Time goes on, and it changes taste preferences. Today, only a few modern children would be willing to taste the resin of trees or eat cookies with butter, but for our parents they were the most delicious treats. In our today’s article, we’ll tell you about the delicacies which people in the USSR used to love. Some people might find them strange, but many people still remember their taste.
Today, we buy bread in the store as we used to do in the past. However, the bread we buy is often wrapped in plastic or pre-cut into slices and packed in a bag. It’s definitely very convenient but it’s not as it used to be. When children were sent to shop for bread, they most often brought home the bread with the edges bitten off, since few Soviet children, having bought a fresh loaf of bread, managed to bring it home whole. A nice smell of a warm loaf of bread beckoned to take a bite of the crisp crust, so they just couldn’t resist.
If kids managed to bring bread home, they often made a tasty cake from it, for example, they spread some butter on it and then added sugar on the top. Sometimes they just soaked bread in the water and then added sugar on the top of it. It was the treat you should go out with so all your friends asked to have a bite of it.
Soviet kids made up lots of unusual snacks from bread. For example, they took slices of bread, spread some vegetable oil on them and added salt. Onion or dill could be added too and it was really delicious.
During Soviet time, even stale bread could become a delicious treat. Soviet hostesses used to mix eggs with salt, then put slices of bread into the mix, and fry them on the frying pan from both sides.
This treat is still on the menu of some people. This cake was very simple to make. You needed 2 cookies, spread some butter on them and stuck them together. Some people also added sugar. It was the best treat for tea you could imagine that time.
Soviet kids were very inventive. They could make a treat out of nothing. It was almost impossible to get a chewing gum in the USSR, so kids chewed the resin of fruit trees instead. It was one of the most popular treats.
During Soviet time, it was not possible to buy lollipops, therefore, lots of families made them themselves at home. There were even special molds in the form of roosters, bunnies, and foxes. The recipe was very easy – to melt butter and sugar, them this sweet mix was poured into molds and left to cool down and get hard.
Majority of Soviet kids loved to catch colds as when they were ill their mums always gave them ascorbic pills which the kids were willing to eat in large amounts.
Almost all Soviet shops used to sell packs with dry kissel which was very cheap. Kids used to eat it before it was cooked as a drink. Kids chewed it with great pleasure!
Today, you can find boiled condensed milk in any shop, but during Soviet time, people used to boil it at home. The process was quite dangerous and time-consuming, since putting a jar of condensed milk in a pot of boiling water it was necessary to monitor the process, so that you didn’t have to wash the kitchen all day after such experiments.
Oh, how many boys and girls in Soviet time lost their dental fillings because of these sweets, but still could not refuse such a treat.
In the USSR kids used to spend all their free time outside, so they knew the taste of ay plant which they saw. Sour wild sorrel was one of their favorite delicacies.
During Soviet time, people didn’t know what a grill was, so they used coals from the fire to cook a simple and original dish. So, they took unpeeled potatoes and put them under the warm coals. When they took potatoes out from under the coals, they had a delicious dish of baked potatoes.
Cake “Potato” was a beloved treat for many people. The recipe for this cake was very simple, as it was made from cookies, with added condensed milk, sugar, butter, and cocoa, and then the mix was left to harden in the fridge.
It was not always possible to buy chocolates or cakes at that time, although halva was always in stock. Today it may seem strange that it was sold only in tin cans.
In the USSR, many people had on the windowsills a three-liter jar covered with gauze with an incomprehensible content. Actually, it was kombucha – a very tasty drink.
We’d like to end our list with the tastiest cookies. This type of cookies you can buy now too, but the taste will differ. At that time, every hostess used to have special molds for baking this type of cookies with a filling made from boiled condensed milk.
These are the unusual delicacies which existed on the USSR. Have you ever tried any of them?
Author: Samantha, Florida, USA Almost two months into my time in Daugavpils, and I’m having more fun than ever. But first: in my last blog post, I know I promised a super-secret, exciting trick for language learning, and here it is: DANCE!
Author: Samantha, Florida, USA As I approached my last semester of college, I was desperate to study abroad. Many plans were changed and canceled with the onslaught of the COVID-19 pandemic, yet my craving for out-of-classroom learning never lessened.