“For dinner, soup, shchi (cabbage soup), roast, and mushroom pies were served — all that Russian cuisine is famous for…” (A.S. Pushkin)

Our October literary salon was dedicated to food: both spiritual and real. In other words, we discussed the reflection of the meal (or trapeza) in literary works.

Russian cuisine is more than just food. It is the breath of the land, the smells of childhood, the warmth of the stove where both fairy tale heroes and characters from great novels gather. The taste of Russian literature cannot be separated from the taste of its cuisine: kasha (porridge), turnip, shchi, bread, and apples — simple but filled with meaning.

Oksana was the first to speak. “Don’t be surprised, but I want to talk about… fairy tales.”

In folk tales, the kitchen is not a background; it is the living heart of the narrative.

In “The Turnip,” a simple village garden becomes the site of a miracle: the grown turnip is the fruit of collective labor. There are no chefs or gourmets here, but there is a feeling of joy from the harvest, from what was grown “with one’s own hands.” And when the entire family, from grandfather to the mouse, pulls the turnip, they pull out not just a root vegetable, but the very idea of unity.

“The Gingerbread Man” (Kolobok) is already a parable about bread as life itself. A whole character is born from scraps of flour: round, rosy, and independent. But this bread is a wanderer. The Kolobok rolls around the world until it becomes the fox’s prey. And in this lies the folk wisdom: self-confidence ruins even the most successful.

When the Fox and the Crane invite each other over, the meal turns into a theater of characters. The fox uses trickery, the crane reciprocates — and behind the game with dishes lies a bitter truth: not every treat is kindness, not every feast is hospitality.

And in the fairy tale “Porridge from an Axe,” food becomes a miracle of ingenuity. The soldier, cooking a hearty dinner “out of nothing,” reminds us: a Russian person is not afraid of poverty — they will always find a spoonful of resourcefulness and a pinch of cheerful wit.

And even in the short nursery rhyme about the “Magpie-White-Sided” who “cooked kasha, fed the children,” a maternal tone rings out: the kitchen is a place of love and care, and cooking kasha is the first lesson of life.

When we move from fairy tales to the classics, the kitchen ceases to be just dinner — it becomes a metaphor for society.

Next, Natalya took the floor. She brought with her Elena Pervushina’s book, At the Table with Pushkin: What the Great Poet Was Treated To.

In Pushkin, food is an integral part of everyday life. At the Larin family’s, shchi are served alongside French dishes, and in this mixture lies all of Russia: old, patriarchal, and new, aspiring to Europe. Shchi remains “our food,” even when cutlets à la mode appear on the table.

In Gogol, the meal is a ritual, almost a religion. In “Old World Landowners,” everything is measured by food: love, habit, happiness. Afanasy Ivanovich and Pulkheria Ivanovna live as if God himself commanded them to be full and kind. But this coziness is doomed — an entire era of artless contentment departs with it.

And in “Dead Souls,” the feasts become caricatures: Sobakevich and Korobochka eat as they live — heavily, densely, soullessly. In Gogol, food exposes character more accurately than any description.

In Tolstoy, souls are revealed at the table. The feast at the Rostovs’ is a family celebration, alive and warm, like the smell of bread. And the dinner with the peasants is a moment of revelation, when Pierre suddenly understands: happiness is not in sauces, but in the simple taste of life, shared with others.

Goncharov, in “Oblomov,” makes the kitchen almost a philosophical concept. The slow meal is a symbol not only of laziness but also of an unwillingness to leave the world of childhood, where everything is familiar, calm, “sweet, like a buttered roll.” Through food, he shows the longing for lost warmth, for a home where everything is simple and clear.

In children’s literature, Russian cuisine becomes a language of knowledge.

In Teffi’s story “Kishmish” (Raisin), a little girl dreams of becoming a saint and believes that for this she must switch to bread and water, and give up everything tasty. Black bread and plain water are the food of the common people. The girl was nicknamed “Kishmish.” The name itself is telling: a small grape. “She was probably nicknamed that for her small stature, small nose, small hands. Generally, small fry, a little thing.”

And in Nosov’s “Mishka’s Kasha,” food turns into a life lesson. Two boys decide to cook porridge, but everything goes wrong. The pot bubbles, smokes, the porridge runs away — and with it runs away the childish confidence that everything is simple. Through laughter, the author speaks of something serious: self-reliance is also hard work, and even failure can be tasty if it contains experience.

In the Russian imagination, the apple tree is almost holy. In the fairy tale “The Goose-Swans,” it shelters Mashenka, just as a mother shelters her child. In “Kroshechka-Khavroshechka,” an apple tree grows from the bones of a magical cow — a sign of gratitude, resurrection, and kind memory.

And in Pushkin’s “Tale of the Dead Princess and the Seven Knights,” the apple is an ordeal. It is beautiful, like life itself, and deadly, like envy. Good and evil, temptation and holiness are united in one fruit — just as in a person.

The apple and the apple tree are not just plants, but living heroes of Russian culture. They feed, save, tempt, and forgive — like nature itself, whose breath can be heard in every line of folk and literary stories.

Through the images of food, Russian literature speaks about what is most important — about life.

Fairy tale porridge and a nobleman’s feast, a child’s raisin and a magic apple — all this is not just food, but a language through which the nation tells its story.

Russian cuisine in literature is a soul poured out in words, smells, and memories. It unites generations, connecting the past with the present. After all, as long as there is bread on the table, and warmth in the words, Russian culture is alive.

Our next meeting is dedicated to the 145th anniversary of the birth of Alexander Blok.