On these shores blagodarnost’ to Anna Brodsky (and Clava) for astute reads and precious communal apartment lore; and to Alexander Genis for his erudition and passion—and epicurean feats.

This book is imagined as a meal that spans decades of the Soviet experience. Our real meals wouldn’t mean much without the company of Irina Genis, Andrei and Toma Zagdansky, and Alex and Andrea Bayer. A separate Sovetskoye Shampanskoye toast to Katerina Darrier, Maria Landa-Neimark; Innessa Fialkova; Elena Dovlatova; Isolda Gorodetsky; and Svetlana Kupchik for bringing Soviet past to such vivid life at Mom’s table in Queens; and to Mark Serman for “fables.” Among the non-Russians: huge hugs to Kate Sekules for always encouraging me; Melissa Clark for being an angel; Mark Cohen for sharing his archival access; Peter Canby, Esther Allen, Nathaniel Wice, and Virginia Hatley for reading; Jonas and Ursula Hegewisch for their sparkle and style; and to all other pals in New York, Moscow, and Istanbul who fed me, listened to me, and lifted my spirits.

Larisa Frumkin is the soul and star of this book. Mamulik: you’re my everlasting hero and role model. This book is yours.

Finally every word on these pages owes something to Barry Your-grau, my partner, reader, editor, literary adviser, best friend, and true love. Without him this book would be a sad murky nowhere. Ditto my life.

SELECTED SOURCES

What follows is by no means an exhaustive list of the book-length nonfiction sources, both English and Russian, that I have consulted and/or quoted for this book, in addition to works of fiction, memoirs, magazine and newspaper articles, and reliable online materials. Sources that have been helpful to me across several chapters are cited in the earliest chapter. For the Russian titles I have relied on the standard Library of Congress transliteration system, which differs slightly from the more informal one used in the main text of the book.

Borrero, Mauricio. Hungry Moscow: Scarcity and Urban Society in the Russian Civil War, 1917–1921. New York: Peter Lang, 2003.

Giliarovskii, Vladimir. Moskva i moskvichi. Moscow: Moskovskii rabochii, 1968.

Glants, Musya, and Joyce Toomre. Food in Russian History and Culture. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1997.

LeBlanc, Ronald D. Slavic Sins of the Flesh: Food, Sex, and Carnal Appetite in Nineteenth-Century Russian Fiction. Durham: University of New Hampshire Press, 2009.

Lih, Lars T. Bread and Authority in Russia, 1914–1921. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990.

McAuley, Mary. Bread and Justice: State and Society in Petrograd, 1917–1922. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1991.

Pokhlebkin, Vil’jam. Kukhnia veka. Moscow: Polifakt, 2000.

Suny, Ronald G., ed. The Cambridge History of Russia, Volume 3: The Twentieth Century. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006.

Ball, Alan M. Russia’s Last Capitalists: The Nepmen, 1921–1929. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1987.

Benjamin, Walter. Moscow Diary. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1986.

Boym, Svetlana. Common Places: Mythologies of Everyday Life in Russia. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1994.

Buchli, Victor. An Archaeology of Socialism. New York: Berg, 1999.

Elwood, Carter. The Non-Geometric Lenin: Essays on the Development of the Bolshevik Party 1910–1914. London-New York: Anthem Press, 2011.

Genis, Aleksandr. Kolobok. Kulinarnye puteshestviya. Moscow: Corpus, 2010.

Hessler, Julie. A Social History of Soviet Trade: Trade Policy, Retail Practices, and Consumption, 1917–1953. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2004.

Kondrat’eva, Tamara. Kormit’ i Pravit’: O Vlasti v Rossii XVI–XX Veka, Moscow: ROSSPEN, 2009.

Martin, Terry. The Affirmative Action Empire: Nations and Nationalism in the Soviet Union, 1923–1939. Ithaca-London: Cornell University Press, 2001.

Massell, G. J. The Surrogate Proletariat: Moslem Women and Revolutionary Strategies in Soviet Central Asia, 1919–1929. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1974.

Osokina, Elena. Za fasadom stalinskogo izobiliya. Raspredelenie i rynok v snabzhenii naseleniya v gody industrializatsii, 1927–1941. Moscow: ROSSPEN, 1999.

Tumarkin, Nina. Lenin Lives! The Lenin Cult in Soviet Russia. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1983.

Viola, Lynne. Peasant Rebels under Stalin: Collectivization and the Culture of Peasant Resistance. New York: Oxford University Press, 1996.

Balina, Marina, and Yevgeny Dobrenko, eds. Petrified Utopia: Happiness Soviet Style. London & New York: Anthem Press, 2009.

Fitzpatrick, Sheila. Everyday Stalinism: Ordinary Life in Extraordinary Times: Soviet Russia in the 1930s. New York: Oxford University Press, 1999.

Glushchenko, Irina. Obshchepit: Anastas Mikoian i sovetskaia kukhnia. Moscow: GUVShE, 2010.

Gronow, Jukka. Caviar with Champagne: Common Luxury and the Ideals of the Good Life in Stalin’s Russia. New York: Berg, 2003.

Kniga o vkusnoi i zdorovoi pishche. Moscow: Pishchepromizdat, 1939, 1952, 1953, 1954, and 1955.

Korenevskaya, Natalia, and Thomas Lahusen, eds. Intimacy and Terror: Soviet Diaries of the 1930s. New York: New Press, 1995.

Mikoyan, Anastas. Tak bylo. Razmyshleniia o minuvshem. Moscow: Vagrius, 1999.

Petrone, Karen. Life Has Become More Joyous, Comrades: Celebrations in the Time of Stalin. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2000.

Berezhkov, Valentin. Stranitsi diplomaticheskoi istorii. Moscow: Mezhdunarodnye otnosheniia, 1987.

Glantz, David M. The Siege of Leningrad: 900 Days of Terror. London: Brown Partworks, 2001.

Jones, Michael. Leningrad: State of Siege. New York: Basic Books, 2008.

Lur’e, V. M., and V. Ia. Kochik. GRU dela i liudi. St. Petersburg: Olma-Press, 2003.

Moskoff, William. The Bread of Affliction: The Food Supply in the USSR During World War II. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990.

Murphy, David E. What Stalin Knew: The Enigma of Barbarossa. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2005.

Pleshakov, Constantine. Stalin’s Folly. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2005.

Plokhy, Serhii. Yalta: The Price of Peace. New York: Viking, 2010.

Salisbury, Harrison E. The 900 Days: The Siege of Leningrad. New York: Avon Books, 1970.

Snyder, Timothy. Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin. New York: Basic Books, 2010.

Djilas, Milovan. Conversations with Stalin. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1963.

Medvedev, Roy, and Zhores Medvedev. The Unknown Stalin: His Life, Death, and Legacy. New York: Overlook Press, 2004.

Montefiore, S. S. Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2003.

Nikolaev, Vladimir. Sovetskaia Ochered’ Kak Sreda Obitaniia: Sotsiologicheskii Analiz. Moscow: INION RAN, 2000.

Rappaport, Helen. Joseph Stalin: A Biographical Companion. Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO, 1999.

Zubok, Vladislav. Zhivago’s Children: The Last Russian Intelligentsia. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2009.

Carlson, Peter. K Blows Top: A Cold War Comic Interlude Starring Nikita Khrushchev, America’s Most Unlikely Tourist. New York: Public Affairs, 2009.

Castillo, Greg. Cold War on the Home Front: The Soft Power of Midcentury Design. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2010.