The Russian Century: A Hundred Years of Russian Lives

Sometimes there was also a fifth table, in the same house at the same time: if an infant had a wet-nurse, then the doctor prescribed a special diet for her.

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Chapter Two

But the family was large: either one or another member would be sick, and then a sixth table would be added with a special menu. And this just on the workdays—from day to day.

But in addition to the workdays there were namedays [holidays celebrating the patron saint bearing the same name as the celebrant] and birthdays, and there were plenty of those in a family which had 13–14 children, not to speak of the rest! What a great number of pies to be baked! And all with particular favorite fillings—otherwise there would be hurt feelings and tears. And the nanny, and the wet-nurse, and the sales clerk Ivan Stepanych—all had to have pies for their namedays. And those were just the namedays within the household—what of all the others? My fathers’ sisters—there you had three more namedays, whose demanding celebrants knew all of the virtues and shortcomings of the pies, made with rice, sturgeon, sauteed cabbage, mushrooms, liver, carrots, and so on and so forth.

Holidays presented a different kind of toil. And what an abundance of food was necessary for this huge family: kulichi [tall, cylindrical baked Easter cakes] and paskha [cheese cake], made from sweet cream cheese, butter, and sour cream [often with a combination of raisins, nuts and candied fruit]. Here exact calculation was necessary: the “sacramental” paskha and the “sacramental” kulich, which were taken to be blessed at [Saturday] morning services before Easter, had to be of such a size that there would be enough for each person in the family to have a serving during every day of Bright Week [the week after Easter Sunday]. This was not only a complex culinary problem, but a mathematical one as well. Besides the “sacramental” paskha, it was necessary to make paskha “for eating.” Paskha was so delicious and tender, so aromatic and sweet (oh, the vanilla, almonds, sugar, candied fruit, and candied orange peel that went into it!) that it was eaten like pastry, like whipped cream, or double-rich ice cream. But the difference was that while there would usually be a small portion of dessert only at the end of dinner, paskha was eaten in varying amounts during morning and afternoon tea for seven days. But not only that; the “unblessed” paskha would be made and eaten during the entire six weeks after Easter right up to the Feast of the Ascension. It’s difficult to fathom how much paskha mother and Petrovna [the cook] had to make! Paskha was made according to different recipes and with different ingredients: they were both cooked and uncooked, made of sour cream or sweet cream cheese, with chocolate and pistachios. This was a difficult art, demanding focused attention and skill.

But the distribution of the paskha was not limited to the household. My father would often ask about three or four days before the holiday, “Mother, you didn’t forget that Katerina Ivanovna needs a paskha and a kulich?” “No, I

Sergei N. Durylin, Domestic Love

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didn’t.” “And what about the poorhouse?” “I remember.” “And for Serafima Pavlovna?” “I remember.”

But sometimes he didn’t ask anything in advance, but would simply inquire on the first day of the holiday, “Was a paskha and a kulich sent to Serafima Pavlovna?” “Yes, it was.” But in order to be able to answer thus, she had to keep in mind not only the family of thirty people, but all the Serafima Pavlov-nas, all the Katerina Ivanovnas, all the poor relations, inhabitants of the poor-house, and just other people and families whom my father helped secretly, and send them paskhi, kulichi, and Easter eggs on time.

The same thing would happen at Christmas. And the same thing would happen at other times. In the fall, father would say: “Mother, we should send some pickled apples to Ustin’ia Petrovna at the home.” (Ustin’ia Petrovna was the mother of my sister’s governess, a respected noblewoman who had seen Pushkin in person.) “The apples really came out well this year. We should do something nice for the old lady.”

“The nanny visited her three days ago with the children, and took her some,” my mother would answer. Mention of the nanny would remind him of the nanny’s aunt Elena Demanovna [sic], a wonderful old lady.

“Oh, by the way, we should send some to Elena Demanovna. Their poor-house is short on money. I bet they feed them salt-cured fish.”

And she would have an answer ready: “On Sunday the nanny asked for a day off. She’s going to the poorhouse for craftsmen. I already told Arina to fill a jar with a dozen of the larger apples.”