similar to cheese (yysto). Karelians did not consume reindeer milk, although they were engaged in reindeer herding (especially in the north). Karelians also churned butter. It was mainly put into porridge, and later into potatoes. They hardly ate butter with bread.

As for the bread itself, in Karelia it was baked from rye, barley or oatmeal. Often there was not enough flour, so the practice of various additives to flour appeared and took root: moss, barley straw, pine sapwood. In addition to simple bread, they baked pies. In addition to the already mentioned fishmongers, they also baked wickets (sipainiekku) - pies filled with millet and barley cereals, oatmeal, and mashed potatoes. Local housewives had a saying: “A gate requires eight.” It was meant that to make such pies, as a rule, eight components are needed: flour, water, salt, milk, curdled milk, sour cream, butter and filling.

It must be said that in Karelian cuisine there are no fruit dishes or confectionery products. Dessert was and remains pies with wild berries (cranberries, blueberries, lingonberries). Karelians often ate cloudberries and still eat them soaked. But some Karelians did not collect blueberries at all - many believed that they were an “unclean” berry and that they gave them “a headache.” Fresh berries with milk are a favorite Karelian delicacy.

Among the drinks, it is worth noting kvass (from turnips, bread or malt). Karelians also knew tea and drank decoctions of forest herbs, including for medicinal purposes. Karelian beer is known among alcoholic drinks. True, the traditional recipe for its preparation is now considered lost. From a certain time, Karelians knew vodka and wine, but these drinks, naturally, were borrowed from other cuisines. First of all, from Russian, and also from Finnish.

Ritual Karelian dishes.

One cannot fail to mention the dishes that Karelians ate during various rituals. So, at holidays and weddings, oatmeal jelly was always served. There is an interesting Karelian custom: oatmeal jelly was served to the groom after the first wedding night. If he started eating the jelly from the edge, everything was fine. But if it’s from the middle, it means the bride lost her virginity before the wedding. And this was a shame for her and for all her relatives. However, the wedding was not necessarily upset because of this...

Another old Karelian custom is also known: if matchmakers came to the younger sister in the family, and the eldest was not yet married, then they were offered to first taste the bottom layer of jelly, so as not to touch the top layer that covered it.

The same oatmeal jelly, however, was also served at funerals, along with rye jelly (it is now customary for Karelians to remember the deceased with berry jelly). Bread kvass was also an obligatory “funeral” drink. Moreover, they slurped it with spoons from common dishes. In some regions of Karelia, kulaga was prepared from sprouted rye. Rye malt was poured into boiled water and eaten hot with bread. It, like kvass, was enjoyed from common dishes.
On St. Peter's Day (06.29/12.07) they baked cottage cheese cakes (kabu), and when they said goodbye to the summer (08/1/14) - pies with blueberries.

Karelian cuisine recipes

Naturally, many ancient Karelian dishes are now, alas, forgotten. Others have changed somewhat. Karelian cuisine in the twentieth century borrowed a lot from Russian cuisine. Borsch in Petrozavodsk (the capital of Karelia) today is as common as in Moscow. But “Culinary Eden” still offers you more traditional recipes of Karelian cuisine. As they say, let's taste Karelia. Let's start, of course, with fish.

Salted fish “with flavor” (kevätkala).

Ingredients:
bucket of fish,
1700 g salt,
nettle.

Preparation:
To cook fish with flavor, it is advisable to catch it yourself in Karelian lakes or rivers. You can, of course, buy it in a store, but the pleasure will not be the same.

The fish is caught during spring spawning (except for burbot), cut from the back - large, or along the belly from head to tail - medium and small. The fish is gutted and washed well. Coarse salt is poured inside. The fish is placed in a wooden barrel or tub with its backs down. Each row must be sprinkled with salt. Then cover the barrel with a lid. When the fish releases juice, place a weight on top and place the fish in a cool place.

After standing like this all summer, the fish will be salted, but will begin to emit an unpleasant odor. To avoid this, you can top it with nettles while salting. Kevätkala is considered good if the fish does not bend when held by the tail in a horizontal position.

Caviar pancakes

Ingredients:
fresh fish roe,
rye or oat flour,
melted butter,
salt to taste.

Preparation:
Peel the caviar from films, lightly salt it, mix with flour. No need to add water. Cook in a frying pan in ghee.

Soup soup (kabarokka)

Ingredients:
sushchik (dried small fish, including roach),
water,
potato,
black peppercorns,
onion.

Preparation:
Place the dryer in cold water and soak for 1 hour. Then, without changing the water, put the dryer on the fire. Cook over low heat for 20 minutes. After this, cut the potatoes into medium-sized slices. Before the end of cooking (when the potatoes are cooked), chop the onions. This fish soup can be served both hot and cold.

Roast Karelian style (Karjalanpaisti)

Ingredients:
200 g beef,
200 g pork,
150 g lamb,
100 g liver and kidneys,
2 heads of onions,
Bay leaf,
salt to taste.

Preparation:
Rinse the meat well. If using salted meat, soak it first. Cut into pieces and place in a clay pot. First lamb, then beef, pork, and on top - pieces of liver and kidneys. Fill everything with water so that it covers all the meat, add salt. Add chopped onion. Place the pot in the oven, but not very hot, or in a Russian oven, if you have one. The idea is to keep the roast in the oven or oven for a long time, perhaps even a whole night or day until evening.

Karelia is pristine nature, rich history, unique architectural monuments and shrines of the Russian north. This is the land of taiga forests that surround the glacial lakes Ladoga and Onega, the harsh nature of the White Sea. And Karelia is also people - a bizarre conglomerate of Karelians, Finns, Vepsians and other representatives of northern nationalities on the one hand, and Russians, Belarusians, Ukrainians on the other.

Since ancient times, natural resources have influenced the formation of national cuisine, the basis of which was hunting and fishing trophies and gifts from the forests. Karelian cuisine is simple and understandable to our stomach, it is tasty and healthy. What is worth trying in Karelia?

Food in Karelia

In the land of lakes and rivers, the main dish at all times was fish - the basis of a well-fed life. In different versions, there is a saying among local residents that if the earth does not feed, then the water will. Lake fish is salted, dried, dried, smoked, pickled, baked, fish soup, pies, etc. are prepared from it.

The local cuisine has traditionally been influenced by the culinary traditions of its neighbors - Estonians and Finns and, of course, Old Russian cuisine. On the table, borscht with Scandinavian muffins, Finnish milk soup with Russian pies sit side by side in complete harmony.

Top 10 Karelian dishes

Gate

It is rightfully considered the most national and most popular dish. A common feature of Karelian, Estonian and Finnish cooking is the predominant use of barley and rye flour. These pies are also baked from rye dough and filled with fish, potatoes, cottage cheese, cheese, berries, millet or barley porridge, etc. They come in different shapes: oval, round or with different numbers of angles. The gates are baked with an open center and pinched edges, greased with butter or sour cream. The dough is made unleavened, using yogurt, and the wickets are certainly baked in the oven.

The name comes from carols, Christmas songs. The pies were originally baked specifically to treat carolers. Today, wickets are an indispensable and famous attribute of local cuisine - from restaurant menus to home feasts.

Kalaruoka

Fish soup, the main first course of the national menu. In Karelian, kala is fish, ruoka is food. A dish of inimitable taste in any variation. In Karelia it is prepared not only with fish broth, but often with milk and even cream. White fish soup is called kalakeito, salmon soup with cream is called lohikeito. The latter dish is known to gourmets all over the world; it has a complex, mild taste with almost no fishy smell. Lohikeito is also prepared from trout from Karelian lakes. It’s also worth trying – creamy, rich, delicious fish soup.

In popular usage, the fish soup was called yushka. According to old recipes, the fish was boiled whole; flour, eggs, and even birch or pine buds and Icelandic moss were added to the fish soup. Not just for thickness. Such exotic seasonings provided vitamin support during long, harsh winters.

Rybnik

Gifts from the Karelian lakes are the main components of many original recipes of national cuisine. Fish pies - rybniki - are also baked from rye unleavened dough in a Russian oven. This method of preparation deserves special mention. Simmering in the oven is traditional for almost all dishes of Karelian cuisine. Both fish and wild meat reveal their flavor better, and the dish turns out much healthier than fried meat. Today, dishes according to folk recipes are cooked on modern equipment, but with the effect of a Russian oven, observing centuries-old traditions.

Rybnik is baked in a rectangular shape or in the shape of a fish. This is a must-have dish for all holidays. It turns out juicy because the fish in the pie is put raw and fresh, sour cream, onions, and sometimes mushrooms are added to it. Be sure to try it – it’s not only delicious, but also practically healthy.

Fish dishes

There is a huge selection of them in Karelia. Like most dishes, fish is stewed/simmered in different variations. Cod with new potatoes in cream, or fried fish under a thin crust of cheese - everything turns out incredibly tasty. The popular Karelian fish is used both as a first and second course. Cod or vendace is covered with a layer of potatoes and chopped onions, filled with water, spices and oil are added and simmered over fire. They eat it hot or cold, but it tastes better cold. When visiting the island, you can buy smoked trout from the monks, which is incredibly tasty.

Recipes for dried fish - pike, ide, small salmon - are borrowed from Finnish cuisine. The result is a delicacy for gourmets.

Bakery

It occupies a special place in the national cuisine. Traditional rye flour is used for pies. The pies are made thick and thin. Among thin ones, son-in-law pies are very popular. The dough is rolled out thinly to an oval pancake, the filling is placed inside, the pancake is folded in half and pinched. The filling can be wild berries, mushrooms or fish. It still turns out delicious.

A truly popular filling is considered to be porridge well boiled in the oven with onions and butter. According to a long tradition, porridge pies are made in the shape of a sickle, as a symbol of peasant labor.

As for baked goods, experts recommend trying sulchiny – Karelian rye pancakes stuffed with sweet porridge. A hearty delicacy, more suitable for breakfast.

Gifts of the forest

Northern berries - lingonberries, cloudberries, cranberries - as well as blueberries and strawberries, occupy a large place in the national cuisine. Pies with wild berries were and are considered a traditional dessert in Karelian cuisine. On par with soaked lingonberries and cloudberries. Karelians also eat lingonberries with oatmeal and fresh berries with milk for dessert.

Gradually, even ritual jelly, oatmeal and rye, was replaced with berry jelly, at a variety of events - from weddings to funerals.

Today, delicious fruit drinks and jelly made from forest products can be tasted in any Karelian catering establishment: in canteens, in iconic restaurants and in any cafe. And you can order lingonberry sauce for meat and fish dishes - it will be delicious!

Mushroom table

The range of mushrooms from the Karelian forests is simply fantastic. There are about 300 species, 23 species are listed in the Red Book. In Karelia, mushrooms are used in cooking in second place after fish. Since ancient times they have been salted, dried, cooked into soups and made into pies. Mushroom pickles are also worth trying. Or salads with mushrooms, for example “Valaam”: porcini mushrooms with cucumbers and peas in cream sauce.

You can try any mushroom soup - from chanterelles, honey mushrooms, porcini mushrooms or any others. Its taste, stewed according to ancient traditions, will not disappoint expectations. Minced mushrooms are used not only as a filling for the famous Karelian wickets and other baked goods. Meatballs, cabbage rolls, stuffed tomatoes and other delicious dishes are made from it. In any case, every guest of the northern region, when introduced to the local cuisine, will try Karelian mushroom delicacies and will not be disappointed.

Wild meat or game dishes

In the old days, the forest fed not only mushrooms and berries. It was not easy for hunters to obtain prey, so venison, elk, wild boar and even bear meat were considered a delicacy on the Karelian table. The cooking principle was traditional - simmering. For long-term storage, the meat was salted and dried. Today in restaurants you can try roast elk according to an old recipe - in a pot with a lid made of rye dough. Or even more exotic - bear meat. It is simmered with carrots and onions in a vessel made of rye dough. Interesting, tasty and unforgettable.

It is also worth trying game: partridge, wood grouse or black grouse. The carcasses are cooked entirely in herbs, with wild berries.

Kanunik in Karelian or traditional meat with local flavor

With the advent of livestock among the inhabitants, dishes made from beef, pork and even lamb appeared in the national cuisine. But still in accordance with Karelian traditions. A typical example: eve. The meat is stewed in pieces with turnips, rutabaga and potatoes. When it is almost ready, they add... fish, of course! In season - fresh vendace, in winter salted or dried. And they continue to simmer until done. Often kanunik is prepared from three types of meat - pork, beef and lamb. It’s worth a try to appreciate the combination of meat and fish flavors.

Dairy dishes

The proximity to milk also affected the recipes for dairy dishes. The favorite dairy product of Karelians is homemade cottage cheese. Curd butter is often prepared from it: butter and sour cream are added to freshly prepared cottage cheese. Egg butter is prepared by analogy: mashed boiled eggs are mixed with softened butter. It’s also worth trying the curd cheese, also based on a Finnish recipe. It is based on the same cottage cheese with melted butter. Delicious, especially with boiled eggs or boiled new potatoes.

You can try cheese pasta as a sweet dish. This is a soft cheese made from curd milk, whipped with sugar, butter and eggs. Often - with the addition of raisins.

Traditionally, all food was prepared in the oven: stewed, boiled, baked. There is no word in the Karelian language "fry" : Even pies, which later began to be fried in a frying pan, were called keitinpiiroa / “boiled pies”.

Fish were caught in winter and summer. Among the delicacies there was even spring kevätkala (literally “spring fish”). In the north of Karelia (now the Kalevalsky and Loukhsky regions) it was cooked with flavor: during spawning it was caught, gutted, salted - and put under load in a cool place for the whole summer, usually in a barn or canopy. In autumn, the appetizer graced the rather bland Karelian table.

They ate almost no meat, only on holidays (or the game would get caught in a snare). But they knew how to cook: they dried and salted them. To do this, elk, beef and lean lamb were hung in the breeze on sunny spring days - the stock came in handy during haymaking. Karelians also loved dried meat (you can always take it on a long trip or to work in the forest).

By the way, they didn’t use it for game: except that at a wedding a guy was poured a glass of imported vodka. In Karelian villages they even started brewing mash only after the war (World War II, by the way).

Infographics from Respublika news agency

Before the revolution, the Karelian dinner table usually looked like this: the first dish was fish soup made from fresh, salted or dried fish. They cooked it in water or milk. They loved soups made from boiled turnips, rutabaga, peas or potatoes. The main course was cereal porridge, steamed and baked turnips or rutabaga, fried mushrooms, oatmeal and thickened flour - flour mash brought to a boil. Those who were poorer limited themselves to one dish: chopped onions, radishes and bread into a stew made with water or kvass. Dessert - frozen milk and dried turnips.

The table of the Vepsians and Karelians was regulated, among other things, by the Orthodox Church: during the year there were a total of 178 to 199 fasting days.

Turnip/Nagris

Turnips occupied an important place on the Karelian table (for some reason in historical documents they are called “blue”). Turnips were grown in large quantities in open fields until the 1930s. For the Karelians and Vepsians, it was like potatoes for the Russians.

They loved turnips: soups, porridges and casseroles were prepared from it, and kvass was brewed from it. Karelian children considered dried turnips as dried fruit, and sucked dried ones instead of sweets.

Ten years ago, the Karelian Gornitsa restaurant invited chef from Finland Tarmo Vasenius to provide the establishment with the “correct” national cuisine. The boss agreed and moved to Karelia for six months. We started “setting up the kitchen” by searching for products.

- I say - we need fish! They bring me some kind of frozen, smelly lump. And the fish needs fresh! — at the same time Tarmo shows with his hands the size of the fish. “You couldn’t even find the right potatoes at first.” For baking with meat in a pot, you need one potato, and another for mashed potatoes. And everything is grown and caught in Karelia. I want to cook turnips - no! Where do you Russians put your turnips?!

Turnips, big, big ones, are no longer grown in Karelia. And preparing it, as it turns out, is really simple: wash it and put it in the oven for half an hour. It’s even better in nature - you bury the turnips in the sand and build a fire on top. You take it out, black, charred, cut it - a little salt, a little butter... Tender, sweet!

Tarmo Wasenius: “I used to be a supporter of the historical “purity” of the kitchen, but now I have changed my mind. What happens today will be history in fifty years.” Photo: Igor Gerasimenko

— I have always been a fan of Karelian cuisine, because everything is very natural. And simple, says the Finnish chef. - Take the gates - this is a brand! All of Finland eats and loves them. And the dish, by the way, is Karelian!..

How to get away from a chef without a recipe? Save to an electronic cookbook:

Infographics from Respublika news agency

Bread/Leiby

The story that Karelians ate bark is history today. Northern residents added sapwood, the inner part of pine bark, to cheap rye flour. In the years of famine, bread consisted mostly of bark.

"Day note"

“Bread from pine bark is prepared in the following way: after removing the bark, the surface is cleaned, dried in air, fried in the oven, pounded and flour is added, the dough is kneaded and the bread is baked.

Bread from straw: they take and chop finely the ends of the ears of grain and straw, dry, pound and grind, sprinkle flour and prepare bread ... "

The note was compiled by Gavrila Derzhavin, governor of the Olonets province

In lean years, dried crushed fish was also mixed into the flour - its share reached 90%. Both clover and potatoes were used.

Several years ago, Yuri Alexandrov (then chairman of the Center for Primitive Technologies) not only studied the issue documentarily, but also conducted an ethnographic experiment. I baked surrogate bread, adding sapwood to flour in different proportions.

— One day, my colleagues and I decided to bake such bread - and it turned out to be more than edible! Later I re-read a lot of ethnographic literature and notes from travelers (Derzhavin, Polyakov, Ozeretskovsky, Lönnrot). To my surprise, it turned out that the Karelians did not have a SINGLE recipe for making bread with the addition of tree bark (although the information that was found was sketchy). As a result, we found the most details about baking bread with bark in the epic “Kalevala”. During the experiment, we tried different proportions of pine flour - depending on this, the taste changed significantly. Then they began to add berries and spices, moss. There is only one result: the Karelians were not so unhappy! Hunger, of course, is not a problem, but the bread turned out to be quite edible.

Beer

Barley is a cereal that is considered the oldest and, to a certain extent, the most important cultivated plant in Karelia. It was used in various rituals, and its Karelian name - ozra - is consonant with the word oza / “happiness”.

Strong alcohol has been known to the Finno-Ugric people for a long time, but it was not very popular. They drank vodka extremely rarely: even at weddings, only the most respected guests were treated to one or two glasses; the bottle was never placed on the table.

Much more loved beer, which was prepared according to ancient recipes - today they are lost. The intoxicating drink is mentioned more than a hundred times in Kalevala. The 20th rune is almost entirely devoted to the origin of beer and the traditional recipe.

That's why the name is glorious,
Good name for the beer
That it arose miraculously,
That it pleases husbands
What makes women laugh.
And gives husbands fun,
Brings joy to the brave
And he drives fools into fights.

(Kalevala, translation by L.P. Belsky).

Our ancestors drank mainly fruit drinks, compotes and kvass. Fruit drinks (as now) were made from wild berries - cranberries, lingonberries, blueberries. But kvass was made from turnips, and it was a favorite everyday drink.

Karelians and Vepsians also respected tea, but drank it infrequently. Expensive imported teas were replaced by teas made from wild raspberries and currants. They used surrogate coffee made from refried beans mixed with chicory. We drank natural coffee and tea on holidays.

Coffee/Kofei

Before the revolution, coffee among the North Karelians was considered a “male” drink, and it was brewed with a little salt. Peddlers carried goods to neighboring Finland; They returned back with coffee grinders and coffee. The peddlers themselves often had camp coffee pots with them - both to cheer them up and to advertise. This is how coffee took root in the border region.

Roaster (coffee maker). Iron, wood. Stamping, riveting, wood turning. Finland (Suomi). Beginning XX century

A roaster is a device for roasting coffee. The metal body of the mixer is made in the shape of a stepped truncated cone, the wide part of which is the lid. One half is rigidly rolled with the body. The other half is hinged and extends. The hook is carried out by a spring plate of the other, stationary half of the cover. A mixer rod passes through the center of the lid, which is rotated manually using a handle with a curved rod. A groove-shaped metal holder is riveted to the upper side wall of the housing. The holder is mounted with a wooden cone-shaped handle and is supported by reinforcement using an iron ring.

“As soon as Karelians get out of bed, the first thing they do is drink coffee. Coffee again in the afternoon. When a guest arrives, he is served coffee. Tea is rarely consumed, and in some homes it is not consumed at all.

Coffee is prepared in its own way: about a tea cup of ground coffee is placed in coffee pots with boiled water, and it is not placed in a bag, but directly into the water. All this is boiling on fire again.

Some salt is added to coffee, so it gets a salty taste. Some even drink coffee with onions.”

News of the Arkhangelsk Society for the Study of the Russian North. 1913.

There are coffee sayings in Karelia. Elä juo kahvii, piä mustuu / Don’t drink coffee - your head will turn black, they said in Suistamo. And they added:

— Kyl on kahvi kaunis juoma, vai isännal huonot housut / It’s good to drink coffee, but the owner’s pants are leaky!

In general, people in Suistamo were ambivalent about coffee. Carefully.

Infographics from Respublika news agency

Wickets / Karjalazet šipainiekat

The Karelian housewife knows: “kalittoa - kyzyy kaheksoa”, the gate asks for eight. Count: flour, water, curdled milk, salt, milk, butter, sour cream and filling. For the filling they use potatoes, or less often millet porridge. Previously, they baked with barley.

“And you’ve become a friend, and I’m already a friend, now that I can even wear pants.” No time to wear a skirt! Olga Prokkoilskaya says to me: why are you still walking around in your pants? Either way! I say: you know, you’re used to it - very well. And I feel very good! Especially, I’m at home, on my feet most of the time - either with firewood, or cleaning the street, or watering greenhouses... Where is the skirt?

Anna Matveevna Chaikina turned 85. She lives in Veshkelitsa, speaks Karelian, unless guests come “from the city” - then she switches to Russian. The whole day is spinning: the house needs to be repaired, the potatoes need to be hilled, and the cabbage needs to be watered. In the summer, children come for the weekend - prepare a treat. He also manages to sing in the folk choir - about his native shore in his native language.

— When I started getting married, they told me, “Anya, you take all your songs with you!” And then: sometimes our people will gather, I’ll come and make everyone happy! I myself am from Prokkoily, from a neighboring village. Now sometimes I go to bed and keep thinking: how did I end up in Veshkelitsa! This is a very great happiness for me, such a nice village!..

Anna Matveevna's house at the exit of the village. We built it together with my late husband, we chose the most beautiful place - a slope, a river, open space... In Veshkelitsa there is no need for locks: I propped the door with a stick and went about my business. Everybody knows each other. And there is no need for fences or gates.

However, what are we? What is a Karelian village without gates?

We pinch the edge and it turns out to be a plate. Photo: Igor Georgievsky

The only flour used for gates in this house is rye. Wheat did not grow in Karelia, and buying wheat flour is expensive. They prepared from the products that were on hand.

- Who taught me how to bake gates? Live taught! They used to say... wait, I remember... (mentally translates from Karelian): the bride began to marry a guy. He says I don’t know how to bake. And the guy-husband says: listen, dear, you’ll learn to bake if you have something! When we returned from evacuation after the war, that’s when we saw grief: you grind flour with stones, and put something else inside, in the dough: either moss to make it thicker, or birch sawdust...

Real gates do not like gas and electricity. Anna Matveevna cooks them in the oven, without any baking sheet, on a hearth - right on the bricks. Shine a flashlight into the depths - you’re ready. And he takes it out with a wooden shovel.

Be careful, it's hot! Photo: Igor Georgievsky

In different villages, different types of wickets are baked: round, oval, octagonal. But most often they are oval, boat-shaped.

- Once it doesn’t work out, the second time it doesn’t work out, then it will work out! — Anna Matveevna is melting the butter. - Make the dough thicker, and put a little curdled milk in the dough so that it is soft, this crust...

Open the gate slowly. Photo: Igor Georgievsky

- Now apply oil. The first time they came out fatter, that’s okay. Don't skimp on the oil, the gate loves it. The oil will cover everything. Smear it slowly, into each fold - then there will be a cake!

Prepared for the lesson:
Evgeniy Lisakov, journalist
Igor Georgievsky, photographer
Igor Gerasimenko, photographer
Pavel Stepura, designer
Elena Fomina, editor

With the support of the Ministry of the Republic of Karelia for national policy, relations with public, religious associations and the media

The Republic of Karelia, located in northwestern Russia, is often called the lake region. It’s not surprising: there are really a lot of lakes in this region. It must be said that Karelia is not only a Russian region. The provinces of South and North Karelia are also in neighboring Finland. The population of Karelia consists of Russians, Karelians, Finns and Vepsians (a small Finno-Ugric people also living in the Leningrad and Vologda regions of the Russian Federation).

Karelia is a region visited by quite a large number of tourists. They are attracted here by the already mentioned numerous lakes - beautiful, restrained, strict northern beauty, the famous islands: Kizhi (with monuments of wooden architecture) and Valaam (Valaam Monastery). Karelian cuisine, without a doubt, also cannot but arouse interest among those who come to Karelia, and among those who simply love culinary experiments, expanding the geography of the dishes they prepare.

Fish

It is not for nothing that this small virtual culinary journey began with the mention of numerous Karelian lakes. The fact is that fish, which abounded in local reservoirs for a long time, is the main food of the people who inhabited the region. They used it in a variety of forms: they cooked it fresh, salted it (in Karelian - suolattu kala), fermented it, dried it (ahavoittu kala), but almost never smoked it.

To store salted fish by grade, special pits were used, as well as wooden barrels and tubs. The fish was covered with a splinter on top and a heavy stone oppression was placed - the brine was supposed to cover it. North Karelians cooked fish “with flavor” (kevätkala). In addition, northerners often ate raw salted fish, while southern and middle Karelians always cooked it, and even pre-soaked it.

Sushik (kabakala) - dried fish fines - was very popular. They made strong fish soup from the dry soup. For medicinal purposes, they ate fish oil melted from the insides of pike or perch. The consumption of fish by Karelians can be called almost waste-free: flour was made from fish bones. Basically, however, it was added to livestock feed. However, sometimes they were also used to prepare fish soup. The scales of large fish were used for jellied meat. Valuable caviar, as a rule, was sold, and the rest was often baked in the oven (even caviar pancakes were made) and eaten hot or cold.

Fish soup (kalaruoka) was and remains the main Karelian first course. A typical Karelian fish soup is made from whitefish. There may also be milk soup, and also fish soup made from pickled fish. However, the latter is now rarely prepared, except in villages. The fact is that, following the traditional recipe, before the end of cooking (about five minutes), such fish soup should be passed through a layer of birch charcoal - this will relieve the fish soup of bitterness and possible unpleasant odor. Agree, in urban conditions birch charcoal is not always at hand... Chicken eggs are added to Karelian fish soup. In general, unlike Russian fish soup - transparent, Karelian fish soup is cloudy. After all, in addition to milk and eggs, it may also contain Icelandic moss, birch and pine buds, sourdough and rye flour.

By the way, it is worth special mention about the influence of the Russian oven on the Karelian culinary tradition. Its appearance in Karelian homes changed the technology of cooking. Karelians cooked, stewed or baked their food in a Russian oven. There is no word for “fry” in the Karelian language. Even some types of pies that were actually fried in oil were called keitinpiiroa - "boiled (in oil) pies."

All the rest

Let's return to the first courses - in addition to fish soup, Karelians ate something else. They prepared, for example, cabbage soup or soup (both were called in one word: ruoka). Shchi was made from fresh or pickled cabbage leaves. They also added onions, turnips, and later potatoes (when they began to grow them), as well as barley. These cabbage soup were common, everyday Karelian food. They had lunch or dinner. Sometimes meat was added to cabbage soup. Karelian potato soup is also known, which is prepared from only potatoes and seasoned with sour cream. However, if the housewife had stored mushrooms (pickled or dried them), they and onions were added to the soup. In addition, the ancient Karelian soup with wheat flour, potatoes and linseed oil is famous.

Meat. In ancient times, Karelians ate little. Basically, it was meat from wild animals (elk, deer, wild boar, game birds). Later, when the Karelians mastered cattle breeding and agriculture, they also began to eat livestock meat (beef, sometimes lean lamb, less often pork). Mostly meat was eaten during haymaking and in winter. To keep it for a long time, like fish, it was salted and dried. They often took dried meat with them on long journeys.

Turnip is the main root vegetable of Karelian cuisine. Many different dishes were prepared from it: soups, casseroles, porridges, stewed fruit, kvass, and dried. Potatoes replaced it only at the beginning of the last century. Other vegetables consumed by Karelians: radish, onion, cabbage, rutabaga, and carrots in small quantities. Vegetable gardening in Karelia was previously quite poorly developed.

Karelians loved (and love) milk, as well as products made from it. Cottage cheese is especially popular. Many Karelians prepared cottage cheese during the spring-summer period, and from it for the winter they made homemade cheese (muigiemaido), which was eaten with boiled potatoes and sour cream. In addition, the cottage cheese was dried. There was also yogurt on Karelian tables. It was often served mixed with unleavened milk. Goat milk became widespread among the Karelians only in the 1930s. It is also worth remembering colostrum - the milk of the first milk yield. In some areas of Karelia it was baked in pots, producing a product similar to cheese (yysto). Karelians did not consume reindeer milk, although they were engaged in reindeer herding (especially in the north). Karelians also churned butter. It was mainly put into porridge, and later into potatoes. They hardly ate butter with bread.

As for the bread itself, in Karelia it was baked from rye, barley or oatmeal. Often there was not enough flour, so the practice of various additives to flour appeared and took root: moss, barley straw, pine sapwood. In addition to simple bread, they baked pies. In addition to the already mentioned fishmongers, they also baked wickets (sipainiekku) - pies filled with millet and barley cereals, oatmeal, and mashed potatoes. Local housewives had a saying: “A gate requires eight.” It was meant that to make such pies, as a rule, eight components are needed: flour, water, salt, milk, curdled milk, sour cream, butter and filling.

It must be said that in Karelian cuisine there are no fruit dishes or confectionery products. Dessert was and remains pies with wild berries (cranberries, blueberries, lingonberries). Karelians often ate cloudberries and still eat them soaked. But some Karelians did not collect blueberries at all - many believed that they were an “unclean” berry and that they gave them “a headache.” Fresh berries with milk are a favorite Karelian delicacy.

Among the drinks, it is worth noting kvass (from turnips, bread or malt). Karelians also knew tea and drank decoctions of forest herbs, including for medicinal purposes. Karelian beer is known among alcoholic drinks. True, the traditional recipe for its preparation is now considered lost. From a certain time, Karelians knew vodka and wine, but these drinks, naturally, were borrowed from other cuisines. First of all, from Russian, and also from Finnish.

Ritual Karelian dishes.

One cannot fail to mention the dishes that Karelians ate during various rituals. So, at holidays and weddings, oatmeal jelly was always served. There is an interesting Karelian custom: oatmeal jelly was served to the groom after the first wedding night. If he started eating the jelly from the edge, everything was fine. But if it’s from the middle, it means the bride lost her virginity before the wedding. And this was a shame for her and for all her relatives. However, the wedding was not necessarily upset because of this...

Another old Karelian custom is also known: if matchmakers came to the younger sister in the family, and the eldest was not yet married, then they were offered to first taste the bottom layer of jelly, so as not to touch the top layer that covered it.

The same oatmeal jelly, however, was also served at funerals, along with rye jelly (it is now customary for Karelians to remember the deceased with berry jelly). Bread kvass was also an obligatory “funeral” drink. Moreover, they slurped it with spoons from common dishes. In some regions of Karelia, kulaga was prepared from sprouted rye. Rye malt was poured into boiled water and eaten hot with bread. It, like kvass, was enjoyed from common dishes.
On St. Peter's Day (06.29/12.07) they baked cottage cheese cakes (kabu), and when they said goodbye to the summer (08/1/14) - pies with blueberries.

Karelian cuisine recipes

Naturally, many ancient Karelian dishes are now, alas, forgotten. Others have changed somewhat. Karelian cuisine in the twentieth century borrowed a lot from Russian cuisine. Borsch in Petrozavodsk (the capital of Karelia) today is as common as in Moscow. But “Culinary Eden” still offers you more traditional recipes of Karelian cuisine. As they say, let's taste Karelia. Let's start, of course, with fish.

Salted fish “with flavor” (kevätkala).

Ingredients:
bucket of fish,
1700 g salt,
nettle.

Preparation:
To cook fish with flavor, it is advisable to catch it yourself in Karelian lakes or rivers. You can, of course, buy it in a store, but the pleasure will not be the same.

The fish is caught during spring spawning (except for burbot), cut from the back - large, or along the belly from head to tail - medium and small. The fish is gutted and washed well. Coarse salt is poured inside. The fish is placed in a wooden barrel or tub with its backs down. Each row must be sprinkled with salt. Then cover the barrel with a lid. When the fish releases juice, place a weight on top and place the fish in a cool place.

After standing like this all summer, the fish will be salted, but will begin to emit an unpleasant odor. To avoid this, you can top it with nettles while salting. Kevätkala is considered good if the fish does not bend when held by the tail in a horizontal position.

Caviar pancakes

Ingredients:
fresh fish roe,
rye or oat flour,
melted butter,
salt to taste.

Preparation:
Peel the caviar from films, lightly salt it, mix with flour. No need to add water. Cook in a frying pan in ghee.

Soup soup (kabarokka)

Ingredients:
sushchik (dried small fish, including roach),
water,
potato,
black peppercorns,
onion.

Preparation:
Place the dryer in cold water and soak for 1 hour. Then, without changing the water, put the dryer on the fire. Cook over low heat for 20 minutes. After this, cut the potatoes into medium-sized slices. Before the end of cooking (when the potatoes are cooked), chop the onions. This fish soup can be served both hot and cold.

Roast Karelian style (Karjalanpaisti)

Ingredients:
200 g beef,
200 g pork,
150 g lamb,
100 g liver and kidneys,
2 heads of onions,
Bay leaf,
salt to taste.

Preparation:
Rinse the meat well. If using salted meat, soak it first. Cut into pieces and place in a clay pot. First lamb, then beef, pork, and on top - pieces of liver and kidneys. Fill everything with water so that it covers all the meat, add salt. Add chopped onion. Place the pot in the oven, but not very hot, or in a Russian oven, if you have one. The idea is to keep the roast in the oven or oven for a long time, perhaps even a whole night or day until evening.