Chelyabinsk Readers Recall 1990s Survival Menus
Homemade pelmeni and baked goods are associated with childhood for many.
A wave of memories flooded readers of 74.RU after Daria Miloslavskaya«s column about her meager childhood menu. Many wanted to share how they ate and survived in the 90s, and we collected a selection of the most notable statements.
Eating mainly flour-based dishes and «foraged food» was a reality for many, shared one reader.
«I remember when we managed to buy a sack of flour for the first time, and we were happy that we wouldn»t starve anymore. I baked bread myself, cakes, cookies. In 1993, we ate two sacks of flour; there was nothing else to eat, we never bought meat, fruit, only flour, vegetable oil, and sugar. Potatoes were added one by one to the soup, which I made from cheap bones. Once, my husband and father-in-law went to the wholesale market to buy chicken legs, but there wasn«t enough money, so my husband bought a pack of capelin, and we ate it all winter,» she said. «In summer, we went for wild apples and rose hips. From the apples, I made jam, puree, and compote. When I remember this, I can»t believe how I could live and survive like that.«
«A huge thanks to our parents who helped with produce from the garden, vegetable patch. My husband fished, gathered mushrooms. We collected rose hips in the forest. Drank it instead of tea,» added another site visitor.
Some once again scolded the author (and her mother along the way) for not knowing how to cook and boasted that their table was never empty:
«From our 90s menu: borscht, chicken soup (almost daily, main dish), fried potatoes with fried chicken, Coca-Cola, Fanta, candies, bread, gingerbread, pilaf, vegetables (carrots) and fruits (apples, oranges) from the garden and store-bought, berries from the garden, boiled potatoes with herring and milk, herring under a fur coat, Olivier salad, sausage (doctor»s sausage and cervelat, cervelat — less often), potatoes with meat, beef stew, condensed milk« — listed the reader.
«We had a sea of preserves. We made about 60 three-liter jars of compote a year, and jam — about 80 jars, but two-liter ones,» added another Chelyabinsk woman.
Many commenters stood up for «Bush legs,» frozen chicken legs that were brought to Russia as humanitarian aid from the USA and resold.
«It was nutritious, filling, and tasty. And how they were baked with potatoes in the oven! I still remember,» wrote one of them. «And who knows, we might have to switch to »Trump legs« one day.»
Others remembered the Chinese stewed meat «Great Wall,» dried bananas, and other «delicacies» that are no longer found for sale. Chelyabinsk residents were also swept by nostalgia for simple home-cooked dishes:
«We often ate pelmeni (dumplings). My grandmother made them for me. It was a great time, and the pelmeni were real, tasty — finger-licking good,» said one reader.
«We lived one winter on vareniki (dumplings) with sauerkraut and sour cream. Some might have hated it, but I really got into it, I love it,» shared another.
There were also those who considered the publication a slander on the 90s in general.
«I»m a bit older than this journalist and I remember perfectly that when the «Soviet Union» rotted and fell apart — it became good, sweets from Europe appeared, toys from Japan, English books, — you could just go and buy everything,« stated an anonymous commenter.
«For me, the 90s are excursions, trips, Disneyland,» agreed another.
«There was nothing to eat only for those who were lazy,» summarized a third.
One reader added that in the 90s, her family lived much better than now:
«We were considered rich by general standards. Now, by income, we have sunk to the very bottom. It»s getting worse, the income stratification is colossal.«
«For some, the time was wonderful, for others, hungry, it has always been like that, just everyone has different opportunities,» concluded one of our site«s guests.
