Nutrition of the Russian army in 1914 18. Continued comparison of the Republic of Riga and the USSR: food supply standards for the Russian imperial army and the Red Army

Catering for military personnel Currently, a three-year state contract has been concluded with Voentorg OJSC for the provision of nutrition services for military personnel, according to which 100% of the payroll personnel (1,954 military units) with

Army allowance, catering and kitchen organization in the tsarist army

The grandiose, shameful defeat of Russia in the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-1905, and then the revolution of 1905-1907, which began seriously with uprisings in the Black Sea Fleet and in a number of army units, attracted the attention of both the tsarist administration and the revolutionary forces of the country , and the broad masses of the people to the situation in the army and navy, to the situation of the soldiers and sailors, to their way of life, living conditions and food, to relations with the officers, who were basically nobles - and inevitably raised a number of serious questions regarding the implementation of reform in armed forces of the country.

Foreign states, both potential adversaries and allies of Russia in the first world imperialist war that was brewing in Europe and was already noticeably preparing, also turned out to be extremely interested in finding out the real state of the Russian army.

That is why all interested social forces, representatives of all layers and political groupings of Russian society, from monarchists to Bolsheviks.

As always happens during periods of state crises, most representatives of the public and ruling circles paid attention only to external, superficial facts and circumstances, to what, perhaps, was not a significant reason, but only a reason, a spark that caused the crisis. This is always easier and more convenient for both the guilty and the accusing parties. And this phenomenon remains characteristic not only of the beginning, but also of the end of the 20th century, which is eloquently proven by the discussion of the causes of the Chechen crisis in the mid-90s of the 20th century. No one delves into the depths, into the root causes.

They operate with facts that are visible, understandable to everyone, and lying on the surface.

This was the case in 1905-1907.

The riot on the battleship "Prince Potemkin Tauride" arose due to rotten corned beef. Poor, substandard food was a cause of discontent in other army units. This was a clear, obvious, recorded fact. And the tsarist military department no longer argued with him. On the contrary, recognizing this fact, it saw the possibility of a relatively easy and painless liquidation of the revolutionary crisis. After all, then we would no longer be talking about fundamental changes in the structure of the Empire. It was enough to feed the soldier well, to find a way to his heart through his stomach, and all socio-political problems could be removed. However, even this “simple” solution proved difficult to implement. For food in the Russian army was historically associated with archaic social relations in the country, with the confusion, vagueness, multi-structure of its military organization, with the horrific corruption of military officials and especially quartermaster circles, which were in charge of supplying the army and were closely connected with food supplies by merchant tycoons.

Thus, a simple question “about food” could not be resolved in a “simple way” - purely culinary. And thus the “superficial argument” for the emergence of revolutionary sentiments turned out to be in fact “deep.”

That is why, by studying only the problem of food supply to the Russian army, touching only on the organization of the army kitchen and the nutrition of soldiers and sailors, one can understand the causes of many traditional Russian social difficulties and conflicts, without even leaving the purely culinary sphere in revealing their causes.

Of course, the difficulties and conflict situations in organizing food in the army were not limited to the appearance of low-quality products in the soldiers’ diet.

The organizational side of supply itself by the beginning of the 20th century. fell into disrepair. And this could no longer be corrected in a day or two by removing rotten meat from the warehouse and bringing in fresh food. It was necessary to completely change the supply system, the food preparation system, and the food supply financing system, change a lot in the system of the army itself, and carry out military reform in the troops. And this was incredibly difficult, Russia was not ready for this. And the military elite simply hoped to avoid new troubles, move them further away in time, sweep the rubbish under the carpet.

Why did this situation arise?

At the end of the 19th century, on the eve of the Russian-Turkish war in 1874, universal conscription was introduced in Russia for the first time. The new law on recruiting the army put an end to recruitment, according to which anyone who had money or connections could pay off the allotment, and thus, not all young people from the village got into the army, but only the most poor and defenseless, who could not buy themselves “ deputy." The military recruitment allocation did not apply to urban residents at all. Thus, the army was dark, illiterate, rural, and one had to serve in it for 20-25 years. That is why the reduction of service life to three years and the extension of military service to all youth (rural, urban workers, and commoners) was greeted by the people as good news.

The highest military circles carrying out the army reform (the ministry, the General Staff and, of course, the tsar as the supreme commander in chief) intended by the beginning of the 20th century. increase the number of new conscripts to 1 million, expecting that at least a third will be suitable! Thus, it was hoped that in the 20th century. Russia will enter with an army of millions befitting it and will be able to participate in major wars on the continent.

That's basically what happened. In 1894, for the first time, 1 million 50 thousand people were conscripted throughout the country, of which 270 thousand were enlisted, and in the 1904 conscription 1 million 173 thousand people were already conscripted, of whom 425 were enlisted. thousand. Gradually, Russia in terms of the size of its army began to approach a million.

However, the huge size of the army and the rearmament of rifles of 1891 and machine guns associated with its reorganization, which was never completed by the beginning of the 20th century, pushed quartermaster and supply issues into the background, although the need to solve them was obvious in the troops themselves.

The fact is that the entire archaic, patriarchal system of food supply to the army came into conflict with the mass character of the army and could not solve the problem of organizing food for colossal masses of people. It was not only about the huge scale of food, but about the organization of accelerated preparation and nutrition of large masses of people, which was especially difficult in war conditions.

For Russia, with its disorganization and passive resistance from both the lower and upper classes to all innovations, this reorganization of food in the army was an almost impossible task. Russia turned out to be not only unprepared for these innovations, but simply not adapted. It was necessary to change the habits and customs that had developed over centuries, to shake the most conservative foundations - culinary. What specific problems arose and in what order did they occur?

Officers' meals

At first, a seemingly very small, even, one might say, seemingly ridiculous problem arose, if you look at it from the perspective of today, with our eyes of the end of the 20th century, and not its beginning. This is the problem of officers' nutrition.

Although the new charter on universal conscription was introduced in 1874, practically until the end of the Russian-Turkish War of 1877-1878, the last war of the 19th century for the Russian army, nothing changed in army life. There was the usual Russian swing: orders adopted on paper and at headquarters did not reach small units and garrisons and were not affected. And yet, by the beginning of the 20th century. in a quarter of a century there were eight new conscriptions, and by 1900 old army, its composition, its people have changed a lot.

It was then that it was discovered that everywhere in almost all soldier “positions” there were no longer the same old-timers who had spent their entire lives in the army, but there were only newcomers who had come to the army temporarily. This circumstance... affected the well-being of the officers.

How? Here's how: in the tsarist army, any officer necessarily had an orderly, a gratuitous servant, a lackey, like a servant for a noble landowner. The only difference was that this servant was fed and supported not by the officers themselves, but by the state, the army, since the orderly was a soldier. This system was very convenient for officers. The orderly actually served not only the officer personally, but also his entire family, and performed not his military, but his lackey and economic duties. Sometimes senior officers had two or three orderlies, disguised and hidden in the records under different names: one orderly, one messenger, one orderly. For the army these were “empty souls”, “empty place”. IN Peaceful time the officers were actually stripping the army of people, corrupting it with servility and corruption, making it incapable of combat, since almost a quarter, or even a third of its personnel actually did not undergo combat training, being in convoys, as orderlies, as part of various economic commands, etc. P.

The new regulations of 1874 required that all army personnel, everyone who was called into service, undergo combat, combat and tactical training. But at the same time, the authorities were afraid of angering the officers and did not abolish the institution of orderlies. This contradiction was not noticeable at first because it was simply ignored. But by the beginning of the 20th century, it finally came out on its own, because the situation in the army had changed: the “eternal orderlies” left or died, and young conscripts began to avoid the lackey position, and from the point of view of officers they did not approach it, were not adapted.

This inability was especially evident in the fact that the new orderlies could not prepare food for their officers. Washing clothes and repairing an apartment - which did not happen every day and did not require the personal participation of an officer - could still be entrusted to someone else, having the appropriate government allowance for this. But what about preparing lunch, breakfast, dinner? And in general with any feast - everyday or festive, stationary or traveling, in which the main consumer was the officer himself, and which was extremely important for him from all points of view - both saturation and saving money. Previously, an officer would take either a ready-made serf cook as an orderly, or train him, since he had to work for two decades. Usually the qualifications of orderlies were high. They were complete professionals. With the annual change of recruits, using orderlies as cooks was simply no longer technically possible. Wait for the chef to be trained in three to four months? What to do at this time? And why teach if in six months he will still be replaced by another? The officers were clearly sad. And they not only became sad, but also complained. And grumbling among the personnel of the army, even a bad, useless army, is a serious matter. And so it was decided to take action.

Firstly, they reassured the officers by adding to the regulations an optional, but still approved and published by the military department, textbook for future orderlies who could perform the duties of an officer’s cook.

At the very beginning of 1900, in the first winter months, on the shelves of bookstores in St. Petersburg and Moscow an inconspicuous, modest little gray book “Batman for a Cook” with the subtitle “Cookbook for the Military” appeared. It differed from the cookbooks of that time only in that it was incomparably thinner. Almost a brochure. When quickly leafing through it, absolutely nothing original or unusual was noticeable in it: the same pictures of butchering the carcasses of bulls, sheep, pigs as in any cookbook of that time, the same breakdown of recipes for first, second and third courses, the same familiar menu composition: cabbage soup, borscht, roast, chicken, cutlets, boiled and fried fish, jelly and compotes.

The only thing that caught the eye of an experienced book reader was the brand of the publishing house, which was not at all intended to publish cookbooks. “Published by V. Berezovsky” was proudly written on the title page. Only books devoted to military topics, and above all the history of the wars that Russia waged from Peter I to the present, were designated this way. V. Berezovsky was virtually a monopoly on the publication of all military manuals, textbooks for military schools and cadet corps, was the official publisher of the War Ministry, military academies, the General Staff of the Russian Army, and the authorized and privileged publisher of military literature in Russia. V. Berezovsky published it well, on good, durable paper; prominent generals, admirals, and high-ranking court officials were published by him.

And suddenly - a thin cookbook, and even written not by a military cook - a man, but by some woman - Maria Pleshkova, seemingly unknown in the purely culinary, restaurant, culinary and gastronomic environment. In the preface to the manual by M. B. Pleshkova it was said that now, under the new conscription, many young soldiers who know how to read and write, who have completed a three-year parochial village school, will enter the army for the first time. It is for their understanding that a real cook’s textbook is adapted, where, without further ado, several dozen dishes are given that the orderly must master in order to feed his master-officer. So the officer can be calm even with a new set of soldiers: his orderly will not leave him, there is no need to worry.

Secondly, realizing what an ephemeral measure “calmness” in the form of Maria Pleshkova’s book could be, War Ministry decided to generally subject to some revision the system of supply and organization of the supply of troops in relation to the new, coming 20th century, eliminating some of the archaic features. But touching especially this delicate area was considered impossible not only in the Russian army, but also in the European ones. Here, much that was archaic and inconvenient rested and was based solely on traditions, and very old ones at that.

For example, depriving an officer of the opportunity to determine not only his entire kosht, but also the daily menu according to his personal taste, and forcing officers to eat in a common officers' mess - the same dishes for everyone - was imagined back in 1900-1903. absolutely fantastic, impossible. Even the soldiers ate separately in companies and squadrons, according to their own menus, which were not similar (on a given day!) to the menu of the neighboring squadron or company.

In the French army, it was impossible to force even ordinary soldiers to eat according to the canteen-barracks method, who preferred, having received food in dry rations, each to prepare their own food from the received set of products in their own way, in their own combinations and combinations. That is why soldiers’ field kitchens did not appear in France until the First World War and were sent to France not by anyone, but by the Russian military command, which by 1911 had developed field kitchens for the Russian army.

The first in Europe to switch to organized mass catering were soldiers and officers of the German army, where the first military field kitchens in Europe that could operate in combat conditions were also created.

Issues of army nutrition turned out to be closely connected with historical traditions and habits that were pulling back, were inseparable from the problems of the general culture of the nation, from issues of elementary discipline, and were very closely and inextricably dependent on the social composition of the army and its characteristics at the beginning of the 20th century.

Thus, the “kitchen issue” in the army, for those who understood its true military, political and social significance, seemed quite serious and urgent. At the same time, the majority - both the army and the generals, both in the palace and in the royal circle - did not at all consider the need to rush with such a “simple” matter.

It so happened that the “first call,” which sounded quite timely, at the very beginning of the 20th century, did not serve as a truly strong alarm signal, and Maria Pleshkova’s little book remained the only and very naive answer to this call. And they were concerned not about the soldier’s nutrition, but about not leaving the officer without a free servant of all trades.

How they ate at the front during the Russo-Japanese War

The second call that reminded tsarism that in the army and navy the organization of food for all personnel was extremely poor and that the supply of the army in war conditions was completely unworked out and simply collapsed, was the Russian-Japanese War of 1904-1905.

Here, a lot of things were not only clearly revealed (theft, corruption, bribery of quartermasters), but also took on downright frightening forms, since the failure to supply the active army with both food and weapons was the main reason for the shameful loss of this war. There were no field kitchens in the Russian army at that time, hot food was not delivered to the troops at the positions, bread was supplied irregularly and, forcing a half-starved, gagged soldier to get his own food in an unfamiliar country, with unknown, incomprehensible food products, completely confused and demoralized the Russian army, in fact, with his own hands, preparing both defeat and, as a reaction to this defeat, revolution.

Why are there soldiers? Even the officers of the General Staff and officers of foreign armies sent to Manchuria to the front as observers are small in number military group- could not get normal supplies. It all came down to general disorganization, irresponsibility, and the war participants’ disregard for their basic civic responsibilities: mutual support, discipline, mutual assistance and loyalty. There is no longer any need to talk about unsanitary conditions, dirt, and sloppiness in food preparation. It was like a normal phenomenon that everyone had gotten used to and which no one noticed anymore.

It is not surprising, therefore, that during any war in the Russian army two or three times more people died from cholera, dysentery and other diseases than from direct combat operations. This happened in the Crimean War of 1853-1856, and in the Russian-Polish War of 1863-1864, and in the Russian-Turkish War of 1877-1878, and this happened again in the new, 20th century, in the Russian-Japanese War 1904-1905 This is how Count A. A. Ignatiev (A. A. Ignatiev. 50 years in the ranks), who at that time was the head of a group of foreign military attaches in the Russian army, describes the situation in which the meals of senior officers in Manchuria were provided.

“The Laoyang buffet was similar to all Russian station buffets: it was quite dirty, and in the middle of the hall there was a stand with vodka and snacks, which was crowded with officers of all ranks and officials of all ranks from the very morning until late in the evening. It smelled of alcohol and cabbage soup, and everything was shrouded in a gray fog of tobacco smoke; there was a hubbub of drunken and sober voices, always arguing and trying to prove something to each other. Here, four times a day, “for meals,” I had to take military attaches and, sitting with my back to the vodka counter, as if to obscure the unsightly picture of our drunken rear from foreigners.

I did not like the general irritation of my colleagues due to poor food during the days of battle, and I decided to separate myself from the general officers' headquarters canteen.

At the Mukden station, he picked up an abandoned cast-iron stove, gathered a company of several General Staff officers, and after the end of the working day, he himself began to prepare lunch.

I learned kitchen skills from childhood, visiting our house (count's) cook Alexander Ivanovich Kachalov, a student of a once famous Chinese cook in St. Petersburg. A French proverb says that “the art of a cook can be learned, but the art of frying can be born.” It turned out that I was apparently born with this art. Soon I had an assistant - our former house cook - Antoshka, who turned out to be a soldier of the 35th Infantry Division. My canteen flourished and received the nickname “Ignatiev’s canteen.”

Of course, not every officer on the Manchurian fronts had the opportunity to organize food at a fairly satisfactory level, and, moreover, for a small group of privileged commanders, and general staff officers at that, and this small exception only emphasized the unfavorable position in which the bulk of the army officers were, and even more so soldier, at the forefront. There was no bread, no boiling water, and drinking raw water was strictly forbidden due to raging typhoid fever.

Since the Russian command was unable to organize the timely delivery of food from Central Russia, they had to turn to the Americans and purchase canned meat from them. However, American traders, following the example of Russian quartermasters, decided to cash in on this deal and sent canned goods with an expired shelf life to army warehouses, believing that the Russian Vanka would eat something else!

That is why, as A. A. Ignatiev noted, “to the American famous “beefs” in tin cans with the head of a black bull on a red label, which flooded the entire Far East, the old-time officers of the Amur Military District advised to be careful: this stale goods posed a mortal danger.”

During the Russo-Japanese War, Chinese tea was a salvation for a Russian soldier in Manchuria from disease and hunger. This was so obvious that the importance of tea was recognized by everyone - from soldiers to generals. And from then on, tea, which was issued at 1 gram per person (for 100 people - one hundred grams of tea, a pack for one brew), took an honorable place in the rations of the Russian army, no less in prestige than a glass of vodka.

Failures in organizing supplies for front-line units and formations did not teach the tsarist army administration anything: everything was forgotten as soon as the war ended. The second culinary call went in vain.

But the third call - the uprising on the battleship "Prince Potemkin Tauride" because of rotten corned beef in cabbage soup - was so loud that it echoed in other ship and military units and merged with the general revolutionary upsurge of the working class in 1905, contributing to the development of the first Russian revolution 1905-1907

Here it was impossible not to notice the urgent need for reform of the supply and food supply of the army and navy. But it was already too late.

It was no longer about culinary, but about the most serious social, and even more so, socio-political “amendments”, about a radical revision of the foundations on which the backward, archaic system of providing the Russian army with fodder and food was built. This supply system was closely related to the tactical principles that had guided the Russian army for centuries, as well as to the customs and habits of the Russian people. As a result, any break, any change in previous norms or regulations entailed a complex of problems associated with them. To understand what had to be broken, let’s take a brief look at the history of the organization of supply for the Russian army until the 20th century.

Organization of supply for the Russian army until the 20th century.

From time immemorial, on its territory, the Russian army was provided with food from the resources of the local population. Here everything was simple and clear: Russian soldiers, former peasants, continued to eat their usual, home-made, peasant food during hostilities. If military operations had to be carried out on enemy territory, in foreign states, then the Russian soldier showed a persistent reluctance to eat foreign food that was unusual for him. This forced the Russian army to carry huge convoys with the army, which not only made it clumsy and unmaneuverable, but was often the reason for its defeat. However, it was impossible to do without convoys. They carried rye flour for daily baking of hot black bread, sauerkraut, pickled cucumbers and soaked mushrooms. Antonov apples, lingonberries, cranberries, cereal grains, onions and garlic. This was the case in the 15th, 16th, and 17th centuries. The peculiarity of this food was that, while remaining low in calories, it was at the same time saturated with vitamins, enzymes and, being lean, nevertheless created psychological and physiological comfort for the soldiers, which was especially important in the unsettled life of soldiers.

If we also take into account that the army until the 18th century. was also supplied with domestic honey, the general sanitary and preventive level of the food regime in the pre-Petrine Russian army was quite high, especially in comparison with the European armies of that time (for example, German mercenary infantry - Landsknechts), and therefore mortality in the Russian army from disease until the 18th century . was not noted.

But the Russian army, accustomed to Russian food and the supply of domestic food products, was too closely tied to the convoys, which became a heavy burden for it in the event of defeat and the need to retreat. Hence the focus of the Russian command - to always attack and win, so that, having quickly achieved military success, they hastily go back to their country. If this military success was not immediately consolidated politically by tsarist diplomacy in peace treaties and agreements, then temporary military success did not lead to winning the entire war and often ended - illogically and after a number of years - with military-political defeat, expressed in territorial or economic concessions on the part of Russia. And in such a development, in such a result, it is far from last role supplying the army with food played a role. For it was necessary to supply armies of more than 100 thousand and even 250-300 thousand.

Under Peter I, the supply of the army was ensured through the total robbery of the population of the regions adjacent to the theater of military operations. This led, as is known, to the plunder of Poland, Lithuania, Ukraine, Belarus, and Moldova during Peter’s wars to such an extent that these territories began to lag behind Russia even economically by 50-60 years and were able to “catch their breath” only early XIX V.

After Peter I, they returned to the centralized supply of the Russian army - to convoys from Moscow. Moreover, the mass of soldiers themselves were accustomed to this and demanded it, although rather passively.

So, in 1737-1739. German military expert in the Russian army, Christoph Hermann Manstein, who entered Russian service in the troops under Field Marshal Minich and took part in the Russian-Turkish war, reported in his detailed “Notes on Russia” that one of the main reasons for the failure of this campaign was difficulties with supplying the Russian army with food, because the convoys were stuck in the steppes and did not cross Perekop with the troops. “On the entire route from Perekop to Keslov (Kherson Tauride) there was not enough water, for the Tatars, fleeing from the villages, not only burned all kinds of vital supplies, but also spoiled the wells, throwing all sorts of sewage into them. From this we can easily conclude that the army suffered a lot and that illnesses were very frequent. What made the soldiers weak most of all was that they were accustomed to eating sour rye bread, but here they had to eat unleavened wheat bread.” The situation was not helped by the fact that after occupying Kherson and its harbor with the ships stationed there, Russian troops found there “so much Sorochinsky millet and wheat that it was possible to stock up for a much larger army than the number of Russian troops.”

However, the point was not in the availability of food, but in its composition: Russian troops practically could not eat rice (Sorochinskoe millet) and wheat bread - they were not only not accustomed to these products, but also did not have the skills to prepare them. As a result, rice, so necessary, tasty and valued by the Turks as an indispensable component for pilaf and since ancient times throughout Asia - from Turkey to Japan - the main Asian bread, only caused constipation, pellagra and, ultimately, disgust from the Russian peasant soldiers. for... unpleasant taste and palatability. They simply didn’t know how to cook it properly and boiled it in water until it became a tasteless viscous paste. Religious and national prejudices prevented its preparation in Turkish.

Almost a hundred years later, in 1829, A. S. Pushkin, traveling in the footsteps of the advancing Russian army to Erzurum and not knowing, of course, about Manstein’s notes, involuntarily noted the same circumstance, which, as he felt, was characteristic of the Russian people . “Halfway along the road, in an Armenian village, instead of lunch, I ate the damned churek, Armenian bread baked in the form of a flatbread, which the Turkish captives in the Daryal Gorge were so sad about. I would give a lot for a piece of Russian black bread, which was so disgusting to them.” Recalling this episode a few years later in another place and on another occasion, Pushkin reported that his friend Count Sheremetev, when asked whether he liked France, its capital, answered: “It’s bad, brother, to live in Paris, black bread and then You won’t be questioned!”

This was the case with bread, the main Russian national food, both in the lower classes and even in the most sophisticated upper classes, who, of course, did not limit themselves to bread alone, but could afford other gastronomic pleasures.

And here the same Pushkin no longer felt any gustatory discomfort from the unusual food combinations, nor national attachment to familiar, traditional Russian food, for we were talking about foreign meat dishes and the use of alcoholic beverages with these dishes. And in this matter, that is, in the consumption of alcohol and meat, as is known, men of all races and nations are absolutely cosmopolitan. “At lunch,” Pushkin writes the very next day! “We washed down the Asian kebab with English beer and champagne.” From the point of view of normal gastronomic canons, even the 20th century. this action can be considered almost barbaric, because fried, or rather grilled lamb meat, from which only real Caucasian kebab can be prepared, can, should be and is acceptable from the point of view of taste and elementary aromatic consistency, washed down only with dry red wine: Bordeaux, Burgundy, Karabakh, Kakheti, Italian Barolo or Chianti, Moldavian Rare Neagra or Cabernet. But only necessarily red, grape. And certainly not beer, suitable for vulgar sausages and sausages, and not refined, light champagne, intended either for toasts not associated with any food, or, at worst, suitable after cheese and fruit, as the end of dessert!

But if noble-bourgeois bohemians or too “uninhibited” aristocrats in their hussar daring could violate any generally accepted traditions, including the most natural and rooted conservative food traditions, the laws of the table, then commoners, soldiers, former peasants and artisans, never in their lives who did not experience “gastronomic corruption” and had neither the means nor the opportunity to show “gastronomic liberties and escapades”, steadfastly adhered to national customs in nutrition both throughout the 19th century and at the beginning of the 20th century, when the Russian-Japanese War broke out .

It must be said that during the 19th century. The food situation in the Russian army was deteriorating more and more, and these deteriorations began immediately after Patriotic War 1812, or rather with the beginning of Arakcheevism, and especially intensified during the time of Nicholas, when all former remnants of patriarchalism in the Russian army were completely eliminated.

Under Nicholas I, a strict, hungry, soldier’s regimen was introduced, and practically only three food products were left in the soldiers’ diet: cabbage, peas and oats. In the army, where he had to serve for a quarter of a century, a soldier, being in a barracks position like a prisoner in a prison, had to eat only three types of soup: cabbage soup, pea soup and haber soup, as oatmeal soup was officially called (a corruption of the German Hafersupp). This diet, supplemented by three constant second courses - barley or pearl barley porridge, pea porridge and occasionally corned beef added to them, made up the entire “rich” assortment, by various combinations and the permutations of which exhausted the entire soldier’s menu.

Thus, by the middle of the 19th century. there was a catastrophic depletion of the range of soldiers' food products, which, on the one hand, caused high morbidity and mortality among soldiers, and on the other, reduced the physical strength and weakened the psyche of the Russian soldier, the Russian army, which began to suffer defeat after defeat: in 1830-1831 . V Polish war, in 1849 in Hungary, in 1854-1856. in the Crimean War and in 1863-1864. during the suppression of the Polish uprising. And this, combined with the psychological depression of the soldiers, led to the middle of the 19th century. to the degradation of the Russian army.

So, the norms for food in the army, food intended for the mass of soldiers (for the officers each ate solely due to their personal wealth and inclinations, at their own expense, received in the form of salaries, special canteen money depending on rank and position, and other income) were established under Peter I and revised less often than the uniform was changed - the main concern of Russian military leaders! - and even less frequently than the process of equipping the army with new types of weapons.

In 1720, a standard table salary, unchanged for decades, was established for soldiers - 75 kopecks. for salt and 72 kopecks. for meat. It was issued to privates along with their pay. Only in 1802 was this order changed - instead of a fixed sum of money, it was determined that a year a soldier should eat 84 pounds (34 kg 40 g) of beef and 20 pounds of salt (8 kg 180 g) if he was a combatant, and a non-combatant received meat is exactly half as much - 42 pounds. Depending on the price of meat in a particular province, the monetary amount of payment for these products was determined, which was called food money. Thus, a soldier's diet included about 3 kg of meat per month, or approximately 100 g per day. Salt is almost 23 g per day! This order was maintained until 1857 - until the end of the ingloriously lost Crimean War, which revealed the entire rottenness of the supply of the tsarist army.

It was again decided to switch from food standards to a fixed allowance of so-called welding money for soldiers. Let them get what they want for themselves! We settled on the fact that 3.5 kopecks a day would be enough to feed a soldier, while a non-combatant would cost 2.5 kopecks. However, life quickly broke these calculations.

The abolition of serfdom in 1861 and the creation of a capitalist market in a country that was not organically adapted to it led to a chaotic development of prices. They increased sharply in the capitals and could not rise in any way in the remote provinces: in the country there were catastrophic “scissors” in prices between large cities and the provinces, which led to the ruin of both peasants and many provincial landowners-nobles and to the strengthening of a new rising class - merchants and kulaks, buyers of bankrupt farms.

The army, or rather its mass of soldiers, found itself in a difficult situation in these unexpected conditions.

Belatedly, but with amazing “speed” for Russian normal conditions, the principles of army rations were revised already in 1871, which was also prompted by external events - the total defeat of the vaunted French army by the Prussian soldiers of William I. It is significant that there was nothing new that met the objectives the coming historical period and dictated precisely by its specifics, was not invented. After all, for this it would be necessary to seriously study the economics of capitalism, and the features of the Russian emerging market, and, finally, the real needs of the troops, ordinary soldiers, taking into account their physical and professional load. And this was difficult, too new, and terribly troublesome. Therefore, they acted more simply and, as it turned out, in the traditional Russian way: seeing that the new scheme (1857) did not work at all, they decided to return to the very old one, Peter’s, remembering that Peter I understood something in military affairs , and always won victories. However, they completely forgot that it is impossible to equate the 18th century with the 20th century, not to mention the fact that we should look forward, not back. And this was never understood in Russia, or rather, they refused to understand, stubbornly insisting that they were “learning from history.”

So, they decided, as in the 18th century, to restore the conditional division of food provided to soldiers into provisions - obligatory, indispensable food - and privarok - food, as it were, optional, which a soldier could do without if something happened. (This is what Tsar Peter I himself believed.) Mandatory for a soldier, as the Tsar believed, were bread and salt and, of course, water, which in that distant time was still immeasurable and pure, spring water. The daily dose (portion) of bread was 2 pounds 25.5 spools of rye flour and 32 spools of cereal, usually pearl barley. This food was to be given to the soldiers in kind, regardless of the prices that were set for these goods on the market, and regardless of how much the treasury actually had to pay for them. The soldiers were given the right to form into artels and bake bread from the flour they received - hearth, pecked - whatever they wanted. At the same time, the entire difference in the actual prices for flour and all the savings received in baking from the skillful use of flour were generously turned in favor of the soldiers' artel, and were not calculated, as under Peter I, back in favor of the treasury. This was, of course, the height, the triumph of autocratic democracy, which tsarism achieved in the era of imperialism that came after the Franco-Prussian War. Tsarism, under the pressure of the Narodnaya Volya terror, did take something into account in the form of the mood of the mass of soldiers. True, even here there was some purely Russian bureaucratic pettiness: 365 days a year were equated to 360 days in the army. And the portion of flour and cereals was given for 360 days, that is

2 lb 25.5 spool × 360 = 720 lb 918 spool,

or in modern measures weights:

294 kg 480 g + 39 kg 162 g = 333 kg 642 g flour, or 913.6 g per day instead of 926.5 g, as it should have been per day.

Thus, the treasury snatched for itself from each soldier 13 g of flour per day, which, taking into account the million-strong army, amounted to a saving of 13 tons of rye flour per day, and during the soldier’s year - 4680 tons of flour or 304 thousand poods, which is a “surplus” annually exported abroad! True, in fairness it should be admitted that the standard of bread supplied per soldier in the Russian army was the highest in the world. It was believed that in Russia a soldier had to eat 1 kg 25 g of bread per day (more precisely 1028 g), and in Germany and France he received only 750 g. At the same time, the Russian soldier ate black, natural rye bread, rich in vitamins and more satisfying , and the European soldier received only white, wheat bread, which the Russians considered too “flimsy.” Along with bread, one Russian soldier had 49 kg of cereal per year, mainly pearl barley and buckwheat, approximately equally divided. This also significantly exceeded what a Western European soldier received, whose porridge was replaced by vegetables. In addition to this obligatory provisions - bread and porridge, given either flour, or crackers, or grain, depending on local circumstances - the soldier was also entitled to a ration, which should have included meat, fats (butter or lard), vegetables, pepper and wheat flour in small quantities, used according to Russian custom as a side dish for soups, to thicken them, since clear soup was considered “water” among the soldiers, even if it was the strongest meat broth. The Russian commoner is accustomed to trusting his eyes first, and then his sense of touch. And so he believed what he saw and what he could touch. At the same time, the eye was often allowed to deceive the stomach. Here convention could well triumph over reality. And the people, the common people, were not bothered by this. The main thing is that everything should not be better, but as it should be, as we are used to, as it seemed to most that it was better.

In such a psychological situation, any improvements were in principle impossible. They met resistance from both above and below. And “Russian solidarity” was established on the basis of mutually acceptable infringement of the lower classes and abuse and indifference of the upper classes. But it was normal, “as it should be,” sanctified by habit and custom.

So, welding, in the sense of its simple, limited composition, was determined by the army authorities as a whole, and welding money had to be paid for its purchase, and not products, with which, naturally, it would be troublesome for the army authorities to tinker, especially since the welding included perishable products - meat, vegetables, fats. That is why all the worries about welding were entrusted to the soldiers themselves. The task of saving drowning people was entrusted to the drowning people themselves. And this was considered completely natural, fair and... democratic. The soldiers, of course, entrusted the organization of purchases of welded food to their immediate company superiors, and they, having money and constantly referring to price movements, purchased products as cheaply as possible - meat not of the first, but of the second and even third grade, vegetables not fresh, but spoiled and withered. For vegetables, a consumption of 1.25 kg per day was provided, that is, 4.5 rubles. per year, so few vegetables were bought, and these were only peas and cabbage. Salt and pepper also cost 4.5 rubles a year. This is how General A. A. Ignatiev describes the use and sale of welding money in the guard back in 1902-1903, on the eve of the Russian-Japanese War.

“When I received the squadron, I immediately learned in the office that I had to buy all the people’s allowances (150 hours) myself with “welding” money. “Soup soup and porridge are our food,” said an old military saying. And indeed, in the tsarist army, lunch from these two dishes was prepared everywhere in an exemplary manner.

There was one thing I didn’t like: six people were slurping cabbage soup from one cup with wooden spoons. But my project to have individual bowls failed, since the platoon commanders persisted in the opinion that porridge in common cups was hotter and tastier.

The worst situation was with dinner, for which, according to the official plan, only cereals and lard were provided. The so-called gruel was prepared from them, which most soldiers in the cavalry regiment did not even touch. In the Uhlan regiment, however, they ate it out of hunger, but those who could, preferred to buy a sieve for tea with their own money.

Once I complained about the poverty of our dinner plan to the old captain from the neighboring horse-grenadier regiment. And then he told me his secret:

- Leave some meat from lunch, and if you can save on the price of hay, then buy five extra pounds from the fodder, get a baking sheet - and fry the chopped meat and onions on it; Cook the gruel separately, and then add the fried meat into it.

That's what I did. Soon, to the envy of other squadrons, the 3rd Lancers began to receive a delicious dinner.”

However, such “lucky exceptions” were rare and only emphasized the general limitations and stupidity in the organization of army nutrition.

At the same time, the quantitative standards for welding products were higher in the Russian army than in European ones. The daily supply of meat for Russian soldiers was established at the turn of the 19th-20th centuries. in 307 g, while the French have 300, and the Germans have 180 g of meat and 26 g of lard, the Austrians have 190 g of meat and 10 g of lard. However, in all foreign armies, the amount of funds allocated for food supplies was commensurate not only with local prices (for each garrison!), but also with the burden of service, with the conditions of cooking food, and was adjusted to the actual movement of troops when food supply sharply increased. That's why cash for food, based on certain product standards, were at the same time issued and differentiated depending on the time of year and were sold monthly or, in extreme cases, quarterly.

In the Russian army, the allowance for welding was determined once and for all for the year, as a result of which inflationary fluctuations in prices, which began to trouble the Russian economy from the beginning of the 20th century, were determined. and especially after the Russo-Japanese War, they practically “ate” the lion's share“welding money”, turning all “high standards” of allowance into paper fiction. Layered on top of this were all sorts of local abuses common to Russia: embezzlement, fraud of food suppliers and quartermasters, direct disregard for the interests of soldiers on the part of petty authorities - sergeant majors, boatswains, foremen, who snatched where they could “their share” from the already nibbled “soldier’s welding pie.” "

After the Russian-Turkish war of 1877-1878, in which the Russian army, at the limit of its strength, defeated the even more backward and even more corrupt Turkish army, the tsarist government and command, taking into account massive frostbite and colds in the troops in the high mountain regions, introduced a wine allowance, or a wine portion, a glass (145 g) and a half-charka (72.5 g) as a compulsory food supply.

In 1905, after the lost Russian-Japanese war, order No. 769 established a tea allowance for the army, as in the English and Japanese armies. The tea allowance included money allocated to buy 0.48 spools of tea and 6 spools of sugar per day, that is, 737 g of tea per year, while in the English army a soldier received 2.5 kg of tea per year, and a sailor English fleet more than 3 and even 3.5 kg (on cruisers and battleships).

However, this consumption rate was still higher than that to which Russian peasants were accustomed, from where the mass of soldiers was recruited. As for sugar, 9 kg 215 g per year also exceeded the norm that a Russian peasant could afford at the beginning of the 20th century. True, in peasant farms Honey, both wild bees and apiary honey, was often consumed, but this did not happen in all provinces, and in general, the Russian soldier had more sugar than a peasant could afford before being drafted into the army. Some of them were not familiar with sugar at all before serving in the army.

However, the tea allowance according to the order of 1905 did not apply to all soldiers. A soldier received tea in kind only when for some reason he could not eat hot food from a common cauldron, that is, tea was given to the soldiers only when they received food in dry rations. This recognized the need for tea, even its indispensability when feeding a soldier dry food on the road. It was impossible to do without tea here. As for sugar, in order to prevent abuses among the troops when distributing this product, which was then still rare for the lower social strata of Russia, the sugar portion was given only in kind and directly into the hands of the soldiers - daily or every other day, depending on the decision of the unit commander. At the same time, soldiers who committed disciplinary offenses and were placed in the guardhouse under strict, enhanced arrest were deprived of both tea and sugar, but during simple arrests, a portion of tea and sugar was retained for them.

From the beginning of 1911, the food supply of the fleet, especially the Baltic, was significantly improved, given the uprisings in the fleet in 1905 and the proximity of the Baltic Fleet to the capital and the royal residence. But the increase in the diversity of food composition affected only elite sea crews, mainly on cruising and battleships.

Since 1911, the sea portion per day began to include a sea glass - 140 g of vodka or 1/100 of a measuring bucket (14 l). During sea voyages abroad, vodka was replaced with sea rum, and sailors who refused a portion of wine were given money at the rate of 8 kopecks once a month. for every glass not drunk, and this money was added to the sailor's salary. On submarines, all food rations, including tea and wine, were increased by 50 percent, that is, they were one and a half times the normal rate.

Thus, at the beginning of the 20th century. On the eve of the First World War, some palliative, mitigating measures were taken aimed at improving the food supply of at least the elite and capital troops and eliminating or at least smoothing out the negative political effect that was caused by the disgusting food supply of the troops and navy on the eve of the 1905 revolution.

However, it was no longer possible for the tsarist government to prevent a political explosion with purely culinary, and very limited, modest palliative means. Moreover, it is the sailors Baltic Fleet could have been better informed about the lavish lunches and dinners that are held not only in St. Petersburg royal palaces: Zimny, Tsarskoye Selo, Gatchina and others - but also directly on the ships of the Baltic Fleet during the stay of members of the royal family on them, and especially on the royal and grand ducal yachts “Standart”, “Zabiyaka”, “Polar Star”, which more than once went on voyages abroad in the Baltic under the imperial flag.

Soon after the end of the Russo-Japanese War, back in 1905, a commission was formed to reform the food supply of the Russian army and navy. The uprising on the Potemkin further accelerated its work and gave it a practical focus in the sense of focusing on the daily menu of soldiers and sailors and establishing a more stable and uniform diet for all armed forces.

By the summer of 1906, the commission completed its work, and at the end of 1906, Lieutenant Colonel N.D. Garlinsky’s book “Reform of the Army and Navy Nutrition” in two parts was published.

Part 1 “On the Laws of Nutrition” was devoted to general theoretical issues, the study of the physiologically necessary norms of products and their assortment for people with various physical activities as applied to the army - for combatants and non-combatants. Part 2 was directly devoted to the development of new layouts for soldiers and sailors with their motivation, a list of products in grams and the development of standard menus.

The work of the commission, thus, was limited to correcting obvious shortcomings in the daily ration of the rank and file, trying to strictly define those norms that should not have been violated in individual units, and trying to control the weight of the input products to stop theft in the army.

However, the archaic and complex food supply system for the army and navy itself was not subject to any revision.

The food supply of the Russian army by 1906 consisted of three seemingly different parts:

1. Food allowance.

2. Welding allowance.

3. Tea allowance, introduced only in 1905

Provisions meant those products with which army quartermasters or provision offices had to supply the rank and file in kind on a stable basis, once and for all established standards. In other words, they bore full responsibility for the accurate and timely provision of troops with 1) bread/flour, 2) salt, 3) cereals, 4) vodka.

As is easy to see, all of these were practically non-perishable or non-perishable products, and this was not food yet, but only raw materials or semi-finished products for its preparation.

In this area, nothing changed at all: the supply of these basic food raw materials remained the same as it was enshrined in the regulations of 1874, which we mentioned above.

Welding allowances also continued to be provided in the form of the release of certain amounts of money to the commanders of units, companies and squadrons for daily hot meals for lower ranks. The only thing that was new was that from 1906 money was not issued for a year at once, but for every third of the year separately, by season - for summer, autumn, winter, so that the commanders themselves used the seasonal price situation to purchase cheaper seasonal ones. products, and thereby introduce more vegetables into the soldiers’ diet in summer and autumn. In terms of this type of product, the Russian soldier lagged behind the French (ally) by almost five times. However, in practice, the soldiers’ nutrition was again entrusted to the officers, or, as they were called, to the father-commanders, that is, it was made dependent on subjective factors that could not be taken into account or controlled.

The Tsarist military department did not want to go to the extent of organizing barracks meals on the basis of a permanently operating single canteen, say, on the scale of a regiment or brigade, considering this matter to be troublesome and unprofitable. It would have been better to give the “welding” in money, and then let the company and platoon commanders rack their brains on how to get daily food from this money - be it hot or anything else.

Thus, the main task of the reform - to eradicate arbitrariness in the army in the field of nutrition for the rank and file - was again not only bypassed, but was actually solved in exactly the way that was unacceptable. The tsarist “reformers” were afraid to change the essence of the organization of food for the army.

Finally, the so-called tea allowance provided, on the one hand, for the direct supply of platoons and companies with dry tea and sugar according to newly established standards daily (daily), on the other hand, the issuance of their monetary equivalent along with a natural supply of these products at will or according to circumstances ( unit moving, hiking, etc.). In addition, the amount of tea allowance included expenses for tea utensils (mugs), which were first introduced in the Russian army in 1907, and for... coal for samovars. These expenses amounted to 5 kopecks. per year per person: a cavalry squadron of 100 people received 5 rubles once a year for these purposes, a company of 200 people - 10 rubles, for which it was supposed to purchase aluminum or tin mugs and a sack of coal.

Thus, we can say that “the mountain gave birth to a mouse,” because the “reform” did not change one iota the archaic system of organizing food in the army and even strengthened it even more by introducing a samovar, coal, a kindling stick, a pipe and a casing for blowing up the samovar into the life of the troops, complicating barracks life with additional economic manipulations and thereby increasing the load of soldiers with auxiliary, menial work, cutting down the time for tactical and fire training of the rank and file. They again forgot about how this whole system would operate not in a city barracks, but in the field conditions of battle, although the war in Manchuria clearly showed that kitchen and nutrition - weakest point in the Russian army.

The “reform” of 1906 somewhat streamlined and regulated the issuance of “feed money” for the time when troops or individual military personnel were on the move, and determined the composition and size (weight) of dry rations. Since 1906, it consisted of crackers, salt, sugar, tea and was divided into full (for 8 days) and short (for 3 days), based on a total amount of 25 kopecks. per day per person.

At the same time, the traditional for Russia “contentment from ordinary people” during the movement of troops, which no longer corresponded to the relations in the new century, was preserved. But from now on it was strictly regulated.

Firstly, only lower ranks, individually or with a small non-staff team following the stage, could benefit from allowances from ordinary people. The inhabitants, that is, the owners of the house and hut, were obliged to feed the military twice during overnight stays - once in the evening upon arrival for the night and a second time in the morning upon departure. When detained for a so-called day's rest, the number of mandatory feedings increased to four: one upon arrival for the night, two during daylight hours, and one in the morning when leaving the populated area the next day. The treasury had to pay for such in-kind allowances for the lower ranks, paying the corresponding receipts according to government standards - at the rate of 20-25 kopecks. per day.

Thus, the preservation of customs traditional for past centuries seemed more important for the “creators” of “food reform” than the introduction of new orders dictated by the new time, the new century.

It is difficult to establish the years of life and age in 1906 of Lieutenant Colonel D.N. Garlinsky, since this name is not found in any of the reference books of the tsarist era, and is also not noted in the Moscow and St. Petersburg necropolises. However, we can say with almost certainty that the layouts and menus given in his book as typical for the army and navy bear the undoubted stamp of his personal authorship. Moreover, in the first part he acts as a nutritionist, revealing a good professional familiarity with the theories of the late 19th - early 20th centuries. in the field of nutritional physiology, so we can assume that he was, apparently, a military doctor, who was entrusted with the practical preparation of the menu in the commission and who was perhaps almost the only specialist in the field of nutrition in the entire commission, consisting of quartermaster generals and military administrators.

Below is the food layout and menu samples introduced in the Russian army in 1906, developed by a commission, actually Lieutenant Colonel N.D. Garlinsky, and approved by the War Ministry. They remained unchanged until the revolution in October 1917.

Menu of soldiers' and sailors' cuisine after the revolution of 1905-1907.

Daily food allowances:

Meat in soup - 160 g (boiled)

Milk - 245 g (one mug)

Tea - 1 g (100 g brew per 100 people)

Sugar - 25 g (honey - 68 g - sugar replacement!)

Black bread - 1225 g (per dacha 409 g - pound)

White bread - from 306 to 204 g (in different parts once at breakfast)

When white bread was issued, the norm of black bread was reduced to 1125 g, and in the absence of white bread, the daily norm of black bread was set at 1450 g.

First dishes on the fast days of the year

Meat soups, cabbage soup and borscht:

1. Cabbage soup with meat (sour)

2. Borscht with meat (beets, cabbage, beans, potatoes, onions, garlic, bay leaf)

3. Soup with meat and vegetables (carrots, peas, potatoes, parsley, onions)

4. Rassolnik

5. Okroshka with meat

6. Borscht made from greens with meat (nettle, quinoa, sorrel, sorrel, beet leaves)

7. Potato soup with meat

8. Oatmeal or pearl barley soup with meat

9. Meat soup with rice

10. Lazy cabbage soup (from fresh cabbage) with meat

Seasoning soups:

List of names of filling soups in the Russian army in 1906

1. Cabbage soup with cabbage

3. Green cabbage soup

4. Potato soup

5. Cereal soup

6. Rice soup

7. Soup with ears

8. Tomato soup (with pasta)

9. Cabbage soup (soup with millet, sauerkraut and lard). An extremely stupid and tasteless culinary combination!

10. Buttermilk soup. It was prepared not with water, but with churning, in which oatmeal or barley groats were boiled. An extremely tasteless and incorrect culinary and taste combination. It was compiled solely on the basis of acceptable monetary costs and calorie content

Seasoning soups - since the 70s of the 19th century. a term exclusively for military cuisine in Russia. Such soups, although prepared without meat, belonged to the fast table, to the table containing animal products; this meant that the broth for them was made from bones, and they were seasoned with animal fat for fat content (nutritional content), that is, lard, usually pork and less often melted beef.

Later, already during the years of the First World War and the Revolution, the term “seasoning soups” was transferred to civilian cuisine, where it took root in the public catering system in Soviet times with a slightly different meaning: soups that, after boiling bone broth, were seasoned with various additives in order to give them more flavor. "commodity" appearance compared to soups cooked “at home” - simultaneously with meat and vegetables. As a result, “refueling” soups began to differ even more sharply from “homemade” soups, from ordinary Russian soups and home-cooked cabbage soup in their unnaturalness, artificiality, poor taste, and low nutritional quality. And they were prepared only in canteens, public catering, bad restaurants, and later - in all restaurants where the elements of homemade, natural, natural preparation were completely banished.

Having become traditional “refueling” soups, this category of first courses completely broke with the principles of Russian cuisine, since its main rule was the dressing with all sorts of overcooked food products and then introduced into the boiling broth in order to tint the broth. So, the onions were overcooked, the lard was heated into cracklings, the sugar was caramelized (slightly browned) - and all this with the goal of coloring the soup in an intense “golden”, “reddish” color, more appetizing than the cloudy gray, which turns brown when cooked on a mass scale. and opaque.

But the most unpleasant, the most unacceptable hallmark filling soups was that their already unnatural, arbitrarily created composition and taste were completed with completely unexpected, culinary not only mediocre, but also unnatural “additives” and “extras”. Since some seasoning soups, for example from barley, did not have enough calories, it was allowed to add a little skim milk to them, contrary to the rules of good (or rather, normal) taste. As a result, lard and overcooked onions were mixed with a nasty “aroma” that inevitably appeared from the combination of this unnatural mixture of three completely normal (each on its own!) products.

If the bones were put into the soup, pre-greased, half-rotten (and this was absolutely always the case), then the stench spread by such a “refueling” culinary product drove even very persistent people out of the barracks: it smelled of rancid glue, waste from soap production and some other indescribable the disgusting thing that resulted when trying to “kill” the smell of rotten meat by increasing the dose of salt and pepper. It was impossible to eat this soup: there was no longer enough human endurance. It seemed that things couldn't get any worse. But it happened even worse: when this stench, unable to escape from the cramped space of the cockpit, hung ominously in the air, it seemed forever. That is why it was in the navy that the most desperate, most violent food riots took place. The stench there was worse than death! Therefore, they not only refused to eat such “soup”, but, having forcibly taken away the boilers and thermoses with food from the boatswains, they defiantly poured their contents either onto the deck (upper, officer’s deck), or onto the quay wall or pier.

So the army, soldier's cuisine, having entered the life of the masses after the First World War, spoiled the Russian folk peasant cuisine throughout the country, precisely at its base, in the lower classes. Such was the indirect pernicious influence of the war on folk life in our huge, populous and extremely dark, illiterate country back in the mid-1910s.

Second meals in the army

Porridge as main dishes:

1. Buckwheat porridge

2. Egg porridge (barley)

3. Millet porridge

According to the layout for these porridges, it was necessary for 1 person: cereals - 100 g, onions - 20 g, lard - 34 g.

For buckwheat porridge, such combinations are very good in culinary terms. 100 g of cereal is boiled when cooked in a Russian oven to almost 0.5 kg of porridge (453 g) and in combination with onions, which are extremely suitable for buckwheat, and with pork, especially lard, they give a tasty, satisfying dish.

For millet porridge, these combinations produce a passable dish, but it must be prepared more thoroughly, and the proportion of onions must be at least doubled to make the dish more palatable. However, the dose of onion, naturally, was the same as for any porridge - 20 g, exactly according to the layout.

For barley porridge and pearl barley, such combinations of products are simply terrible, they are incompatible. In Russian folk cuisine, egg porridge was never seasoned with lard and onions, but was eaten only “empty”, like water porridge with sour cranberries or cranberry jelly or fruit juice. These products are well combined and digestible, the dish tastes good. But the army layout, the army “cooking”, put all dishes under the same brush and did not take into account folk methods, habits, and traditions. As a result, at least once a week, the soldiers received a hated dish, which they either threw away or, having chipped in, sold it in advance to buyers... for livestock feed, and with the money they bought a bun, that is, white bread, and ate it with tea.

Main courses on fasting days, where porridge or vegetables were a side dish, and the basis was meat or fish

1. Stewed or fried beef (meat - 160 g, lard - 34 g)

2. Cutlets (meat - 128 g, lard - 34 g, additives in the cutlet - 43 g)

3. Meatballs with onions (meat - 128 g, onions - 40 g, additives in meatballs - 43 g)

4. Corned beef with cabbage (meat - 160 g)

5. Corned beef with peas

6. Corned beef with baked beets (beets)

7. Meat and potato casserole (meat - 128 g)

8. Pilaf with rice and lamb (meat - 128 g, lard - 34 g)

9. Little Russian sausage with cabbage or beets (sausages - 240 g, beets - 280 g, cabbage - 300 g)

10a. Mamalyga with lard and cottage cheese. Tasty and healthy! Innovation

10b. Mamaliga with lard, garlic sauce and pickled cucumbers

11. Onion stew (meat - 80 g, lard - 34 g, shallots - 300 g). An extremely healthy, tasty dish. They didn’t realize it or understand it then. This is why the layout contains either amazingly simple but tasty dishes, or culinary awkward, tasteless, or even simply disgusting dishes.

12. Sauce from stumps (meat - 80 g, lard - 34 g, stumps or kohlrabi - 240 g, potatoes - 240 g, tomato - 75 g, onion - 20 g). The name "sauce", introduced into Russian cooking in late XVIII V. when translating French books, it did not mean a sauce for this or that dish, but meant a mixture (assortment) of meat and vegetables. It was a very tasty dish, very healthy and easily digestible. It was prepared, however, rarely, as it required fuss: peeling vegetables, slicing.

13. Stuffed eggplants (meat - 40 g, lard - 34 g, rice - 80 g, tomato - 80 g, onion - 20 g, eggplant - 400 g). Prepared for troops located in the Novorossiysk Territory, Crimea, and the Don Army Region.

Second courses are modest, prepared less frequently (after 1906)

1. Jelly from ox and pork legs (golia) with horseradish

2. Stuffed cabbage rolls with meat

3. Pasta with cottage cheese (lard - 34 g, cottage cheese - 80 g, pasta - 200 g). In the southern garrisons and units - with Caucasian, Chanakh, Ossetian, etc. cheese.

4. Dumplings with cottage cheese

5. Dumplings with cottage cheese

6. Porridge with milk (milk - 0.5 l), cereals - 100 g

7. Potato cutlets with milk or meat gravy

8. Milk noodles

9. Pumpkin porridge with millet

10. Pancakes

11. Young corn on the cob (cow butter, melted butter - 27 g). For southern, Ukrainian and Novorossiysk garrisons and units.

Menu for fasting days of the year

First meal:

1. Cabbage soup with smelt

2. Cabbage soup with mushrooms

3. Mushroom borscht with lean butter (sunflower oil - 32 g). A wild combination: food was spoiled for the sake of religion and ideology.

4. Borage mushroom

5. Lean green cabbage soup

6. Ukha (fish - 150 g, potatoes - 240 g)

7. Mushroom soup (dry mushrooms - 8 g)

8. Lean cabbage (sunflower oil - 32 g, millet - 92 g, cabbage - 300 g). Disgusting, unpleasant-tasting food.

9. Herring soup (herring - 100 g, sunflower oil - 32 g, potatoes - 240 g). The dish is disgusting in smell and taste. When they brought him into the dining room, many people vomited. The soldiers asked the sergeant majors for permission to “go out and recover,” which was considered a violation, but they agreed to do this so as not to smell the terrible, sickening smell. The point was that such a dish was culinaryly incorrect in composition, and sloppy in the nature of preparation (herring by weight was cooked with giblets and milk, with the head).

10. Lenten okroshka. A good dish, especially in summer.

11. Pea soup

12. Lentil soup (lentils - 136 g, garlic - 16 g, onions - 20 g, white bread - 130 g, black bread - 400 g). A very tasty dish, but it was given rarely, during major church fasts: during Lent and Philippi.

13. Soup with fish and abalone (fresh fish - 50 g)

14. Little Russian fruit soup (sugar - 40 g, prunes - 160 g). In fact, prune jelly was given once a year - during Lent.

Second courses of the Lenten table:

1. Fresh fried fish (fish - 150 g)

2. Boiled cod with horseradish (salted cod - 200 g)

3. Fish meatballs (fish - 150 g)

4. Fish aspic (fish - 225 g)

5. Herring mash (forshmak!)

6. Fish salad (fish - 150 g, boiled vegetables - 300 g, potatoes, carrots, beets, onions)

7. Mushroom stew (mushrooms - 8 g, olives - 8 g, onions - 40 g, tomato - 50 g, pepper, salt, potatoes - 400 g)

8. Porridge: buckwheat, oatmeal, barley with vegetable oil (wood oil - 34 g). This, of course, is spoiling the porridge!

9. Mixed vegetables

10. Potato cutlets with mushroom gravy

11. Dumplings with cabbage

12. Boiled peas with lean butter

13. Boiled beans with lean butter

14. Buckwheat porridge with hemp milk (oil). 100 g of hemp seed per person.

15. Greek-style eggplant pilaf with vegetable oil

16. Eggplants fried in vegetable oil

17. Young beans (green beans)

18. Pancakes with honey

Although the dishes compiled by product were healthy, tasty, healthy, they were not typical of Russian cuisine; they were prepared incorrectly, mechanically, without taking into account the special technology used in pre-processing eggplants. As a result, they didn't come out as expected. In addition, the product itself - eggplants - was so unfamiliar to the Russian peasant or worker who ended up in the army, their taste was so unusual that the soldiers, out of ignorance, were afraid of these dishes and did not eat them, sometimes they simply did not touch them.

Such a prejudice against eggplants was colorfully described by the writer V. Dedlov (V. Dedlov. Around Russia), who demonstrated in one of his stories how not an ordinary man, but a small Russian merchant, accustomed only to Russian cuisine, reacted even to properly prepared eggplants in a restaurant.

“When the eggplants were finally brought, he seemed to doubt:

- Well, well... it looks like... It looks like a huge plum... It looks like leather... or some kind of gut... Well, oh well...

He took a piece and brought it to his mouth, but stopped.

- And you’re not joking that the Italians sing their praises?

- Not joking. I heard it myself in Naples.

Then, with the air of a man about to throw himself into the water, he put the piece into his mouth. As soon as he did this, he became strikingly like a man who had jumped into either ice-cold water or boiling water.

In such cases, horror is depicted on the face, which at the first moment is mixed with the deepest bewilderment. Both in in every sense words are mute: a person turns to stone. But this is only for one moment, and the next the tetanus is replaced by supernatural mobility: legs jump, arms wave, the face is distorted in a thousand ways, the man himself rushes about as if it were possible to be in a hundred places at once. This is a very interesting sight.

In a word, he and I almost quarreled.

“Thank you,” he says, his eyes sparkling. - Very good thing! - And shudders. - Oh my God! I thought: eggplant, and this is made with... Oh, my God, with Provençal oil!

- What an abomination! They're pouring lamp oil down your throat!..

- Yes, you know that the New Greeks drink Provençal oil by the glass...

At these words, my companion disappeared into the restroom.

When he recovered, he wrote down in his memory book all the native names of Moldavian dishes: eggplant in Greek, and moussaka, and plakia, and others - so that during his stay in the south he would somehow not make a mistake and ask himself in a tavern anything made with vegetable oil.

“That’s why the Greeks are like araps,” he concluded after this incident, “because they crack all kinds of rubbish, all kinds of carrion.”

If the Russian “middle strata” at the beginning of the 20th century reacted in this way to unfamiliar, unusual food, then one can easily imagine how illiterate peasant boys from the Russian hinterlands, who had never seen not only eggplants and olive oil, but they didn’t even know what white bread and sugar were, which they only became acquainted with in the army.

But in addition to fasting and fasting, there was also a festive table in the army and navy. Three times a year, big holidays, and they were Christmas, Easter and His namesake day Imperial Majesty, Tsar-Father Nicholas II, the soldiers were entitled to a special, festive table, or rather meat dishes from the Sunday fast table, which were accompanied by some special dishes prepared only for the indicated three holidays (pies, sweet dishes). These included:

1. Pies with liver (liver - 130 g, lard - 10 g, onion - 20 g). This dish was delicious

2. Sweet pies with plums or apples (fruit - 130 g)

3. Cranberry jelly with milk (sugar - 30 g, cranberries - 60 g, milk - 260 g, or one mug)

4. Dry fruit uzvar

5. Prune compote

6. White bread with honey (bread - 100 g, honey - 50 g)

7. Fruits: a) watermelon (600 g per 1 person); b) plums (400 g). Festive fruit serving - 1 kg

8. Kutia (for Christmas)

9. Serving of fruit or berries on minor holidays: 1 pound (409 g)

In general, the formal result of the nutrition reform in the army and navy was the official establishment of a certain abstract quantitative share of allowances, which could not be violated. It was limited to just a couple of numbers. Energy value from 3000 to 3600 cal. (in the 70s of the 19th century it was 4100 cal.) with three meals a day in the proportion:

Breakfast - 20%

Lunch - 50-60%

Dinner - 20-30%

Salt at least 25 g per day.

In the section on power systems in the 20th century. We will return to the analysis and comparison of these food theories (views) of the beginning of the century with other recommendations.

One of the traditions that the “food reformers” in the army decided to touch on was the supply of bread to soldiers and sailors. Until 1906, the troops had in force the “Instructions for Baking in the Troops,” as the General Staff Circular No. 5 of 1885 was unofficially called.

main feature and the advantage of this instruction was that bread, namely rye bread, the main and until 1906 the only bread of the Russian army, had to be baked according to traditional Russian rules only with sourdough.

Trying to carry out nutrition reform in the army after 1905, many progressive supporters of this reform, identifying a number of genuine absurdities, irregularities and negative phenomena in supplying and feeding the army, as always happens in Russia, they began to indiscriminately denounce absolutely everything traditional, old, that was done in the Russian army in the field of feeding the troops, including taking up arms against the old, traditional procedure for baking bread. The attention of these reformers, usually educated people, was attracted by the fact that, firstly, the procedure for baking army bread has practically not changed in the Russian army since the time of the Great Northern War between Russia and Sweden for access to the Baltic Sea (1700-1721). - almost 200 years!, and secondly, it differed from the baking procedure adopted in European armies, in the so-called civilized countries. Circular No. 5 of 1885, only consolidating and confirming the old order of baking, gave rise to the reformers of the early 20th century. subject it to special criticism, since it was known that this circular was approved Alexander III, who was known for his commitment to Russian antiquity and was considered even in monarchist circles after 1905 a reactionary.

That is why educated military men began to argue that it was necessary to move from the backward system of baking sourdough bread to modern, “cultural” baking using pressed yeast. The main motive for changing the baking technology was that the bread, they say, turns out sour, and this is supposedly harmful to the soldier’s stomach.

So the medical approach (or rather pseudo-medical, ignorant, speculative), intervention in nutritional issues by doctors who knew nothing about the history of products, led to the fact that the best that was in Russia and the Russian army in the field of nutrition, namely its the base was black bread, it was spoiled. From then on, the quality of state-owned black bread in the country began to deteriorate every year and was brought to its current deplorable state, when our contemporaries, people of the late 20th century. they no longer know what Russian rye black bread is, they have never felt its real taste.

That is why the 20th century was a time of disappearance, liquidation, “death” of real Russian black bread - the national pride of the Russian people, its almost main and oldest invention, approved, legalized, canonized since the 11th century.

Sour, leavened Russian black bread was produced only with special enzymes that were born, arose in a special leaven containing a special microflora, passed down over the centuries from generation to generation. Such bread possessed a whole range of valuable enzymes and vitamins B1, B2, B6, B15, E and practically remained their only source for the majority of ordinary people. By transferring the kneading of dough in the army to new conditions - with the use of pressed yeast obtained at distilleries - the “innovators” technically simplified production, but sharply worsened the quality of the bread.

Alcoholic yeast, which is one of the races of marsupial fungi (ascomycetes), is not only depleted in vitamins and enzymes compared to sourdough, but is also unstable to the products of its own metabolism and to the products of metabolism of foreign microorganisms, which usually leads in practice to obtaining low-quality, tasteless, quickly stale bread.

Alcoholic yeast, especially fresh yeast, has a fairly high fermentation energy, but fluctuations in its lifting force, and most importantly, changes in the taste of black bread when used, virtually eliminate all technical advantages or, at least, do not compensate for the loss of taste, nutritional value and usefulness. compared to classic black sourdough bread.

But it just so happens that with any reform, priority is given to factors other than studying historical experience, analysis and comparison of old and new recommended measures, and simple technical acceleration or material savings; that is, when replacing the old with something new, they usually look only at some external, visible, conspicuous gain in quantity, while completely losing sight of the huge, difficult to calculate loss in essence, in quality, in something important.

This is exactly what happened with the transition from baking sourdough bread to baking yeast bread. It is good that, due to the clumsiness and slowness of the Russian departmental machine, before the First World War this transition was not completed everywhere and only partially. But after the end of the war, the era of sourdough bread finally ended both in the army and in civilian bakery. And this coincided with the emergence of a new state, a new Soviet government, to which all the sins associated with the transition to yeast baking were later attributed.

Instruction No. 5 of 1885 touchingly preserved such traditional rules of bread baking, which civilized, educated doctors, who knew nothing about the history of bread baking and its practice, regarded almost as “shamanism” and subjected it to ridicule:

The presence of wooden fermenters with daily dough left on the walls is mandatory, from which the “sourdough” was formed;

Bringing flour from the warehouse to the bakery exactly 12 hours before the start (this was done so that the flour would warm up and become saturated with the “spirit” of the bakery, in the air of which a certain microflora hovered);

An almost “ritual” sprinkling of flour after a couple of hours of fermentation of the dough, the addition of caraway seeds, a special, only manual forming of loaves (“unsanitary”!).

All this was dismissed as patriarchalism, “backwardness” in the face of new, “cultural” rules. They looked at all this as superfluous, unnecessary, insignificant. In fact, this was precisely the secret of the fact that the bread turned out to be dense and fluffy at the same time, nourishing, baked, and tasty, fragrant, and desirable. And most importantly - in addition to all this, it is also guaranteed to be of high quality.

Baking with sourdough guaranteed bakedness at exactly 33-35 percent, but no more. This means that from 9 pounds of flour, 12 pounds of excellent bread should always be obtained, and when cooling, such bread should lose exactly 3 percent of its weight, but no more, and at the same time not become stale.

Bread baked with alcohol yeast made it possible to increase the baking level to 40 percent or even more. But it turned out bad and tasteless. Already in Soviet times, when using closed forms, they learned, by adding too much water and thinning the dough to the limit, to bring the bake to 45 and even 48 percent, but this gain was deceptive: the bread was tasteless, quickly became stale, and there was no storehouse of numerous vitamins at all. didn't show up.

So the “win” turned into a loss. Science and technology ruined taste and good quality. This is how real Russian folk rye bread was ruined! At the beginning of the 20th century, after almost a thousand years of its existence.

The main motive that played a decisive role in the abolition of the bakery instructions of 1885 was, of course, not pseudo-medical “concern” for the health of soldiers, but considerations of financial economy. It was calculated that by using pressed yeast and bringing the baking of bread to 48 percent, it was possible to achieve an increase in the volume and weight of bread compared to the previous technology by almost 2.5 times and, accordingly, reduce the cost of production and save flour. The fact that the bread turned out worse as a result of this was of little concern to the commissariat authorities. However, since it was technically impossible to switch to a new baking technology overnight, in the same year - for this it was necessary to change equipment (forms) - then in 1906 a three-year transition period was determined, during which all units and garrisons of Russia had to master a new type of baking. Consequently, formally, the instructions of 1885 were in force until 1909, and only from that time on did the entire army stop receiving real Russian sourdough black (rye) bread. But the military department received significant cost savings.

Thus, as a result of the food reform in the army, there was no significant (and not “paper”) improvement in “privarka” (hot food), while the basic supply of provisions, the supply of the main Russian army food product - bread - clearly deteriorated.

Thus, the issue of nutrition in the army and navy was not removed from the agenda after the revolution of 1905-1907, and the discomfort of the rank and file from changes in traditional nutrition intensified. The introduction of white bread into the diet of lower ranks in 1906 for the first time - 300 g of the so-called bun for evening tea (dinner) - was practically a “cosmetic”, psychological measure that did not have any serious nutritional value. It was undertaken solely to show the Entente allies that the Russian army was being reformed.

The ostentatious nature of this measure as a kind of “civilized gesture” or the then similarity of the current “human rights” completely satisfied the Anglo-French masters, who did not care at all about the true situation of the Russian soldier.

So the Russian army, slightly touched up and hastily plastered (instead of a major overhaul), moved towards the First World War, which was equally inert, essentially unprepared militarily and fully retaining discontent and distrust of tsarism.

If we summarize the changes that were planned or implemented in the organization of nutrition for the Russian army at the beginning of the 20th century, then we must come to the following conclusion. Solving the problems of supplying large army masses with food allowances in war conditions and failing to cope with this task in purely organizational, administrative, transport and similar technical terms, the command of the Russian army did not follow the line of improving management logistics services, and along the path of reducing quality in the purely culinary area, along the path of concessions and retreats in assortment food products, along the path of simplifying and worsening food preparation, in order to thereby facilitate the quartermaster’s department’s work. But this work, being extremely bad in technical terms, also became even worse in terms of culinary quality. It is clear that this did not make it easier, did not correct, but made it more difficult and worsened the general situation. It was this position of the then army command (generals Kuropatkin, Sukhomlinov, etc.) that was not only the most weak-willed and incompetent, but also simply treacherous in relation to its own troops.

And the masses of soldiers understood this very well, because they felt the “changes,” as they say, in their own skin.

In such a situation, of course, no respect, much less trust in the command could arise, much less be established. And it was precisely this circumstance that from the very beginning predetermined the defeat of Russia in the First World War. It wasn't that clean military defeat, as much as military-psychological, for no soldier can show steadfastness against the enemy if he is convinced that his own command is not interested in his preservation, does not show elementary concern for him, his supplies, food, health. This initially undermines morale and does not help inspire the troops.

It was this underlying mistrust that served as the main reason for the failure of the offensive, the ease of spreading revolutionary propaganda, defeatist sentiments, etc. at the front. Moreover, all this was once again aggravated by the professional mediocrity of the Russian military leadership. And the initial, motivating, initial disintegrating moment was the culinary blunders of the military leadership and the dissatisfaction of the soldier masses with food. The inability to solve problems at such a low, “kitchen” level inevitably led to a fairly clear awareness among the soldiers of the general, total military-political inability of tsarism not only to win, but even to wage any war at all.

Such was the genesis of the defeat of tsarism and the genesis of the revolution.

A hungry soldier thinks more about his stomach than about his service. This was well understood by the commanders of the Russian army at almost all times. In theory, the Russian soldier should have been supplied with food at standards that a simple peasant could envy. especially in hungry and lean years, when the village cooked grass, bark and quinoa.

Contemporaries left in their memoirs descriptions of the diets of ranks in the army and the Guard. For example, in the cavalry regiments of the Guard (in particular, the Life Guard Cavalry), the lower ranks were content with three times a day. The food began with breakfast, which consisted of gruel (cereals - millet, buckwheat, barley) and tea. Sugar and white bread were always served with tea. Sometimes additional fruit jelly or fruit juice was given out. Cranberry decoction was revered in the army as a universal remedy for scurvy and vitamin deficiency. Military doctors insisted on using decoctions and infusions of wild fruits in the soldiers’ diet. In use were not only cranberries and lingonberries (predominantly soaked), which the soldiers themselves collected in the forests, but also rose hips, dried apples, and even prunes. In the garrisons in the East, in Central Asia Dried apricots were stored for future use.

A Russian soldier's lunch traditionally consisted of three dishes. In first place - cabbage soup, borscht. The first course included a decent amount of meat or lard. Up to a pound of beef in the guard. During hostilities, all ranks of active troops were given a meat portion. On fasting days, meat was naturally replaced with fish. They gave out fish soup, which was prepared from salted fish or dried fish. The popular army fish of that time was roach.

Soldier's porridge was also cooked in meat broth. In Russia of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th there was no shortage of meat for the army. The supply of livestock for the needs of the troops was considered a very profitable business for livestock owners. Dishonest traders sought to make money by supplying cattle of low fatness category, old, only sinews and bones. But for accepting such a batch of cattle, the intendant could pay not only with his position, but also with his rank. By the way, for soldiers of different religions, nutritional standards were provided in accordance with religious characteristics. For the table of Muslim warriors, it was ordered to cook poultry and beef, avoiding the use of lard and pork.

Contentment and orderly food supply was disrupted with the outbreak of the First World War. The country did not count on a protracted massacre. The army in the first period was fed according to the norms provided for in peacetime. But as the military confrontation deepened, shortages began in the supply of bread, which was sometimes delivered to the active army late. This was especially felt by the troops in the Caucasus, where the rear remained behind in the gorges, unable to keep up with the rapid advance of the units.

Moreover, in 1914-15. The annual grain harvest decreased as many peasants were drafted into the army. Since 1915, the area under cultivation almost everywhere has declined on average by about a fifth. But still the army received its rations regularly. From 1914 to 1917, the consumption of bakery products by the Russian army increased from 23 million poods to 225, and cereal consumption from 3 to 30.

The troops took measures to bake bread in the front-line zone, organizing biscuit and cracker workshops. The situation with the meat supply was worse. There were problems with transport. The transport infrastructure of the empire was not prepared for war; there were not enough horses and cars. The wagons were not equipped for transporting livestock so that the livestock would not lose weight. Russia could not compete with America and Germany in the production of canned food; there were not enough freezing units and refrigerators. This problem was not solved in Russia until the very end of the First World War.

Returning to the topic of nutrition now in the Russian army, I would like to talk about the reform of food supply for military personnel from Imperial Russia until our time. The poster “A well-fed soldier is a shield for the Motherland!” looks very expressive. We will not analyze who came up with this slogan and what motivated its presence in the vast expanses of Russia. This was probably a kind of impetus for a revolution in the minds of Russians: they feed well in the army!

Text: Elena Gogoleva

“YOUR BREAD IS IN THE TRAFFIC AND SACKS OF THE ENEMIES”...

Everyone should remember the importance of nutrition in the army from their school history lesson, which explained Kutuzov’s “Tarutin Maneuver”: Russian troops not only broke away from the enemy, but also secured connections with the “grain-producing provinces”, reserves and bases that were located in Kaluga, Tula and Bryansk, leaving Napoleon on the “hungry” Smolensk road. Teacher Kutuzova A.V. Suvorov, recognizing the strategic importance of feeding the soldiers, made a tactical bet on something else: “Do not carry large convoys behind you, the main thing is speed and pressure, your bread is in the convoy and backpacks of the enemies.”

Before education regular army at the beginning of the 18th century, the state did not care about army food. The soldiers obtained food themselves, buying it with their salaries from the residents of the places where they served. This state of affairs continued until 1700, when Peter I issued a decree “On the management of all grain reserves of frame people to Okolnichiy Yazykov, with the name for this part of the general provisions” and instructions for provisioning.

A few years later, the soldiers were already allocated provisions consisting of flour, cereals, vegetables, salt and allowances for the purchase of meat products, as well as vodka and beer. Soldiers' artels were organized, artel workers received food from elected officers who were in charge of nutrition, and then together cooked their own food in camp cauldrons over fires.

The first military cooks appeared among the Zaporozhye Cossacks, where in each kuren for 150 Cossacks there was one cook and several cooks. They cooked in copper cauldrons, which the cook would hit when the food was ready.

As a rule, a convoy with provisions and utensils moved along the route before the troops and, having arrived at the parking lot, the transporters and cooks began to prepare food so that the arriving companies could eat right away. There was no possibility of preparing food for future use and transporting it already prepared or boiling it the night before so that the soldiers could have breakfast - the dishes were, as a rule, copper, and it was impossible to store food in them.

The troops led by Suvorov found a relative way out of the situation - in the morning the soldiers boiled water and soaked crackers in it. This was the whole quick soldier's breakfast. Over time, cast iron boilers appeared.

According to the old Russian military proverb “Shchi and porridge are our food,” these two dishes were indeed the main ones and were prepared everywhere. And, as in the Russian folk tale about a soldier and porridge from an axe, the cooks tried to invent some new dishes to diversify the diet a little.

According to the official plan, only cereals and lard were relied on for dinner - you couldn’t cook much from this set, and you couldn’t cook anything tasty either, so those who could, preferred to buy something with their own money. Until the middle of the 19th century, barracks were not built in Russia - soldiers and officers were billeted in peasant huts and city houses. The order of Emperor Nicholas I said: to release food for the guests from the treasury to the owners, but in reality everything did not work out as planned. The owner received 200 grams of meat twice a week for each of the guests or the monetary value was reimbursed to him, and he had to supply the rest of the products himself to pay taxes.

ROYAL ARMY

It must be admitted that in Soviet historiography it was customary to smear black paint on everything related to tsarist times. They also criticized the army, describing the terrible rules, stupid drills and unbearable soldier's life, the hungry everyday life of ordinary Russian soldiers.

Let us take, for clarity, the example of the “starving” tsarist army during the defense of Port Arthur. We learn about the details from the diary entries of military engineer Mikhail Lilje, dated early September 1904.

“...There is a strong shortage of provisions. Horse meat has been given to soldiers for a long time, but many of them cannot tolerate it and are forced to settle for tea.

The officers, taking advantage of the flight of quails, buy them from the Chinese, paying from 10 to 30 kopecks per pair.

All the surrounding areas around Golubinaya Bay are completely devastated. Everything that was possible has been taken away from the unfortunate Chinese, and their situation is now terrible. The standing grain was cut down by the garrison for fodder, the vegetable gardens were devastated, the livestock was requisitioned... The amount of provisions in the fortress decreases every day. Even the portions of horse meat are greatly reduced. To give the soldiers a full ration, it would be necessary, according to calculations, to kill at least 250 horses every week. And with such slaughter, we will soon be left completely without them...

...Soldiers are given a quick lunch only three times a week. Everyone then receives borscht with herbs and 1/3 of a can of canned meat. On the remaining four days a week they give the so-called “lenten borscht”, consisting of water, a small amount of dry vegetables and butter...

The prices for life supplies are exorbitant. For example: a small pig costs 120–150 rubles. 10 eggs – 10 rubles. Chicken – 12–15 rubles. Goose – 30–35 rubles. Portions for soldiers have also been reduced. They give out only 2 pounds of bread and a small amount of rice porridge..."

Let's consider the diet of soldiers in the tsarist army, which was regulated by order of the Minister of War No. 346 of March 22, 1899. According to the text of this decree, the soldier’s ration (as well as the ration of non-commissioned officers) consisted of three parts: provisions, welding money, tea money.

Provisions were provided by products. Soldiers were given welding and tea money strictly for the purchase of the necessary standard set of products, which was calculated based on the prices of the location of the military unit. Money was issued monthly from the regiment into the hands of the company commander. The very process of purchasing and distributing food was handled by the company crewman, who entrusted the food provisions to the cooks, whose responsibilities already included its preparation. A small interesting nuance: both the artel workers and the cooks were elected from among the competent servicemen by an open vote of the entire company, after which they were approved by the company commander (somehow such procedures do not fit with the downtroddenness and lack of rights of the Russian soldiers of the tsarist army, according to Soviet historiographers)...

In the regiment itself, the food supply was in charge of the head of the regiment's economy - a lieutenant colonel (in the cavalry he was called the assistant regiment commander for economic affairs).

The basis for calculating the welding money was that with it the company must find the opportunity to purchase the following products for 10 people: meat (beef) - 2.05 kg, cabbage - 1/4 bucket (3.1 liters), peas - 3.27 liters , potatoes - 12.27 liters, wheat flour 2.67 kg, eggs 2 pcs., butter 0.410 kg, salt 204 g. With the welding money it was possible to purchase various seasonings - pepper, bay leaf and so on.

And this was the standard minimum: if the company managed to find good suppliers with low food prices, more food was purchased. It was strictly forbidden to buy food at inflated prices, and this was strictly monitored by the company commander.

The food was prepared by cooks: the cooked meat was taken out of the cauldron with special ladles, cut into equal portions and given to each soldier at meals separately from soup or porridge.

The lower ranks in the company were provided with two hot meals a day: lunch at 12 noon and dinner at 7 p.m. There was no breakfast or even morning tea. The lower ranks, who ate outside the common boiler (those on business trips and others), received welding in the form of money.

It is interesting that on certain days the soldiers were also entitled to so-called wine portions. They were issued to servicemen on the first day of the Nativity of Christ and Easter, on the birthdays of the Emperor and Empress, the Sovereign Heir to the Tsarevich, the Empress Tsarevna (the wife of the Tsarevich, if he is already married), the chief of the regiment (if the regiment has one), on the day of the regimental holiday , on the day of the company holiday, as well as in special cases for medical reasons.

A slightly different food supply system was established for officers. They received so-called table money based on rank: from 96 rubles (junior officers in all branches of the military) to 5,700 rubles (corps commander) per year.

...Well, the complaints of engineer Mikhail Lilje, who was forced to “starve” during the siege of Port Arthur, are not surprising: compared to peacetime food rations, these were truly severe times of famine...

MILITARY FIELD…

Army cuisine, despite the poor range of products and difficult conditions cooking, has great value and significantly affects the combat effectiveness of the army. The first field kitchen was horse-drawn and consisted of a metal wood-burning stove with a high chimney and boilers. It was transported on a gig, and they also carried food supplies, dishes, firewood and a folding table. The wheels, frame, shafts, firewood box, folding table and chef's step were painted dark green.

In 1888, the first field bakeries were introduced, where they baked bread from rye and wheat flour (the dough was very simple - water, flour, yeast and salt) and dried crackers. Later, during the First World War, a car kitchen was created. In October 1917, the troops already had more than a hundred autokitchens.

Centralized and organized nutrition appeared only during the Russo-Japanese War. Then it was tested camp kitchen Colonel Anton Turchanovich, which the inventor himself called a “universal portable hearth.” A patent document dated March 8, 1904 testified that the “military camp kitchen-samovar” or “universal portable hearth” described by Turchanovich has no analogues. Turchanovich’s kitchen made it possible to prepare borscht, porridge and tea for a company of 250 soldiers in just four hours.

In 1939, dry rations were first introduced into the Red Army. Then they consisted mainly of food concentrates - briquettes of freeze-dried, that is, dehydrated, cereals, which before consumption had to be thrown into a pot of water and boiled for a long time. The first samples of dry rations included rye crackers, the already mentioned concentrates, tea, salt, sugar and... roach! You should laugh in vain: dried fish, in terms of weight and calorie content, can still give a head start to many other products. But something resembling the current individual diets appeared in the USSR only in the early 70s.

The country has invested a lot of effort and money to ensure that individual diets are not only sufficiently high in calories, but also absolutely delicious. The current successors of the dry pie are high-quality dishes that can be cooked in 3–7 minutes. At the same time, the range of products has expanded significantly in recent years. So, for example, when supplementing diets with canned meat, different options can be used: beef stew, meatballs, beef meatballs or beef goulash. A number of canned meat and vegetable products are represented by buckwheat porridge with beef, rice porridge with beef, rice with chicken and vegetables. The choice of canned meat and vegetables is also quite wide: meat with green peas and carrots, goulash with potatoes, meat with beans and vegetables.

SOVIET ARMY: FROM 60'S TO 90'S

From January 1, 1960, 10 g of butter was introduced into the army food standard, and the amount of sugar was increased to 45 g. Then, throughout the 1960s, the following were introduced into the standard: jelly (dried fruits) - up to 30 (20) g, the amount of sugar increased up to 65 g, pasta up to 40 g, butter up to 20 g, bread made from 2nd grade wheat flour is replaced by bread made from 1st grade flour.

From May 1, 1975, the norm was increased due to the distribution of chicken eggs (2 pieces) on weekends and holidays, and in 1983 a slight change was made due to some redistribution of flour/cereals and types of vegetables.

In 1990, the last adjustment to the food supply standard for the Soviet army was made.

Since the daily quota of bread far exceeded the needs of the soldiers, it was allowed to distribute bread on the tables in sliced ​​form in the amount that soldiers usually eat, and some additional bread was placed at the distribution window in the dining room for those who did not have enough of the usual amount of bread. The amounts generated by saving bread were allowed to be used to purchase other products for the soldier’s table. Usually this money was used to purchase fruits, sweets, and cookies for soldiers' holiday dinners; tea and sugar for additional nutrition for soldiers on guard; lard for additional nutrition during exercises. The higher command encouraged the creation of a kitchen farm in the regiments (pigsties, vegetable gardens), the products of which were used to improve the nutrition of soldiers in excess of norm No. 1. In addition, bread not eaten by soldiers was often used to make crackers for dry rations, which are established in accordance with norm No. 9 .

It was allowed to replace fresh meat with canned meat at the rate of replacing 150 g of meat with 112 g of canned meat, and fish with canned fish at the rate of replacing 100 g of fish with 60 g of canned fish.

In general, there were about 50 norms. Standard No. 1 was basic and, naturally, the lowest.

For different categories of military personnel, depending on the specifics of the tasks they perform, their own food rations are provided. There are general rations, mountain rations, small rations (for the Airborne Forces), airborne rations (for the Air Force), ship rations (for storm conditions), emergency rations (they are placed in rescue craft)...

Let's start with a standard individual diet intended for military personnel of combined arms formations and military units. It provides a soldier’s daily ration when he performs normal soldier’s work in the middle zone. It’s reminiscent of what they give to air passengers on airplanes, although it tastes better. Includes breakfast, lunch and dinner. This includes: army biscuits - 4 packages of 50 grams, canned meat, meat-vegetables and meat-vegetables in lamister packages of 250 grams, liver pate in the amount of three 50-gram packages, processed cheese. For dessert – jam (apple, apricot, plum, etc.) and fresh fruit puree. Also sugar, salt, pepper, tea, instant drink concentrate, multivitamins, plastic cutlery, individual napkins. Well, hunting matches along with dry alcohol tablets for warming up.

The mountain diet, in addition to everything listed above, includes food concentrates. This is understandable - in the mountains there is more energy consumption. To restore energy costs - dark chocolate. And the heater in the mountain diet is chemical, which provides heat without flame.

WE REACHED THE BUFFET

Reform armed forces affected many aspects of army life. Following mandatory days off, “quiet hour”, increased sports training and by abandoning non-combat functions such as cleaning the territory and peeling potatoes, buffets were introduced into the troops. If previously food in the army was organized according to the principle “what you give is what you eat,” now the soldier himself goes through the distribution line and chooses what he likes and wants. By the way, the tables are set by civilian companies that won the tender to provide food for military personnel. The modernized soldiers' canteens look like democratic self-service restaurants, only without a cash register for paying for the chosen food: on the distribution lines there are open heating and soup tables, steam tables, on which temperature regime ready meals. Moreover, in each dining room, a special salad display or salad bar station with a cooling surface is installed at the end of the serving line. There, soldiers can prepare their own salad from green peas, corn, sauerkraut, herbs and a few other ingredients. Those who served in the army a quarter of a century ago never even dreamed of this!

Today, the daily diet of a Russian soldier who eats in regular army canteens includes, with the exception of spices, the following products (the norms of daily allowance in the Soviet army until 1990 are given in brackets):

Meat – 250 g (150 g), Fish – 120 g (100 g), One egg (4 eggs per week), Cheese – 10 g (for a sandwich), Milk – 150 ml (100 ml), Vegetable oil – 30 g (20 g), Butter – 45 g (margarine 20 g), Cereals and legumes – 120 g (120 g), Wheat flour (1 grade) – 50 g (10 g), Sugar – 65 g (70 g), Salt – 20 g (20 g), Premium pasta – 30 g (40 g), Potatoes and fresh vegetables – 900 g (900 g), Bread (loaf) – 650 g (750 g), Tea – 1 g (tea brewing 1.2 g), Coffee (instant) – 1.5 g, Fruit juice – 100 g (50 g), Dried fruits – 10 g (120 g, dry jelly 30 g), Multivitamins – 1 pc. (1 PC.).

(Resolution of the Government of the Russian Federation of December 29, 2007 No. 946 “On food supply for military personnel and certain other categories of persons, as well as on the provision of feed (products) for staff animals of military units and organizations in peacetime”).

In addition, pilots, submariners, sailors and the wounded can count on a special ration, which, in addition to the above, includes: smoked meats, sausages, poultry, herring, sour cream, cottage cheese, jam, fruit and an increased dose of coffee (for submariners 5 cups, pilots by 1.5).

As we can see, there have been no fundamental changes in nutritional standards. The new diet includes an increased proportion of meat products and fish; eggs are provided daily, rather than four times a week, as before. Cheese appeared in the diet, but the share of foods high in carbohydrates: baked goods and pasta decreased. At the same time, the main thing remains not the numbers in the rations, but what actually reaches dining tables military personnel. Diets used in conditions where cooking hot food for some reason is not possible have also been revised. The main one was the individual diet (IRP) - a modern packed ration, which replaced the two IRP norms that existed before 2009 (the first included 27 items of various products, the second - 12, and the new IRP already has 44).

On the days of exercises (maneuvers) in the field, if it is impossible to provide military personnel drinking water from stationary water supply networks, they are given 1000 ml of bottled drinking water per person per day.

Military personnel undergoing military service upon conscription, cadets and students who do not have the rank of officer and special ranks of middle and senior commanding staff, educational institutions of vocational education, subordinate to federal bodies executive power provided under this standard, before concluding a contract with them, the following is issued per person: sugar - 700 g or candy caramel - 600 g, or whole condensed milk with sugar - 600 g per month, or filter cigarettes - 10 pieces per day and matches – 3 boxes per month – at their request.

All this clearly proves that the organization of food for soldiers has become much better. And a well-fed soldier, no matter what they say, will be glad to serve the Fatherland.