Balu
12-28-2016, 11:54 PM
<header class="entry-header">A Russian New Year’s Celebration
</header> The New Year, or Novy God, is the holiday everybody in Russia looks forward to for the whole year. In some ways, Novy God is celebrated very much like Christmas in the U.S. — trees are decorated and Santa visits! — but Russians also have a traditional 10-day New Year’s break that starts December 30th and lasts until the day after Russian Orthodox Christmas, which happens on January 8th. Like American holidays, it’s a time for family gatherings, feasts, classic movies, gifts, guests, and country-wide festivities.
For my family, who live in Moscow, the super-holiday has always started the morning of December 31st when we all gather at the kitchen table and turn on the TV to start the flow of traditional New Year’s movies—including Russian favorites Ironia Sudby (The Irony of Fate), Gentelmeny Udachi (Gentlemen of Fortune), Vechera na khutore bliz Dikanki (Evenings on a Farm Near Dikanka), as well as Home Alone, of course—while preparing for the year’s best feast.
Potato and vegetable salads are an essential Russian New Year’s dish. The two most common are vinegret, a beet-and-potato salad dressed with sunflower oil, and olivie, a potato salad with ham and mayonnaise. Fresh vegetables for the salads need to be boiled the night before so they’re soft. Usually, everyone in my family helps to peel, cut and dump into a large pot.
A variety of preserved veggie treats come out of hiding and make their debut as side dishes for the New Year’s table. If homemade, they’re prepared over the summer and fall in early anticipation of winter and the holidays. My mom is usually the pickling commander, and by the time New Year’s arrives, the cupboards are fully stocked with pickled forest mushrooms, crunchy cucumbers, colorful jarred peppers, and spicy tomatoes. I always enjoy pulling our holiday serving dishes out of the vitrina buffet and arranging these tart and delicious appetizers where they’re easy to reach.
There’s pickled herring, too. Some of it is cut into pieces and served plain with oil and thin slices of onion, while the rest is prepared as another salad, selyodka pod shuboi—”salad under a fur coat,” made of beets, carrots, potatoes, eggs, and mayonnaise.
While the salami and cheese is being sliced and plated, eggplant spread mixed, and orange caviar piled onto bread with butter, various pirozhki (pies) are puffing up in the oven. My favorite kind are little triangular pies with chopped potatoes, onion, beef, and a small helping of broth inside each one to make them soft and juicy.
Once the food is prepared and the table set, guests start to arrive for the first dinner of the evening, ready to say goodbye to the passing year. Everyone fills up their glasses with wine, vodka, mors (berry juice), and compote (water boiled with fruit), and reminisces about the past 12 months while wishing each other, chtoby vse horoshee iz starogo goda pereshlo v novy (“to carry the best from the old year to the new”).
At midnight, the Kremlin bells chime 12 times, Champagne glasses clink, and everyone welcomes the New Year by making a wish and saying S Novym Godom! Fireworks rumble across the country and people rush to the snowy streets to wish everyone a Happy New Year and light off their own rockets and sparklers.
After a frosty walk, nothing feels better than coming back to the warm table for a second round; usually it’s stuffed peppers in creamy sauce, baked chicken with mashed potatoes, pies, and stuffed cabbage rolls. Dark rye bread is a must, and so is sour cream and freshly chopped dill and parsley.
Before dessert we gather around the New Year’s tree and exchange gifts. Among other things, this always include treats like mandarin oranges, chocolates and candy. The sweets celebration continues at the table with fresh fruit, boxed chocolates, and usually a large creamy cake. In the early hours of the morning, very full and happy, we go to bed so that we can get up at noon and gather around the table again. Many Russian foods tend to soak up flavors overnight, so they taste even better the next day!
.................................................. ................
13 dishes on the table in Russia at New Year
What should be on the festive table to make it truly a la Russe?
https://cdn.rbth.com/1960x-/all/2013/1012/33073/1.jpg<section class="container_12 content">
Every year, Russians celebrate the New Year with unprecedented scale, spending days, weeks, even months preparing for it. After the holiday, the entire country takes a break. Tables groan with traditional dishes that may seem odd to the untrained eye. The New Year's dinner would lose much of its flavor if it were not imbued with the mixed smells of freshly cut fir trees and the much-loved New Year's dessert - tangerines.
https://cdn.rbth.com/1960x-/all/2013/1012/33073/2.jpg
Olivier. The famous Russian salad "Olivier" or another well-known but less popular "Beetroot salad." "Olivier" is a mixture of finely chopped boiled eggs, sausages and marinated cucumbers, seasoned with the mayonnaise sauce. "Beetroot salad" is composed of kraut, diced boiled beets and white beans. Salads are an essential part of any Russian meal on the eve of Russia's biggest holiday, New Year.
https://cdn.rbth.com/1960x-/all/2013/1012/33073/3.jpg
Red or black caviar. If we consider black sturgeon caviar, then gray or beluga caviar is the more exquisite variety. Caviar is usually served on small, white bread pieces with butter. If caviar is served as a separate dish, the bowl with caviar is placed on chipped ice.
https://cdn.rbth.com/1960x-/all/2013/1012/33073/4.jpg
Lena Pochetova
"Herring under fur coat": a layered salad where the herring fillet layer is followed by boiled vegetables (including, incidentally, beetroots) and green apples.
https://cdn.rbth.com/1960x-/all/2013/1012/33073/5.jpg
Pickled cucumbers. The most traditional snacks that "go with vodka" - sauerkraut and pickled cucumbers. Grown in Russia's temperate climate, these vegetables have a far more delicious taste than cucumbers or cabbage grown in the gastronomic paradise of the Mediterranean, which might be a piece of news even to the greatest patriots of Russia.
https://cdn.rbth.com/1960x-/all/2013/1012/33073/6.jpg
Fried or baked suckling pig. This is either served with sour cream and horseradish (in classic Russian style), or, stuffed with buckwheat porridge and roasted. A distinctive aftertaste remains when a glass of cold vodka is followed by a piece of hot meat.
https://cdn.rbth.com/1960x-/all/2013/1012/33073/7.jpg
Vinaigrette. Another Russian salad with a French name, "vinaigrette,' or beetroot salad, is also fairly easy to make: the above ingredients are supplemented with boiled beet roots, which is a very common vegetable in Russian cuisine. Naturally enough, it is dressed with vinegar, as follows from its title, and can also contain herring fillets salted with spices.
https://cdn.rbth.com/1960x-/all/2013/1012/33073/8.jpg
Russian vegetables and mushrooms are traditionally salted with the help of natural lactic acid fermentation, and are usually called kvashennie, or sour – a major branch of Russian cuisine.
https://cdn.rbth.com/1960x-/all/2015/12/21/10_ny.jpg
Stewed fish, skhara. The recipe is almost universal, from Sochi, to Anapa, to Odessa or any other city on the Black Sea coast.
https://cdn.rbth.com/1960x-/all/2013/1012/33073/11.jpg
The jelly from a pig's head, rich beef bones and rooster are especially popular, because the broth creates a rich amber color and a particular taste. The famous Russian root - grated horseradish or mustard, is traditionally served with these various kinds of meat jelly.
https://cdn.rbth.com/1960x-/all/2013/1012/33073/12.jpg
Pies. For Russian, pies are not just for festive occasions, but everyday fare. There are thousands of different recipes, ranging from the most common (chicken, meat, or fish pie) to unique homemade specialties. Such secret recipes are handed down from generation to generation.
https://cdn.rbth.com/1960x-/all/2013/1012/33073/13.jpg
Ducks are plentiful in most parts of European Russia, the autumnal tradition of shooting and hunting wild game has always been popular, and, from both a seasonal and a culinary angle, duck and apples go together like caviar and blini.
https://cdn.rbth.com/1960x-/all/2015/12/21/14_ny.jpg
Champagne. At the midnight open the champagne while the bells chime at the Kremlin's Spasskaya Tower and the Russian national anthem plays. The bells ring for one minute, during which you need to open the bottle, pour the champagne, make a wish and clink glasses with your loved ones precisely when the clock strikes 12.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EZVHI670M6g
</section><section class="container_12 clearfix extras no-print">
</section>
</header> The New Year, or Novy God, is the holiday everybody in Russia looks forward to for the whole year. In some ways, Novy God is celebrated very much like Christmas in the U.S. — trees are decorated and Santa visits! — but Russians also have a traditional 10-day New Year’s break that starts December 30th and lasts until the day after Russian Orthodox Christmas, which happens on January 8th. Like American holidays, it’s a time for family gatherings, feasts, classic movies, gifts, guests, and country-wide festivities.
For my family, who live in Moscow, the super-holiday has always started the morning of December 31st when we all gather at the kitchen table and turn on the TV to start the flow of traditional New Year’s movies—including Russian favorites Ironia Sudby (The Irony of Fate), Gentelmeny Udachi (Gentlemen of Fortune), Vechera na khutore bliz Dikanki (Evenings on a Farm Near Dikanka), as well as Home Alone, of course—while preparing for the year’s best feast.
Potato and vegetable salads are an essential Russian New Year’s dish. The two most common are vinegret, a beet-and-potato salad dressed with sunflower oil, and olivie, a potato salad with ham and mayonnaise. Fresh vegetables for the salads need to be boiled the night before so they’re soft. Usually, everyone in my family helps to peel, cut and dump into a large pot.
A variety of preserved veggie treats come out of hiding and make their debut as side dishes for the New Year’s table. If homemade, they’re prepared over the summer and fall in early anticipation of winter and the holidays. My mom is usually the pickling commander, and by the time New Year’s arrives, the cupboards are fully stocked with pickled forest mushrooms, crunchy cucumbers, colorful jarred peppers, and spicy tomatoes. I always enjoy pulling our holiday serving dishes out of the vitrina buffet and arranging these tart and delicious appetizers where they’re easy to reach.
There’s pickled herring, too. Some of it is cut into pieces and served plain with oil and thin slices of onion, while the rest is prepared as another salad, selyodka pod shuboi—”salad under a fur coat,” made of beets, carrots, potatoes, eggs, and mayonnaise.
While the salami and cheese is being sliced and plated, eggplant spread mixed, and orange caviar piled onto bread with butter, various pirozhki (pies) are puffing up in the oven. My favorite kind are little triangular pies with chopped potatoes, onion, beef, and a small helping of broth inside each one to make them soft and juicy.
Once the food is prepared and the table set, guests start to arrive for the first dinner of the evening, ready to say goodbye to the passing year. Everyone fills up their glasses with wine, vodka, mors (berry juice), and compote (water boiled with fruit), and reminisces about the past 12 months while wishing each other, chtoby vse horoshee iz starogo goda pereshlo v novy (“to carry the best from the old year to the new”).
At midnight, the Kremlin bells chime 12 times, Champagne glasses clink, and everyone welcomes the New Year by making a wish and saying S Novym Godom! Fireworks rumble across the country and people rush to the snowy streets to wish everyone a Happy New Year and light off their own rockets and sparklers.
After a frosty walk, nothing feels better than coming back to the warm table for a second round; usually it’s stuffed peppers in creamy sauce, baked chicken with mashed potatoes, pies, and stuffed cabbage rolls. Dark rye bread is a must, and so is sour cream and freshly chopped dill and parsley.
Before dessert we gather around the New Year’s tree and exchange gifts. Among other things, this always include treats like mandarin oranges, chocolates and candy. The sweets celebration continues at the table with fresh fruit, boxed chocolates, and usually a large creamy cake. In the early hours of the morning, very full and happy, we go to bed so that we can get up at noon and gather around the table again. Many Russian foods tend to soak up flavors overnight, so they taste even better the next day!
.................................................. ................
13 dishes on the table in Russia at New Year
What should be on the festive table to make it truly a la Russe?
https://cdn.rbth.com/1960x-/all/2013/1012/33073/1.jpg<section class="container_12 content">
Every year, Russians celebrate the New Year with unprecedented scale, spending days, weeks, even months preparing for it. After the holiday, the entire country takes a break. Tables groan with traditional dishes that may seem odd to the untrained eye. The New Year's dinner would lose much of its flavor if it were not imbued with the mixed smells of freshly cut fir trees and the much-loved New Year's dessert - tangerines.
https://cdn.rbth.com/1960x-/all/2013/1012/33073/2.jpg
Olivier. The famous Russian salad "Olivier" or another well-known but less popular "Beetroot salad." "Olivier" is a mixture of finely chopped boiled eggs, sausages and marinated cucumbers, seasoned with the mayonnaise sauce. "Beetroot salad" is composed of kraut, diced boiled beets and white beans. Salads are an essential part of any Russian meal on the eve of Russia's biggest holiday, New Year.
https://cdn.rbth.com/1960x-/all/2013/1012/33073/3.jpg
Red or black caviar. If we consider black sturgeon caviar, then gray or beluga caviar is the more exquisite variety. Caviar is usually served on small, white bread pieces with butter. If caviar is served as a separate dish, the bowl with caviar is placed on chipped ice.
https://cdn.rbth.com/1960x-/all/2013/1012/33073/4.jpg
Lena Pochetova
"Herring under fur coat": a layered salad where the herring fillet layer is followed by boiled vegetables (including, incidentally, beetroots) and green apples.
https://cdn.rbth.com/1960x-/all/2013/1012/33073/5.jpg
Pickled cucumbers. The most traditional snacks that "go with vodka" - sauerkraut and pickled cucumbers. Grown in Russia's temperate climate, these vegetables have a far more delicious taste than cucumbers or cabbage grown in the gastronomic paradise of the Mediterranean, which might be a piece of news even to the greatest patriots of Russia.
https://cdn.rbth.com/1960x-/all/2013/1012/33073/6.jpg
Fried or baked suckling pig. This is either served with sour cream and horseradish (in classic Russian style), or, stuffed with buckwheat porridge and roasted. A distinctive aftertaste remains when a glass of cold vodka is followed by a piece of hot meat.
https://cdn.rbth.com/1960x-/all/2013/1012/33073/7.jpg
Vinaigrette. Another Russian salad with a French name, "vinaigrette,' or beetroot salad, is also fairly easy to make: the above ingredients are supplemented with boiled beet roots, which is a very common vegetable in Russian cuisine. Naturally enough, it is dressed with vinegar, as follows from its title, and can also contain herring fillets salted with spices.
https://cdn.rbth.com/1960x-/all/2013/1012/33073/8.jpg
Russian vegetables and mushrooms are traditionally salted with the help of natural lactic acid fermentation, and are usually called kvashennie, or sour – a major branch of Russian cuisine.
https://cdn.rbth.com/1960x-/all/2015/12/21/10_ny.jpg
Stewed fish, skhara. The recipe is almost universal, from Sochi, to Anapa, to Odessa or any other city on the Black Sea coast.
https://cdn.rbth.com/1960x-/all/2013/1012/33073/11.jpg
The jelly from a pig's head, rich beef bones and rooster are especially popular, because the broth creates a rich amber color and a particular taste. The famous Russian root - grated horseradish or mustard, is traditionally served with these various kinds of meat jelly.
https://cdn.rbth.com/1960x-/all/2013/1012/33073/12.jpg
Pies. For Russian, pies are not just for festive occasions, but everyday fare. There are thousands of different recipes, ranging from the most common (chicken, meat, or fish pie) to unique homemade specialties. Such secret recipes are handed down from generation to generation.
https://cdn.rbth.com/1960x-/all/2013/1012/33073/13.jpg
Ducks are plentiful in most parts of European Russia, the autumnal tradition of shooting and hunting wild game has always been popular, and, from both a seasonal and a culinary angle, duck and apples go together like caviar and blini.
https://cdn.rbth.com/1960x-/all/2015/12/21/14_ny.jpg
Champagne. At the midnight open the champagne while the bells chime at the Kremlin's Spasskaya Tower and the Russian national anthem plays. The bells ring for one minute, during which you need to open the bottle, pour the champagne, make a wish and clink glasses with your loved ones precisely when the clock strikes 12.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EZVHI670M6g
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