‘Mastering the Art of Soviet Cooking: a Memoir of Food and Longing’

Mother and daughter collaborate on culinary chronicle

Anya Von BremzenAt the age of 10, Anya Von Bremzen and her mother, Larisa Frumkin, immigrated to the United States from the former Soviet Union, settling in Philadelphia in 1974. To taste the American dream, they had to make sacrifices and fudge the truth. Frumkin, a staunch anti-Soviet, outsmarted the Russian visa office by forging her father’s signature, implying that the party man and “idealistic Bolshevik” – as Von Bremzen describes him – was not opposed to her leaving the country, and omitting his profession – chief naval spy – by writing “retired” instead. After paying two years’ worth of salary for the opportunity to emigrate, losing their Soviet citizenship and being interrogated by the CIA about Frumkin’s father upon arrival, the mother-daughter team began anew in their adopted homeland.

They had to get used to the idea that their Jewishness no longer fell into the ethnicity category. It became their religion, which they could finally practice, lighting Hanukkah candles. Aided by HIAS (formerly Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society) and Jewish Family Service – organizations which provided essentials such as used clothing and stipends – the two adjusted to the lack of sidewalks and the abundance of food in supermarkets.

Surprisingly, the preteen girl did not revel in the ability to purchase any provisions at any moment. Anya was used to the food shortages. Of course, a certain class of people – the select few who had connections to the government – ate better than the rest, but everyone else improvised with whatever groceries were available.

Because of her grandfather’s stature, Anya attended a prestigious kindergarten along with the offspring of Politburo and nomenklatura members. Knowing how opposed her mother was to the dominant ideology, Anya couldn’t stomach the high-quality foods she was served. Instead of the expected fish oil, the children’s spoons were filled with caviar. Discreetly, the girl threw the food behind the radiator, eventually becoming bulimic.

The child continued her uneasy relationship with food in America. Faced with fare that lacked social prestige and could be obtained without yearning or struggle, Anya lost her appetite. Readily accessible ingredients did not thrill. American strawberries tasted flavorless; untoasted Pop Tarts proved “a massive disappointment,” she shared with the Strand bookstore audience. The preteen no longer equated food with the oppressive regime, as she did in Moscow, or with uncertainty and anxiety, as her mother did while growing up under Stalinism. Now, food was mere sustenance, free of cachet and, therefore, uninteresting. She writes, “Depleted of political pathos, hospitality, that heroic aura of scarcity, food didn’t seem much of anything anymore.”

As the years passed, the two women could not shake off the feeling of survivors’ guilt. Here they were, enjoying foie gras and truffles while their compatriots stood in long queues to buy basic ingredients. Even though they couldn’t share their delicacies with friends and family left behind, they frequently hosted parties and dinners, breaking bread with their new acquaintances.

Because of her fascination with food, Von Bremzen was not at a loss when she injured her hand at 24 – a misfortune that ended the Juilliard School graduate’s music career. The young woman refocused her attention on translating an Italian cookbook – a job that inspired her to write her own, “Please to the Table,” which was published in 1990, the year before the collapse of the U.S.S.R.

In 2013, five cookbooks, numerous magazine and newspaper articles and James Beard awards later, Von Bremzen wrote “Mastering the Art of Soviet Cooking,” the book that won Food Book of the Year at the Guild of Food Writers Awards in 2014. While the title tips a hat to Julia Child, the volume resists classification. It’s not a cookbook because it contains only 10 recipes. It’s not a memoir because all the personal stories are presented as a backdrop to history. The writing is as deep and layered as a kulebiaka – an elaborate and time-consuming dish in which rice, fish, mushrooms and blini are baked into a yeast pastry.

In many interviews, Von Bremzen says that she was inspired by the structure of one of her favorite books – “War and Peace.” The novel interweaves the details of the human lives with the larger historical epic. Similarly, the cooking chronicle of the mother and daughter in Queens illuminates the history of the F.S.U., the two propelling each other. Because Frumkin loves historical meals – she’s a docent at the Metropolitan Museum of Art – they decided to recreate some emblematic dishes, one from each decade of the 20th century.

The feasts they hosted provide the foundation for the multidimensional story. The book encompasses the tales of three generations: the idealistic grandparents, who lived by the Soviet system; their rebellious children, who were part of the anti-Soviet intelligentsia; and the cynical grandchildren, who saw the Soviet life as a farce. The reader learns about the rupture of the old order and the following destruction of czarist cooking, caused not only by a shift in ideology, but also by the lack of ingredients. Further down the line, Von Bremzen illuminates Stalin’s revival of pre-revolutionary values and the infamous corn era of President Khrushchev.

It was during the ’60s – the decade of crop failures and bread disappearance – that Von Bremzen was born. The Soviet culinary bible, “The Book of Tasty and Healthy Food,” ruled every kitchen, including Frumkin’s, which she shared with 17 other families who lived in their communal apartment. Published in 1939, the state-sponsored cookbook was a socialist text advertising nonexistent abundance. Years later, the two women made sure to prepare a dish out of it for one of their compatriot feasts to celebrate the anniversary of Stalin’s death.

Von Bremzen grew up in a world where roommates relied on padlocks to fasten their pots and neighborhood children unapologetically flaunted black-market bananas in front of have-nots. Yet, the poverty and the improvised dinners to feed uninvited guests, who popped in regularly, instilled not only a love of food in the impressionable child, but also a belief in food’s magical properties. Von Bremzen writes about the way her mother would transform every prosaic meal into a special one by inventing fairy tales about the dishes she prepared. Frumkin would assign important-sounding foreign names to the simple fare she cooked with basic ingredients such as bread and eggs. To devise a banquet, all she needed were some canned goods and her imagination.

Now that she’s the age her mother was when she was growing up, Von Bremzen has taken over the role of a teacher. Because she travels the world to write about food, she learns a great deal on the subject. Upon her return to New York, the daughter offers her mother lessons. The two engage in a friendly competition, but no matter what is being prepared – borscht or gazpacho – they relish cooking side-by-side, an observation that any reader of “Mastering the Art of Soviet Cooking” will make. Von Bremzen was delighted to collaborate with Frumkin, whom she interviewed over two years. “My mom is such a hero to me. It was an absolute joy to come together with her on this project,” she told Melissa Clark, the New York Times cooking writer, at the Strand.

IRINA MISSIURO is a writer and editorial consultant for The Jewish Voice.