Russian Cuisine in Exile

“Russian Cuisine in Exile” — a collection of essays and sketches on gastronomic themes, written by Peter Vail and Alexander Genis in New York in the mid-1980s, — is by no means a cookbook, although practically every chapter is crowned with a simple, yet elegant and colorful culinary recipe. Before us is a true literary monument to history and culture, tested by time and having gathered a huge army of admirers. A monument to an entire civilization, first formed on distant shores thanks to the efforts of the “third wave” of Russian emigration, and then remarkably organically integrated into the world and structure that was born in the new Russia. Vail and Genis repeatedly astonish the reader with the precision of their observations and brilliant erudition. Their essays are dedicated, as becomes clearer with each reading, not so much to Russian cuisine, but to the Russians themselves (in the broadest, “geopolitical” sense of the word), Russian life, and Russian times. And the fact that each of these witty essays also offers us a strictly gastronomic discovery is an additional gift prepared for us by the generous authors.