There were so many legends, songs, epics and legends about a single product in the USSR and after the USSR as about Soviet sausage. As a result, legends mixed with fairy tales, fairy tales - with myths, and the historical truth, as usual, in the end completely drowned in this abyss, like Atlantis. Can it now be retrieved from this seabed? No... :)
One of the beautiful legends, for example, says that the ancestor of all Soviet sausages was the People's Commissar of the Food Industry Anastas Mikoyan, who in April 1936 signed an order on the production of new meat products: Doktorskaya, Lyubitelskaya, Tea, Veal and Krakow sausages, Dairy sausages and Hunting sausages. ... At the same time, the name of the Doctor's sausage is associated with the fact that it was created specifically for "patients with compromised health as a result of the Civil War and tsarist despotism." The Doctor's recipe included: for 100 kg of sausage - 25 kg of premium beef, 70 kg of semi-fat pork, 3 kg of eggs and 2 kg of cow's milk ...
And this is a characteristic recollection of one of the bloggers about the taste of Soviet sausage: “Like many, I associate sausage with the taste of childhood. She did not stay in the refrigerator for a long time, they killed it that evening. Oh, there was a time! ".
But the main question remains, which divides the supporters and opponents of the USSR into two irreconcilably warring camps: was there any sausage in the USSR at all? Or did she not exist, but were there only legends about her? Supporters of the USSR answer that the sausage was and present numerous photographs:

1949. Shop. Kiev

1952. Moscow. Sale of sausages in the former Eliseevsky store

1958. Kiev. Shop "Ukrainian sausages"

1960s. Grocery store. Leningrad

1980. Sausage "Krakowska"

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Cooperative trade in the late USSR. Products in cooperation were sold at higher prices than in state trade

Restructuring. The prices in the cooperative store look prohibitively high, exceeding the state prices by several times.

Their opponents responded by showing photos of empty counters and queues at Soviet Kolbasy stores. Reasonably asked: if there was a sausage, would people stand in line for it? Wouldn't. So, she was not there ...

Consequently, all these photos of sausage abundance in the USSR are just clever fakes (although there was no such word at that time) of Soviet propaganda.
They also post statistics on the production of sausages in the USSR and now, and it turns out that now we eat less of them than then.

Anti-Sowers parry that, as Mark Twain pointed out, there are three types of lies - just lies, blatant lies and statistics. Of course, the astute writer meant Soviet statistics ...
Thus, the Soviet sausage turns out to be an analogue of Schrödinger's cat in the world of gastronomy - it seems to be, and it is not at the same time. And this dispute has every chance of lasting a long time - years, and possibly decades. I think the only chance to solve it is to stage a historical experiment! Simply restore socialism and the USSR, and see if there will be sausage in it or not ...

Often, hearing the word "history", we imagine dusty shelves of archives and libraries, something distant and decrepit. We rarely think about the fact that history lives in our home, in the most familiar everyday things and even food products that we eat every day ... And it is some products that, having told the story of their birth, can tell the story of the whole country. Don't believe me?

Then answer the question - what products from the table of an ordinary Soviet person can we meet now, on our table? That's right: Borodino bread, ice cream, soda "Baikal" and "Duchess", however, can be listed for a long time. But, perhaps, the most honorable place will be occupied by "Doctor's" sausage - one of the most popular food products today, which has become a kind of symbol of the Soviet country and one of the most famous brands of our time.

But the history of "Doktorskaya" sausage is a reflection of almost the entire Soviet history with its kinks and complexities.

The 1930s of the twentieth century were both difficult and joyful for the USSR. The fratricidal Civil War has ended, and the national economy is being restored. The unification of individual peasant farms into collective farms has been completed almost throughout the country, and the kulaks have been liquidated as a class. Great construction projects are underway, a powerful industry is being created, which in a decade will allow the country to win the Great War ...

Despite all the great plans, there is not enough meat in the country - the previous difficult years are affecting. And the health of the population must be restored and maintained - the builders of communism must be strong and healthy. Therefore, the idea arises to create a product with a high protein content that could replace meat.

Anastas Ivanovich Mikoyan, since 1934 People's Commissar of the Food Industry of the USSR, will play a special role in the creation and development of the food industry in the USSR and in the history of Doktorskaya sausage. It was he who was to create the country's food industry from scratch. Mikoyan chose the United States as a model, where this industry was already quite well developed. Thanks to the borrowing of "industrial" American food, several varieties of sausages and sausages, industrially processed milk, various canned food, ice cream appeared on the tables of Soviet citizens ...

Under the close personal supervision of Mikoyan, the construction of several large food industry enterprises began in the USSR - for the production of milk, sausages, and canned food.

April 29, 1936 A.I. Mikoyan signed a decree on the start of production of several varieties of sausages, a special place among which was taken by the sausage, intended for "improving the health of persons who have undermined their health as a result of the Civil War and suffered from the tyranny of the tsarist regime." It was assumed that this type of sausage will be intended for those treated in sanatoriums and hospitals.

The recipe for this product was developed by the best specialists in the country, doctors, employees of the All-Russian Research Institute of the Meat Industry. According to the recipe (GOST 23670-79), 100 kg of sausage should contain 25 kg of premium beef, 70 kg of semi-fat pork, 3 kg of eggs or melange and 2 kg of dry cow's milk or skimmed milk. Sausage mince was made from fresh meat and had to go through a double cut. A minimum of table salt was used as a seasoning; granulated sugar or glucose; ground nutmeg or cardamom, spicy seasonings were excluded.

There is a legend that initially they wanted to give this sausage the name "". However, the authors of the recipe quickly realized that the combination "Stalin's sausage" could be misunderstood by the all-powerful NKVD and came up with a name that remained in history and reflected well the quality and purpose of this product.

Until the 50s, the recipe and quality of the sausage were unchanged according to the standard. Of course, the sausages produced by different meat processing plants were different. This depended on the quality of the raw materials supplied to the plant and on the experience of the employees. The sausage of the Mikoyan meat-packing plant became the ideal and the model - the capital giant, which supplied primarily the nomenclature, bought the most expensive and high-quality raw materials. At the same time, sausage was by no means an integral part of the special ration of representatives of the party and state elite - it could be bought in almost any grocery store.

Interestingly, the cost of Doktorskaya was significantly higher than its retail price. The Doktorskaya stores sold for 2 rubles 20 kopecks. With this money, in the mid-70s it was possible to buy, for example, 220 boxes of matches, 11 seals in a waffle cup, 10 packs of Belomorkanal cigarettes, i.e. the price for this sausage was quite acceptable for ordinary citizens.

Changes in the quality of sausage began only in the 70s and this was primarily due to the difficulties that the continuously reforming agriculture began to experience and, of course, with the drought and poor harvest of the early 70s. It was at this time that it was allowed to add up to 2% starch or flour to sausage meat.

A radical change in the fate of sausage - like all countries - will begin in the mid-80s. The composition of the feedstock will change, in 1997 there will be a new GOST, in accordance with which the name "doctor" will turn into a brand.

But still, most of us, coming to the meat section of a supermarket and choosing a sausage, first of all pay attention to the name "Doktorskaya" ...

Born in the USSR: Doctor's Sausage and Kopeyka Car

We started to produce this sausage in 1936 year, adapted the recipe for sausage and the technology of its manufacture by the All-Russian Research Institute of the Meat Industry, and for the first time carried out production at the Moscow Meat Processing Plant named after I. ... The sausage was intended as a dietary (therapeutic) food for patients with somatic signs of the consequences of prolonged starvation (specifically, “... patients who have undermined health as a result of the Civil War and tsarist despotism”). It is believed that due to the high popularity of the name "Doctor's" sausage has become the object of numerous imitations and fakes.

• Beef pulp - 250 gr.
• Semi-fat pork pulp - 700 gr.
• Natural milk - 200 gr.
• Egg - 1 pc.
• Sugar - 3 gr.
• Salt - 2 gr.
• Ground cardamom - 0.5 gr.

Preparation of minced meat
Beef and pork meat must be minced twice. The first time with a coarse mesh, the second with a fine mesh. Add spices (cardamom, sugar, salt) to the minced meat. Mix everything thoroughly. Add the egg with milk. Beat the minced meat with a blender. The result is a viscous mass. Don't worry about the color of the sausage. After all, you will get a natural color (without dyes). We put the prepared mass in the refrigerator and keep it there for about an hour. If you want your homemade doctor's sausage to have a pink color, you can add high quality vodka or cognac to the minced meat ( 2 tablespoons).

Preparation of sausage casings
Thorough preparation of the casing requires a doctor's sausage. At home, you can use both artificial and natural. It needs to be cut into pieces according to 25-30 cm. After that, the shells should be rinsed with warm, slightly salted water and, on one side, tie their ends with cotton twine, stepping back from the edge 2 see.A simpler option is to use a baking sleeve with a width 30 cm.

Sausage stuffing
We fill our casings with minced meat. For this, you can use a special device (for example, a meat grinder with the necessary attachment) for stuffing the sausage. Then we form the sausages, pressing the casing tightly with our hands. After that, on the other side, we tie the shell tightly. In conclusion, you need to very carefully examine each sausage and, if large air bubbles are found, carefully pierce them with a thin needle.

Sausage cooking
In a saucepan, you need to heat the water until 95 degrees and place the blanks in it. Doctor's sausage is cooked at home at a temperature 85-87 degrees throughout 50 minutes. The main thing to remember is that the water should never boil. ... Final stage At this stage, after cooking, the doctor's sausage is cooled immediately under running water (it will be enough to allocate just a few seconds for this process). Next, the sausage is cooled at room temperature, and then in the refrigerator. Homemade doctor's sausage The storage conditions for such a doctor's sausage are quite simple: 4-8 degrees, and as for the period, then you need to use it within 72 hours.

In Soviet times, sausage was perfect. Any technologist of any sausage production will confirm this to you. Now you won't be able to get such quality sausage, even if you try to make it sparingly.
Reference: In 1990, 2,283 thousand tons of sausage were made in the RSFSR, 15.4 kg per capita. In 2009, 2238 thousand tons of sausage were made in the Russian Federation, 15.7 kg per capita.

1958 Kiev. Shop "Ukrainian sausages"
All Soviet sausages were made according to GOST. For example Doctor's:
According to GOST 23670-79 per 100 kg of sausage
trimmed beef of the highest grade - 25;
trimmed semi-fat pork - 70;
chicken eggs or melange - 3;
dry cow milk, whole or skim - 2;
table salt - 2.090;
sodium nitrite - 0.0071;
granulated sugar or glucose - 0.2;
nutmeg or ground cardamom - 0.05.
There were no toilet paper, preservatives, flavor enhancers, dyes, carrageenans, vegetable, animal and milk proteins, phosphates in the composition.

The fact that GOST was strictly observed and for the slightest violation the responsible person would sit down for a very long time I hope you do not doubt?

Now there are no such recipes. All of the above additives, which were not there then, but now are not at all improve the quality of sausage, but allow you to sell water and use low-quality meat (frozen, stale, of the wrong fat content).

Further. Let's say for elite stores they decided to make a classic Doctor's one despite the price. Well, let's say they even bought eggs and found nutmeg with cardomone not in the composition of functional mixtures. Where can I get the meat? In Russia and Europe, cattle are now being fed with such things that even in terms of protein content it is fundamentally different from the "normal" Soviet one. Decent meat can be bought (you can, but expensive and buy another) in South America. But you won't be able to deliver it chilled. And from frozen meat, on which at least 90% of meat processing enterprises now work, "correct" sausage cannot be made. I will reveal a secret - nothing good can be cooked from frozen meat, and in stores in the vast majority of cases, defrosted meat [thawed] is sold under the guise of chilled meat.

I spoke at several enterprises with technologists who were trying to produce sausage of Soviet quality. They all said that it did not work out due to the inability to find high-quality raw meat. Even when buying raw meat from private traders in a live form, they are convinced that households are also fed "modern" feed, which does not have a very good effect on meat.

Well, I will give an example of a modern recipe that you like (I will not write specific names of spices and proteins):
Mechanically deboned meat 45
Chicken skin 35
Animal protein 2
Water 18
Table salt 1.8
Spice mix Combi 0.8
Dye 0.06
Milk flavor 0.06
Preservative freshener 0.3
Dry smoke 0.02
Emulsifier (sodium alginate) 0.5
Sodium nitrite 0.0075
Process water (ice) 8
Please note that out of 111 kg of sausage you were sold only 45 kg of meat, and 26 kg of water, 40 kg of other nasty things, but according to statistics, all this will pass like meat. Eat dear Russians.

And what about toilet paper. About ten years ago, a technologist friend took out the prices of Western suppliers and said: "Well, the dream of toilet paper in sausage has come true - we are offered food cellulose for sausages."

By the way, how much of this sausage was made in the RSFSR?

In 1990 - 2,283 thousand tons, 15.4 kg each for a poor Soviet soul. It was very small, so there was a terrible shortage of sausage. People could give up everything and go on a trip to Moscow for a couple of days in order to bring from there a Doctorskaya stick and three Krakowska rings to the starving children. Soviet men only married those women who had several such sausage walkers behind their shoulders ...

But the terrible times of scarcity are over, the Great Sausage Revolution swept away the retrogrades from power, the doors of freedom and abundance opened. In 2009, in the Russian Federation, having destroyed the livestock and many totalitarian meat processing plants, thousands of small sausage workshops and without any unnecessary cattle, using only bare entrepreneurial ingenuity, produced as many as 2,238 thousand tons of sausage products, or 15.7 kg per free Russian soul ... Today we can contemplate sausage on every shabby counter, at any price from 60 to 1260 rubles per kilogram, and the new generation of Russians does not want to believe that someone could go to hell for such crap. Before our eyes, Soviet sausage has become a legend.

I continue to acquaint the reader with the history of Soviet sausage according to the 1960 handbook (Konnikov A.G. Handbook on the production of sausages and semi-finished meat products. 2nd ed., Revised, supplemented. - M .: Pishchepromizdat, 1960). Today we will find out the composition and technological requirements for the production of Soviet cooked sausages. Was water and ice, pork skin, soy fillers, crushed bones, preservatives, toilet paper, and the blood of repressed dissidents added to the sausage?

* * *

Moscow and sausage

Population of Moscow:

1912 - 1.617 million people
1915 - 1.817 million people

Glavmeat. Statistical and economic reference book. - M .: Pishchepromizdat, 1936

* * *

210 varieties of Soviet sausages and smoked meats.

A list of all the main varieties of sausages and meat delicacies that were produced in 1960 at the meat processing plants of the USSR. So, the assortment of Soviet sausages and smoked meats according to the 1960 handbook (Konnikov A.G. Handbook for the production of sausages and semi-finished meat products. 2nd ed., Revised, supplemented. - M .: Pishchepromizdat, 1960):

The food industry of the USSR in 1960 produced 1 million 351 thousand tons of sausages, or 6.3 kg per capita.

As the memory of eyewitnesses suggests, by 1970 the situation with sausage in Soviet trade worsened, obviously because the Soviet industry produced 2 million 286 thousand tons of sausages in 1970, or 9.4 kg per capita.

I always buy only Doktorskaya in the store. I do not like anything else, and even more so something with fat. Smoked once a year is possible, the ham is so-so rare, but "Doctor's" is super.

But the history of "Doktorskaya" sausage is a reflection of almost the entire Soviet history with its kinks and complexities.

Look ...

The 1930s of the twentieth century were both difficult and joyful for the USSR. The fratricidal Civil War has ended, and the national economy is being restored. The unification of individual peasant farms into collective farms has been completed almost throughout the country, and the kulaks have been liquidated as a class. Great construction projects are underway, a powerful industry is being created, which in a decade will allow the country to win the Great War ...

Despite all the great plans, there is not enough meat in the country - the previous difficult years are affecting. And the health of the population must be restored and maintained - the builders of communism must be strong and healthy. Therefore, an idea arises to create a product with a high protein content that could replace meat. Anastas Ivanovich Mikoyan, People's Commissar of the USSR Food Industry since 1934, will play a special role in the creation and development of the food industry in the USSR and in the history of Doktorskaya sausage. It was he who was to create the country's food industry from scratch. Mikoyan chose the United States as a model, where this industry was already quite well developed. Thanks to the borrowing of "industrial" American food, several varieties of sausages and sausages, industrially processed milk, various canned food, ice cream appeared on the tables of Soviet citizens ...

Under the close personal supervision of Mikoyan, the construction of several large food industry enterprises began in the USSR - for the production of milk, sausages, and canned food.

April 29, 1936 A.I. Mikoyan signed a decree on the start of production of several varieties of sausages, a special place among which was taken by the sausage, intended for "improving the health of persons who have undermined their health as a result of the Civil War and suffered from the tyranny of the tsarist regime." It was assumed that this type of sausage will be intended for those treated in sanatoriums and hospitals.

The recipe for this product was developed by the best specialists in the country, doctors, employees of the All-Russian Research Institute of the Meat Industry. According to the recipe (GOST 23670-79), 100 kg of sausage should contain 25 kg of premium beef, 70 kg of semi-fat pork, 3 kg of eggs or melange and 2 kg of dry cow's milk or skimmed milk. Sausage mince was made from fresh meat and had to go through a double cut. A minimum of table salt was used as a seasoning; granulated sugar or glucose; ground nutmeg or cardamom, spicy seasonings were excluded.

There is a legend that initially they wanted to give this sausage the name "Stalinskaya". However, the authors of the recipe quickly realized that the combination "Stalin's sausage" could be misunderstood by the all-powerful NKVD and came up with a name that remained in history and reflected well the quality and purpose of this product.
Until the 50s, the recipe and quality of the sausage were unchanged according to the standard. Of course, the sausages produced by different meat processing plants were different. This depended on the quality of the raw materials supplied to the plant and on the experience of the employees. The sausage of the Mikoyan meat-packing plant became the ideal and model - the metropolitan giant, which supplied first of all the nomenclature, bought the most expensive and high-quality raw materials. At the same time, sausage was by no means an integral part of the special ration of representatives of the party and state elite - it could be bought in almost any grocery store.
Interestingly, the cost of Doktorskaya was significantly higher than its retail price. The Doktorskaya stores sold for 2 rubles 20 kopecks. With this money, in the mid-70s it was possible to buy, for example, 220 boxes of matches, 11 seals in a waffle cup, 10 packs of Belomorkanal cigarettes, i.e. the price for this sausage was quite acceptable for ordinary citizens.

Changes in the quality of sausage began only in the 70s and this was primarily due to the difficulties that the continuously reforming agriculture began to experience and, of course, with the drought and poor harvest of the early 70s. It was at this time that it was allowed to add up to 2% starch or flour to sausage meat.

A radical change in the fate of sausage - like all countries - will begin in the mid-80s. The composition of the feedstock will change, in 1997 there will be a new GOST, in accordance with which the name "doctor" will turn into a brand.

There is such an addition. Here is the phrase: According to the recipe (GOST 23670-79) in "Boiled sausage of the doctor's highest grade" per 100 kg of sausage, it should have contained 25 kg of premium beef, 70 kg of semi-fat pork, 3 kg of eggs or melange and 2 kg of whole milk powder or fat-free "

This is all great, but there is another point in this GOST:

2.6. It is allowed to use:
food phosphates in an amount of 0.3% by weight of raw materials (in terms of anhydrous);

- sodium ascorbate or ascorbic acid in the amount of 50 g per 100 kg of raw materials;

Smoking preparations approved by the USSR Ministry of Health;

Pasteurized cow milk with a fat mass fraction of 2.5 and 3.2% in an amount of 8 kg instead of 1 kg of dry whole milk with a decrease in the mass of added moisture by 7 kg;

Cow pasteurized skim milk in the amount of 11.5 kg instead of 1 kg of skimmed milk powder with a decrease in the mass of added moisture by 10.5 kg;

Powdered cream with a fat content of 42% in an amount of 1 kg instead of 2.1 kg of 20% fat cow's milk cream;

Cow's whole milk powder with a fat content of 25% in an amount of 1 kg instead of 610 g of powdered cream with a fat content of 42% or 1281 g of cream from cow's milk of 20% fat content;

egg powder in an amount of 274 g instead of 1 kg of melange or 1 kg (24 pcs.) of chicken eggs;

Veneered buffalo meat, yak meat instead of trimmed beef meat of the corresponding grade in the production of premium sausages up to 50%, first and second grades up to 100%;

Boiled sausages, sausages, small sausages and meat loaves of the highest and first grade with manufacturing defects (scrap, deformed loaves, with influx of minced meat over the casing, broth and fatty edema, etc.) for the production of boiled sausages, sausages, sausages and first grade meat loaves; second grade - for the production of sausages and meat loaves of the second grade in an amount up to 3% by weight of raw materials in excess of the recipe;

Hemoglobin preparation or food blood in an amount of 0.5-1% by weight of raw materials;

Extracts of spices and garlic instead of natural ones;

Trimmed beef trimmed in an amount of up to 10% - for beef sausages and wieners of the first grade and up to 30% - for tea sausage, meat loaf of tea to the mass of trimmed beef of the second grade, provided for by the recipes, instead of its corresponding amount;

Trimmed meat pork trimmed in an amount of up to 10% - for boiled sausages, meat loaves, first-class wieners and up to 20% - for boiled sausages, second-grade meat loaves to the mass of trimmed semi-fat pork stipulated by the recipes, instead of its corresponding amount. Joint use of trimmed meat beef trimmed and trimmed meat pork trimmed is not allowed;

Protein stabilizer to the mass of raw materials in an amount of up to 5% - for boiled sausages, small sausages and meat loaves of the first grade and up to 6% - for boiled sausages and meat loaves of the second grade;

The mass of beef, pork and lamb to the mass of raw materials in an amount of up to 5% - for boiled sausages, sausages and meat loaves of the first grade and up to 6% - for boiled sausages and meat loaves of the second grade. For separate mutton sausages - up to 15% of the meat mass from lean mutton instead of single-grade trimmed lamb;

The mass of meat beef, pork or lamb, obtained by processing bone in saline solutions, in an amount of 4 kg instead of 1 kg of meat mass obtained by mechanical pressing, with a decrease in the mass of added water by 3 kg;

Food plasma (serum) of the blood of slaughter animals to the mass of raw materials in the following quantities:

up to 5% instead of added water in the production of boiled sausages, sausages, small sausages and premium meat loaves;

up to 15% instead of added water in the production of boiled sausages, sausages, small sausages and meat loaves of the first and second grade;

up to 10% instead of 2% trimmed pork meat and 8% water or 3% trimmed beef (or lamb) meat and 7% water

or up to 15% instead of 3% trimmed pork meat and 12% water or 4% trimmed beef (or lamb) meat and 11% water;

Cuts obtained from stripping boiled smoked meat instead of raw beef or pork fat in an amount of up to 10% in the production of beef sausages, beef sausages, beef meat bread;

Cow pasteurized low-fat milk instead of added water in an amount 5% higher than the recommended rate of water, except for doctor's, milk, sorbitol, ordinary sausages, milk sausages;