Russian national salad "Olivier" in the history of Russia. Lucien Olivier invented his salad out of spite

23.08.2019 Healthy eating

The history of the creation of a real salad Olivier For many decades, the festive feast of Muscovites - from a rich restaurant table to a student party - has always been accompanied by a traditional dish with a French aristocratic name - salad "Olivier". Each of us has eaten it more than once. But is this the Olivier? Let's see the story.

This salad was invented in the 1860s by the French chef Lucien Olivier, the owner of the Hermitage inn on Trubnaya Square. The building of the tavern has survived, this is house 14 on Petrovsky Boulevard, the corner of Neglinnaya, now it houses a publishing house and a theater.

V.A. Gilyarovsky, in his essay "On the Pipe", dedicated to Trubnaya Square, talks about the circumstances due to which the Hermitage tavern appeared on this square. In the 1860s, cigarette smoking was still in vogue, but there were many snuff lovers. Sniffers and sniffers, with the advantage of just such tobacco use, exhibited the fact that one can “sniff” in any place and society, and, unlike smoking, “you cannot spoil the air”. In particular, amateur snuff was held in high esteem, which was ground in a special way and with various additives. Booth workers were engaged in the preparation of such tobacco, each had his own recipe and his own clientele.

At the guardhouse on Trubnaya Square, among the buyers were a wealthy Moscow merchant Yakov Pegov and a famous Moscow chef Olivier, about whom they said that he was the only one in the capital who could arrange a real dinner, and who was invited to the most aristocratic and wealthy houses to arrange ceremonial dinners ... Meeting at the booth, Pegov and Olivier agreed to jointly purchase a plot of land on which this booth and a nearby drinking establishment, known among the local residents as the Afonkin tavern, stood, and to set up a first-class restaurant here.

In the mid-1860s, a building was built with white-column halls, separate offices, sparkling mirrors, chandeliers and palace luxury of decoration and furnishings. The new establishment was named Olivier's Tavern Hermitage. In all respects, the new inn resembled the highest-class Parisian restaurant. The only difference was that, instead of tailcoats, the waiters were dressed like Russian ladies: in white Dutch linen shirts belted with silk belts. In the "Hermitage" one could taste the same dishes that were served in the mansions of the nobles. The main attraction of the Hermitage kitchen was the salad of an extraordinarily delicate taste invented by the owner - the Olivier Salad, the preparation of which he kept secret. Many chefs have tried to make this salad, but none have succeeded.

The Moscow nobility became the visitors and regulars of the Hermitage, in the eighties and nineties they were replaced by Moscow foreign businessmen, and then came the Russian merchants, acquiring a European gloss. The Hermitage was visited by the intelligentsia; solemn and jubilee dinners were held in its halls: in 1879, in honor of I.S. Turgenev, in 1880 - in honor of F.M. Dostoevsky, in 1899, on the centenary of the birth of A.S. Pushkin, the Pushkin dinner was held, which was attended by the most famous writers of that time. Various anniversaries of the university professor were celebrated here, and on Tatiana's day the students had fun, but student feasts were very different from the ceremonial "professors' dinners".

The salad has become the main attraction for visitors. His recipe was a secret that Olivier took with him to his grave. But, after a short oblivion, the recipe was restored in 1904 from the memory of one of the gourmets - the restaurant's regulars.

Here is the composition of the real salad "Olivier" (though already the period of its decline - 1904, and the secret of the true "Olivier" its creator took with him) is as follows:

Reconstruction of a real salad "Olivier" !!!

So, Olivier took:

... meat of two boiled hazel grouses,
... one boiled veal tongue,
... added about 100 grams of black pressed caviar,
... 200 grams of fresh salad,
... 25 boiled crawfish or 1 can of lobster
... half a can of very small pickled cucumbers (pickles),
... half a can of soybeans kabul,
... two chopped fresh cucumbers,
... 100 grams of capers (a prickly vegetable that has flower buds pickled),
... finely chopped five pieces of hard-boiled eggs.

All this bourgeois delicacy was seasoned with Provencal sauce, which was to be cooked in French vinegar, two fresh egg yolks and a pound (400 grams) of Provencal olive oil.

After Olivier's death, the owner of the Big Hermitage restaurant (that was the name of the tavern at the beginning of the 20th century) was Olivier's Partnership, whose composition changed several times. During the revolution of 1917, the restaurant was closed, the building housed various institutions, during the NEP there was again a restaurant, and from 1923 to 1941 it housed the Peasant's House. In the Big Hermitage and in the Nepman restaurant, the menu invariably featured the signature Olivier salad, but V.A. Gilyarovsky believed that even with Olivier's heirs, the salad was no longer the same as it had been with its inventor, but that the salad served to the Nepmen was “made of stubs”. We will consider in detail the preparation of a real salad "Olivier" below, and now we will return to history. After Olivier's death, the owner of the Big Hermitage restaurant (that was the name of the tavern at the beginning of the 20th century) was Olivier's Partnership, whose composition changed several times. During the revolution of 1917, the restaurant was closed, the building housed various institutions, during the NEP there was again a restaurant, and from 1923 to 1941 it housed the Peasant's House. In the Big Hermitage and in the Nepman restaurant, the menu invariably featured the signature Olivier salad, but V.A. Gilyarovsky believed that even with Olivier's heirs, the salad was no longer the same as it had been with its inventor, but that the salad served to the Nepmen was “made of stubs”.

It was considered a special chic when the meals were prepared by the French chef Olivier. You will need poultry meat, pickled (not pickled) cucumbers, a sweet apple (in extreme cases, sweet and sour). Both cucumbers and apples need to be peeled. In Olivier, it is very important to observe the correct proportion: for 6 potatoes, take 3 carrots, 2 onions, 1-2 pickled cucumbers, 1 sweet apple, 200 g of boiled chicken, a glass of canned green peas, 3 eggs, 1/2 can of mayonnaise, salt and ground pepper - to taste.

"Moscow and Muscovites"

Culture

Have you ever wondered why many people love Olivier salad so much? And why exactly this dish is so popular in the territory of the former USSR, associated with New Year's festivities?

And after all, even those who hate Olivier are well aware of the peculiar sacred meaning this salad for almost everyone who loves the New Year's holiday (that is, for the majority).

The special status of Olivier salad as a dish for a holiday is perceived by us as such from early childhood. And it seems as if it had always been this way. In fact, the popularity of Olivier in our country is a vivid example of such a random product placement.

Where did such a dish come from? A lot has been written about its origin, but too much artistic most stories look, raising a lot of questions.

So how did the "bourgeois" salad penetrate the life of almost every citizen of the former USSR? Why exactly salad olivier became the most favorite New Year's dish for many millions? Let's talk about everything in order.

The history of the birth of Olivier salad usually begins with the history of the birth of a person, a great hereditary cook. And this man was a certain Lucien Olivier... It is believed that Lucien was born in Moscow somewhere at the turn of 1837-1838 (nothing is known about the exact date of the birth of the future "father of Olivier salad").

Sources that mention the name of Lucien Olivier usually immediately transfer us to the mid-60s. the century before last when well-to-do Muscovites and guests of the city gave their attention to a restaurant called "Hermitage".

It was in this restaurant that visitors tried for the first time the prototype of the Olivier salad, named after allegedly hereditary chef(and part-time manager) of this institution Lucien Olivier. But this is where the first questions arise.

There is no evidence that Lucien Olivier was a hereditary chef

You may be surprised, but there are no reliable sources that would confirm that restaurant manager Lucien was a great cook (and even hereditary, as you can read in some "historical" research), does not exist.

And what is generally known about Lucien? It is believed that the man was French or Belgian of French descent. However, here too we face with the same problem: no matter how hard you try, you will not find a reliable primary source of this information (and many enthusiasts and historians have been deliberately engaged in this).

And what do the Moscow archives say about people with the surname Olivier who then lived in this city? It is known for certain that in the address book of 1842 of the year there is mention of only one Olivier, who was then living in Moscow. Perhaps the "great cook" was born in his family?

That is unlikely. The likelihood that it was in the family of this Olivier, a merchant and owner of a hairdresser named Osip, then grew up four-year-old Lucien, the future creator of the super-popular salad, is practically nil: although Osip had four children and three of them are boys, none of the guys are suitable either by age or by name.

Was there even a man named Lucien Olivier?

For most of the fragmentary information that we have about Lucien Olivier, as the manager of the Hermitage restaurant, we owe to such a person as the writer Count Vladimir Gilyarovsky... And it would be possible to refer to his information, if not for one "but": Gilyarovsky was called at one time only as a collector of urban legends. Legends and rumors.

And, nevertheless: if you believe all the same archival sources (namely, they are the most reliable), the Hermitage restaurant, which opened in chic hotel "Hermitage" on Trubnaya Square in Moscow, like the hotel itself, were under the management of a certain ... Nikolai Olivier. Another Olivier? Where did he come from ?!

For the first time, Nicholas Olivier was mentioned in 1868 in a way Moscow guidebook hospitals, retail stores, various enterprises, educational institutions, usurers' offices, as well as hotels and restaurants.

Who was the first to tell about Lucien Olivier as a cook?

The writer Gilyarovsky, in his descriptions of the life and traditions of Muscovites of those years, described the Hermitage establishment as a very popular and elite place... And it was he, Vladimir Alekseevich Gilyarovsky, who painted the talents of the cook Olivier, who allegedly prepared an exceptionally delicious salad that made Lucien popular throughout Moscow.

Gilyarovsky personally, of course, could not see this, since he was born only in 1855; his book "Moscow and Muscovites" was published in 1926. And now the fun part: any others sources of information, about whom we would have learned about Lucien Olivier as a talented hereditary chef, are simply absent.

However, the manager of the Hermitage named Lucien existed, being, quite obviously, Nicholas, who changed his name to a more French one. What for? Perhaps to match The "Frenchness" of the restaurant itself... One can only guess about the motives of Nicholas (Lucien), since the man died in 1883, leaving almost no data behind.

Could the manager of the hotel and restaurant take on himself the preparation of dishes in the restaurant of the hotel he runs? Hypothetically, such a possibility is not excluded, however no evidence We do not have this fact, except for the existence of a beautiful legend about the hereditary chef Lucien Olivier (and many conjectures based on this legend). But we have Olivier salad.

Real Olivier recipe

Olivier's first salad

The question immediately arises: maybe there was no Olivier salad then? There was, although the story of Olivier, like a salad, no less confusing than the story of Lucien Olivier as a cook. There were many delicious dishes that the sophisticated Moscow noble public really tasted for the first time in the Hermitage restaurant in the hotel of the same name.

By the way, another Russian writer, Pyotr Dmitrievich Boborykin, who lived in that era and visited the Hermitage restaurant, sincerely admired the incredible huge kitchen this institution in their articles published in the popular monthly. There was also mentioned a French manager, allegedly born in Russia.

At the same time, as Bobrykin assured, insisting on this information, about six dozen chefs... Did it make sense for the hotel manager to get behind the stove as well?

However, back to the salad, or rather, to its prototype!

The Hermitage restaurant served a very tasty and varied dish (perhaps really a salad), which later became known as by the name of the manager restaurant. Perhaps it was called so at once, in the menu of the institution, although there is no indication of this.

What the first recipe for this dish looked like, did it look like a salad at all - unknown! Everything else that can be found about the Olivier salad with reference to the Hermitage restaurant is stories, legends and speculation.

One of these legends says that the restaurant's chef (according to the same legend, the chef was Lucien Olivier) presented his new culinary masterpiece, which was not a salad at all. Rather, it was like ensemble of various products, generously drizzled with Provencal sauce. The dish allegedly included crayfish necks, partridges, hazel grouses, lanspig, veal tongue and much more, including separately presented potatoes and eggs.

Some of these products are indeed used as ingredients for modern salad. But, as the legend says, visitors to the Hermitage did not appreciate the refined taste of the artist and maestro Olivier, mixing all the ingredients in a bunch... And the next day, the chef, upset by the ignorance of the public, served the same dish, but in a mixed form. Like, this is how the Olivier salad appeared.

One would like to believe in this memorable legend, but there is one nuance (at least): the dish itself was allegedly called "Game Mayonnaise". but cookbooks the middle of the century before last present us under this name a lot of dishes from pork, beef, hare, and other animals. It seems that mayonnaise became a sauce later.

Where did the original Olivier recipe go?

After Olivier's death, the Hermitage restaurant was repeatedly repaired, completed, rebuilt, after which it was finally closed in 1917. Have any recipes been lost? It is obvious. Was there a recipe for that very famous Olivier salad among them? As you can imagine, there are no direct indications for this. But the story did not end there, it just began.

Beginning in 1884, recipes began to appear in various culinary and near-culinary publications of the country, which are supposedly a reference to "the very same" famous recipe Olivier salad, popular among the nobility of Moscow and guests of the city. The recipes changed from publication to publication and from publication to publication.

The authors of each subsequent recipe could make changes to the "original" recipe, replacing, for example, hazel grouse with chicken, recommending Provencal sauce. By the way, standards for mayonnaise, as for the sauce familiar to us, called "Provencal", were developed already in the Soviet Union. By the way, there were no preservatives in it, except for vinegar from alcohol.

Needless to say that among the writers of culinary recipes, as well as among publishers and editors, there were many not the most talented people who, first of all, hoped to to make money? Not trying hard to search for any historical truth, some even invented the ingredients of the "first Olivier" (adding, for example, black caviar).

Salad for the New Year's table

Soviet Olivier

The glory of Olivier salad as "a unique dish with incredible taste and nutritional qualities, the recipe for which has been irretrievably lost", simply could not sink into oblivion... And she did not sink. In famous restaurants of the Soviet Union, many chefs tried to speculate (in a good way) on the long-standing fame of Olivier salad.

Speculations can be called purely conditional, since the chefs of the establishments sincerely tried to cook something close to the original(at least close to what was published in the old pre-revolutionary culinary publications).

Ideologically correct Olivier

It is known, for example, that in the mid-30s of the last century in some restaurants in the capital, salad a la Olivier was no longer served with expensive ingredients, echoes of the bourgeois past (take at least the same hazel grouse!), but with ideologically verified red carrots. And he was called "Capital".

Perhaps the story about "ideologically verified" carrots is also a legend, and the chefs simply had to try new ingredients including the same green peas instead of capers. And the sausage that appeared in the dish was the result of attempts to reduce the cost of the final product.

It must be said that already by that time the Olivier salad was known under several names: "Russian salad", "Winter". Again, "Stolichny". There is no clear justification for this. One can find fabrications on the theme that “Russian” differs from “Olivier” in that one uses meat, and the other uses sausage.

However, there is no logic in this, given the previous narration. Most likely, in the Soviet public catering system, they tried to get away from the not quite popular name "Olivier", trying not only new ingredients, but also new names... As we can see, one, the second, and the third have taken root. There are even names like "Game Salad".

How did the doctor's sausage appear in Olivier?

After the end of the Great Patriotic War, the Soviet people were actively rebuilding the destroyed country. But even in the midst of harsh everyday life, sometimes I wanted to arrange a holiday for myself - with festive food and drinks... Olivier unexpectedly became an attribute of the celebration. But, since chicken fillet was expensive, the cheaper doctor's sausage began to be used everywhere.

In addition, this cooked sausage, developed back in 1936 as a dietary food item recommended for those who undermined my health even as a result of the Civil War and the First World War, it was recommended to citizens after the end of the Great Patriotic War.

October 4, 2011, 10:33

Few know that the famous Olivier salad was invented by a French chef in Russia in the second half of the 19th century, and the name of the famous chef misleads many. Nevertheless, the fact is the fact. Lucien Olivier is the founder of the famous Hermitage restaurant, as well as the author of a magnificent and still living salad. The elite restaurant Hermitage was built by Lucien Olivier after many years of living in Moscow, when he realized what was missing in the Russian capital. There was a lack of French chic. Joining forces with the wealthy merchant Yakov Pegov, Olivier buys a plot in the center of Moscow and intends to build a first-class restaurant based on the best French examples.
By the mid-60s of the 19th century, on the site of a booth selling snuff, a chic building with white columns, crystal chandeliers with isolated offices and luxurious interiors arose. It was a novelty for Moscow then, and the nascent bourgeoisie poured into the restaurant. At first, Olivier's establishment was called a Tavern in the Russian way, and the waiters were also dressed in a "tavern style". The following facts can tell about the importance and popularity of the restaurant: in 1879, a gala dinner was held in the Hermitage in honor of I.S. Turgenev, in 1880 - in honor of F.M. Dostoevsky, in 1899 - the famous celebration of the centenary of Pushkin's birthday, which was attended by all the eminent writers and poets of that time. In the Hermitage, university professors celebrated anniversaries and students celebrated Tatiana's Day, intellectuals gathered and rich merchants feasted. All in all, Olivier's restaurant, like its excellent cuisine, attracted the best people of the time. Lucien Olivier, the youngest of the three Olivier brothers, when he was very young, went to work in Moscow. Like many French people, he hoped to apply his culinary skills in a country that had always had a respectful attitude towards French cuisine. While his brothers were cooking for French gourmets, Lucien opened his Hermitage restaurant. At first, the business brought in significant income, and the young Frenchman cooked dishes familiar from childhood. This success was largely due to the "family" recipe-improvement of mayonnaise sauce or mayonnaise. In the Olivier family, at the beginning of the 19th century, they began to add mustard in the manufacture of sauce, as well as several secret spices, which made the taste of the familiar sauce slightly spicy.
The popularity of the Olivier family's mayonnaise was so strong that it allowed the older brothers to keep their business in France, and Lucien to open a Moscow "branch" on Trubnaya Square. The building in which the restaurant was located has survived to this day, it is house number 14 on Petrovsky Boulevard, the corner of Neglinnaya. So someday a commemorative plaque or a whole monument to Olivier's Salad may appear on it.
But everything is transient in this world, and gradually sauce alone became not enough for the success of the establishment. His taste quickly became boring, and the changeable fashion swung in the direction of skinny pale young ladies, whose beauty, of course, was interfered with by Olivier's mouth-watering and high-calorie sauces. It was necessary to come up with something urgently. And then Lucien Olivier came up with a new salad, a true work of art. Its taste was so exquisite that it instantly brought fame to the Frenchman as a great chef, and the popularity of his restaurant, which was beginning to fade away, flared up with renewed vigor. Visitors named the new salad Olivier Salad, which was quite in keeping with the traditions of Russian names.
Since then, the name Olivier has become a household name, and they tried to repeat the salad countless times, in the end, simplifying the recipe so much that its modern version is the complete opposite of the original. Many chefs tried to repeat Olivier's recipe, but, not knowing all the ingredients, they inevitably suffered a fiasco - the taste of a real Olivier Salad could only be appreciated in the Hermitage restaurant. The taste of the famous dish was largely obtained due to Monsieur Olivier's own mayonnaise recipe. It was said that the Frenchman jealously kept the recipe and carried out the operation to prepare it in a special room behind a closed door. The sauce route was not easy. Originally Olivier made a sauce called Game Mayonnaise. It consisted of boiled fillets of hazel grouse and partridges, interlaced with layers of jelly from broth. Boiled crayfish necks and small pieces of tongue lay along the edges of the dish. All this was flavored with a small amount of Provencal sauce of our own production. In the center, the structure was decorated with a pile of potatoes with gherkins and slices of boiled eggs as decoration. At the same time, the central potato part, according to the author's plan, was intended more for beauty. Once Lucien Olivier noticed that some Russians who ordered this dish immediately broke the whole idea, stirring the whole structure with a spoon, and absorbed this tasty mass with great appetite. The next day, an enterprising Frenchman mixed all the ingredients and poured thick sauce over them. This is how the famous salad was born, which was reborn from an exquisite but inconvenient "game mayonnaise" into an equally refined, but closer to the Russian soul, "Olivier salad".
The salad became a hallmark of the restaurant and was prepared over the years until one of Olivier's assistants stole the Provençal sauce recipe. A replica of Olivier's salad that appeared among competitors angered the French chef and pushed him to make a more delicious and sophisticated dish. However, the stolen sauce recipe still couldn't compare with the French one. Something was missing in the taste; with identical ingredients, the Olivier sauce was much softer. Gradually, the famous salad disappeared from the menu of the Hermitage restaurant, and its numerous copies “put into circulation” became simpler and simpler. The salad began to live its own life and Monsieur Olivier could no longer influence this in any way. Here is the recipe for the classic "Olivier salad" prepared at the best of times in the Hermitage restaurant (restored in 1904 according to the descriptions of one restaurant patron): Fillet of two boiled hazel grouses One boiled veal tongue About 100 grams of pressed black caviar 200 grams of fresh salad leaves 25 boiled crayfish or one large lobster 200-250 grams of small cucumbers Half a can of soybean kabul (soy paste) 2 finely chopped fresh cucumbers 100 grams of capers 5 finely chopped hard-boiled eggs Dressing with Provencal sauce: 400 grams of olive oil, whipped with two fresh egg yolks, with the addition of French vinegar and mustard. One of the secrets of the classic taste of Olivier salad was the addition of some spices by the Frenchman. The composition of these spices, unfortunately, is unknown, so the true taste of the salad can only be imagined from the descriptions of contemporaries. The preparation itself was no less exciting: fry the hazel grouses in a 1-2 cm layer of oil over a high flame for 5-10 minutes. Then put them in boiling water or broth (beef or chicken), add 150 ml of Madeira to 850 ml of broth, 10-20 pitted olives, 10-20 small mushrooms and simmer for 20-30 minutes over low heat under a lid. When the meat begins to slightly separate from the bones, add salt, let it simmer for a couple of minutes and turn off the flame. Place the saucepan with hazel grouses, without pouring the broth, into a large container of cold water and let cool. The purpose of this is to let the hazel grouse meat cool down gradually. The fact is that when separated hot, the meat begins to dry out and loses its tenderness. However, it is necessary not to overdo it and separate the warm meat - do not let the hazel grouse freeze, otherwise it will completely cease to be removed from the bones. Wrap the removed meat in foil and place in a cold place. Do not pour the broth after boiling the mushrooms - it will make a great soup! (if you don't find hazel grouse and decide to replace them with chicken, remember - the chicken must be cut into 2-3 pieces and cook a little longer - 30-40 minutes).
The tongue should be free of fat, lymph nodes, sublingual muscle tissue and mucus. Perhaps half the tongue will suffice. Rinse the tongue thoroughly in cold water, put it in cold water, bring to a boil and cook over low heat with the lid tightly closed for 2-4 hours (the time depends on the age of the owner of the tongue - 2 hours will be enough for a young calf). Half an hour before the tongue is ready, add chopped carrots, parsley root, onions and a piece of bay leaf to the same saucepan. Season with salt 5-10 minutes before the end of cooking. As soon as the tongue is cooked, immediately put it in a container of cold water for 20-30 seconds, then put it on a plate and remove the skin from it (if the tongue still burns your fingers, dip it again in water). After cleaning the tongue, put it back in the broth and quickly bring it to a boil, then turn off the flame and place the saucepan to cool in a large container filled with ice water. Wrap the cooled tongue in foil and place in a cold place. Cut the caviar into small cubes.
Rinse lettuce leaves thoroughly, dry and chop just before cooking. Immerse live crayfish washed in cold water in a boiling solution with their heads down. To prepare a solution for cooking crayfish, take: 25 grams of parsley, onions and carrots, 10 grams of tarragon, 30-40 grams of dill, 1 bay leaf, a few peas of allspice and 50 grams of salt. After placing the crayfish in boiling water, let the water boil again and cook for another 10 minutes. After turning off the heat, do not take it out immediately, but let the crayfish brew, then cool the pan with the finished crayfish using the above method. Chop the pickles finely just before mixing. Mash the soybeans before adding to the salad. Peel fresh cucumbers and chop finely (not necessarily evenly - you can also "crumble"). Chop the capers finely after drying them. Eggs should be large and fresh. Do not digest them in any way. Consider this part carefully. The sensation of eggs should be fresh, the protein needs to be tender, not rubbery. Cook for 7-8 minutes, but not 15. Cut all the ingredients and mix (try to do this gently, with movements from bottom to top). Add your own mayonnaise and serve immediately. It is also important to consider the amount of alcohol consumed by guests. The more - the sharper the sauce should be. If the guests are sober, then it would be more logical to fill them with classic mayonnaise in order to appreciate the delicate taste of all the ingredients. This was the recipe at the time of its reproduction by one of the restaurant's regular customers. Perhaps something was not taken into account, but the main components that are difficult to hide from the sophisticated public are present in the recipe. Unfortunately, the secret of the spices that made the taste of the dish special and unique has been lost. After the death of Lucien Olivier in 1883, the Hermitage restaurant went to the "Olivier partnership", for a long time the restaurant passed from hand to hand, and the famous recipe went to the rich houses of the capital, or rather to the kitchens of these houses. The personal chefs of many of the richest people in the capital tried to recreate the recipe of the French master and offered this famous salad at dinner parties.
This situation could have lasted forever, if not for the First World War, and then the 1917 revolution. The abrupt disappearance of many foods hit Olivier's salad hard. At that time, there was no time for delights - for many years the country plunged into the darkness of timelessness, and from the food side - into severe hunger and the rationing system of food distribution. But already in 1924, the era of the New Economic Policy begins and the country again appears, it seemed, irrevocably gone products. However, much has already been unable to return. Branded "bourgeois" hazel grouses or crayfish necks became inaccessible, and simply irrelevant among the then townspeople. The NEP times presented us with several variants of salad, which, at the very least, was prepared in restaurants. One of these restaurants, and I must say the central one at that time, since the highest party workers dined there, was the Moscow restaurant. It was headed by the same Ivan Mikhailovich Ivanov, who, when he was young, stole a salad recipe from the master himself, Lucien Olivier. This shameful act, however, retained, albeit in a modified form, but close to the original recipe for the famous dish. And the realities of the time have made their own changes to the recipe.
Olivier salad recipe according to the version of the Moscow restaurant in the mid-20s of the 20th century: Ingredients: 6 potatoes, 2 onions, 3 medium-sized carrots, 2 pickled cucumbers, 1 apple, 200 grams of boiled poultry, 1 glass of green peas, 3 boiled eggs, half a glass of olive mayonnaise, salt, pepper to taste. Preparation: Take vegetables of medium size, fresh. Chop all ingredients finely and very evenly into equal pieces. Boil the potatoes and carrots, peel them, chop everything, mix and season with mayonnaise, garnish with parsley and apple slices on top. As you can see, not much remains of the original recipe. Nevertheless, the main principle has been preserved - grind everything and season with mayonnaise. This principle has become widespread in the vastness of the Soviet and post-Soviet space, and all over the world Olivier salad is called "Russian salad" or "salade a la Russe". The hazel grouses were first replaced with partridges, then chicken, and then just sausage. There were also recipes with beef, but this is too tough component, and the beef did not take root. Unfortunately, crayfish necks have sunk into oblivion, and in the 20th century they were no longer added to salad, instead boiled carrots were added. The capers were replaced with more affordable green peas, and onions appeared in the salad, which immediately acquired a spicy taste. Lettuce leaves were replaced with parsley. Soybeans, veal tongue, as well as pressed black caviar (and truffles, according to one version) have also disappeared from the recipe. Mayonnaise from home-made mayonnaise was replaced with factory-made mayonnaise. Be that as it may, Olivier salad continued to live even in these difficult conditions, being for a large part of an impoverished country a symbol of chic and delicacy. In the post-war period, in the second half of the 50s, when the country experienced strong growth and the standard of living rose again, the old salad reappeared on the festive table. Many products returned to the market, but even banal peas or Provencal mayonnaise were in dire shortages, and these products were always set aside to create a "festive" Olivier salad. Simplifying, the Olivier salad recipe acquired the main thing - from a rather high-calorie dish, with tasty, but still heavy and expensive components, the salad passed into the category of vegetable salad, the meat share of which was incomparably small. As in the 19th century, modern Olivier salad is made from the products that are most readily available at the moment. If then caviar, crayfish tails, hazel grouses and capers were available, now it is boiled sausage, green peas, carrots and onions. And mayonnaise can be bought at the store. Losing expensive ingredients, the salad inevitably gained popularity among the general population of one-sixth of the planet, and now it can boast not just the name, but the name of a whole class of salads that began to appear in the late Soviet era. After all, salad with canned fish, and from crab sticks, as well as numerous other Soviet salads appeared thanks to the ingenuity and partly poverty of the counters, forcing the imagination of housewives and cooks to work. The symbolic significance of Olivier salad for Russian cuisine cannot be overestimated. This is always the main dish on the table, in the best salad bowl, no other salad is honored with such a constant presence at a festive feast. The tradition of serving food on plates is indicative. Olivier is always placed either first or next to the potatoes. This respectful attitude towards a simple salad could not be hidden from the open gaze of foreign guests, who, of course, were also treated to Olivier salad. Throughout the rest of the world, our salad is known as "Russian salad", but it is more correct to call the modern version of the dish "Soviet Olivier". Like "Soviet champagne", it has its own destiny, its unforgettable taste and is considered the same powerful and indestructible symbol of the holiday. P.S. I'll go for canned peas)))

The elite restaurant Hermitage was built by Lucien Olivier after many years of living in Moscow, when he realized what was missing in the Russian capital. There was a lack of French chic. Joining forces with the wealthy merchant Yakov Pegov, Olivier buys a plot in the center of Moscow and intends to build a first-class restaurant based on the best French examples.

By the mid-60s of the 19th century, on the site of a booth selling snuff, a chic building with white columns, crystal chandeliers with isolated offices and luxurious interiors arose. It was a novelty for Moscow then, and the nascent bourgeoisie poured into the restaurant. At first, Olivier's establishment was called a Tavern in the Russian way, and the waiters were also dressed in a "tavern style".

The following facts can tell about the importance and popularity of the restaurant: in 1879 the Hermitage hosted a gala dinner in honor of I.S.Turgenev, in 1880 - in honor of F.M.Dostoevsky, in 1899 - the famous celebration of the centenary of Pushkin's birthday all eminent writers and poets of that time.

In the Hermitage, university professors celebrated anniversaries and students celebrated Tatiana's Day, intellectuals gathered and rich merchants feasted. All in all, Olivier's restaurant, like its excellent cuisine, attracted the best people of the time.

Lucien Olivier, the youngest of the three Olivier brothers, when he was very young, went to work in Moscow. Like many French people, he hoped to apply his culinary skills in a country that had always had a respectful attitude towards French cuisine. While his brothers were cooking for French gourmets, Lucien opened his Hermitage restaurant.

At first, the business brought in significant income, and the young Frenchman cooked dishes familiar from childhood. This success was aided by the "family" recipe for mayon sauce or mayonnaise.

In the Olivier family, at the beginning of the 19th century, they began to add mustard to the sauce, as well as several secret spices, which made the taste of the familiar sauce slightly spicy. The popularity of the Olivier family's mayonnaise was so strong that it allowed the older brothers to keep their business in France, and Lucien to open a Moscow "branch" on Trubnaya Square.

The building in which the restaurant was located has survived to this day, it is house number 14 on Petrovsky Boulevard, the corner of Neglinnaya. So someday a memorial plaque or a whole monument to Olivier's Salad may appear on it.

But everything is transient in this world, and gradually sauce alone became not enough for the success of the establishment. His taste quickly became boring, and the changeable fashion swung in the direction of skinny pale young ladies, whose beauty, of course, was interfered with by Olivier's mouth-watering and high-calorie sauces.

It was necessary to come up with something urgently. And then Lucien Olivier came up with a new salad, a true work of art. Its taste was so exquisite that it instantly brought fame to the Frenchman as a great chef, and the popularity of his restaurant, which was beginning to fade away, flared up with renewed vigor.

Visitors named the new salad Olivier Salad, which was quite in keeping with the traditions of Russian names. Since then, the name Olivier has become a household name, and they tried to repeat the salad countless times, in the end, simplifying the recipe so much that its modern version is the complete opposite of the original.

Many chefs tried to repeat Olivier's recipe, but, not knowing all the ingredients, they inevitably suffered a fiasco - the taste of a real Olivier Salad could only be appreciated in the Hermitage restaurant.

The taste of the famous dish was largely obtained due to Monsieur Olivier's own mayonnaise recipe. It was said that the Frenchman jealously kept the recipe and carried out the operation to prepare it in a special room behind a closed door. The sauce route was not easy.

Originally Olivier made a sauce called Game Mayonnaise. It consisted of boiled fillets of hazel grouse and partridges, interlaced with layers of jelly from broth. Boiled crayfish necks and small pieces of tongue lay at the edges of the dish. All this was flavored with a small amount of Provencal sauce of our own production. In the center, the structure was decorated with a pile of potatoes with gherkins and slices of boiled eggs as decoration. At the same time, the central potato part, according to the author's plan, was intended more for beauty.

Once Lucien Olivier noticed that some Russians who ordered this dish immediately broke the whole idea, stirring the whole structure with a spoon, and absorbed this tasty mass with great appetite. The next day, an enterprising Frenchman mixed all the ingredients and poured thick sauce over them. This is how the famous salad was born, which was reborn from an exquisite but inconvenient "game mayonnaise" into an equally exquisite, but closer to the Russian soul, "Olivier Salad".

The salad became a hallmark of the restaurant and was prepared over the years until one of Olivier's assistants stole the Provençal sauce recipe. A replica of Olivier's salad that appeared among competitors angered the French chef and pushed him to make a more delicious and sophisticated dish.

However, the stolen sauce recipe still could not compare with the French one. Something was missing in the taste; with identical ingredients, the Olivier sauce was much softer.

Gradually, the famous salad disappeared from the menu of the Hermitage restaurant, and its numerous copies “put into circulation” became simpler and simpler. The salad began to live its own life and Monsieur Olivier could no longer influence this in any way.

Here is a recipe for the classic "Olivier salad" prepared at the best of times in the Hermitage restaurant (restored in 1904 from the descriptions of a regular restaurant patron):

Fillet of two boiled hazel grouses
One boiled veal tongue
About 100 grams of pressed black caviar
200 grams of fresh lettuce leaves
25 boiled crawfish or one large lobster
200-250 grams of small cucumbers
Half a can of soybean kabul (soybean paste)
2 finely chopped fresh cucumbers
100 grams of capers
5 eggs, finely chopped (hard-boiled)

Dressing with Provencal sauce: 400 grams of olive oil, whipped with two fresh egg yolks, with the addition of French vinegar and mustard.

One of the secrets of the classic taste of Olivier salad was the addition of some spices by the Frenchman. The composition of these spices, unfortunately, is unknown, so the true taste of the salad can only be imagined from the descriptions of contemporaries.

The preparation itself was just as exciting:

Fry the hazel grouses in a 1-2 centimeter layer of oil over a high flame for 5-10 minutes. Then put them in boiling water or broth (beef or chicken), add 150 ml of Madeira to 850 ml of broth, 10-20 pitted olives, 10-20 small mushrooms and simmer for 20-30 minutes over low heat under a lid.

When the meat begins to slightly separate from the bones, salt, let it simmer for a couple of minutes and turn off the flame. Place a pot of hazel grouse without pouring the broth into a large container of cold water and let cool.

The purpose of this is to allow the grouse meat to cool down gradually. The fact is that when separated hot, the meat begins to dry out and loses its tenderness. However, it is necessary not to overdo it and separate the warm meat - do not let the hazel grouses freeze, otherwise it will completely cease to be removed from the bones.

Wrap the removed meat in foil and place in a cold place. Do not pour the broth after boiling the mushrooms - it will make a great soup! (if you do not find hazel grouses and decide to replace them with chicken, remember - the chicken must be cut into 2-3 pieces and cook a little longer - 30-40 minutes).

The tongue should be free of fat, lymph nodes, sublingual muscle tissue and mucus. Perhaps half the tongue will suffice. Rinse the tongue thoroughly in cold water, put it in cold water, bring to a boil and cook over low heat with the lid tightly closed for 2-4 hours (the time depends on the age of the owner of the tongue - 2 hours will be enough for a young calf).

Half an hour before the tongue is ready, add chopped carrots, parsley root, onions and a piece of bay leaf to the same saucepan. Season with salt 5-10 minutes before the end of cooking. As soon as the tongue is cooked, immediately put it in a container of cold water for 20-30 seconds, then put it on a plate and remove the skin from it (if the tongue still burns your fingers, dip it again in water).

After cleaning your tongue, put it back in the broth and quickly bring it to a boil, then turn off the flame and place the saucepan to cool in a large container filled with ice water. Wrap the cooled tongue in foil and place in a cold place.

Cut the caviar into small cubes. Rinse lettuce leaves thoroughly, dry and chop just before cooking.

Immerse live crayfish washed in cold water in a boiling solution with their heads down. To prepare a solution for cooking crayfish, take: 25 grams of parsley, onions and carrots, 10 grams of tarragon, 30-40 grams of dill, 1 bay leaf, a few peas of allspice and 50 grams of salt.

After placing the crayfish in boiling water, let the water boil again and cook for another 10 minutes. After turning off the heat, do not take it out immediately, but let the crayfish brew, then cool the pan with the finished crayfish using the above method.

Chop the pickles finely just before mixing. Mash the soybeans before adding to the salad. Peel fresh cucumbers and chop finely (not necessarily evenly - you can also "crumble"). Chop the capers finely after drying them.

Eggs should be large and fresh. Do not digest them in any way. Consider this part carefully. The sensation of eggs should be fresh, the protein needs to be tender, not rubbery. Cook for 7-8 minutes, but not 15.

Cut and mix all the ingredients (try to do this gently, moving from bottom to top). Add your own mayonnaise and serve immediately.

It is also important to consider the amount of alcohol consumed by guests. The more - the sharper the sauce should be. If the guests are sober, then it would be more logical to fill them with classic mayonnaise in order to appreciate the delicate taste of all the ingredients.

This was the recipe at the time of its reproduction by one of the restaurant's regular customers. Perhaps something was not taken into account, but the main components that are difficult to hide from the sophisticated public are present in the recipe.

by The Wild Mistress's Notes

If not in every first, then certainly in every second house on New Year's Eve there will be Olivier salad on the festive table. It was not possible to fully restore the real classic recipe for Olivier salad, however, and today we know the very ingredients from which the Moscow restaurateur of French origin Lucien Olivier made his famous salad.

How did Olivier salad come about?

Once having prepared a dish called "Game Mayonnaise", the restaurateur brought it to the table and began to observe whether his guests would like it.

By the way, Game Mayonnaise is a complex dish consisting of many ingredients. It consisted of partridge and hazel grouse fillets, boiled tongue and crayfish tails, sprinkled with mayonnaise sauce, which was also invented by Lucien Olivier. The meat was lined with pieces of jelly, and in the center of the dish was a slide made of boiled potatoes, decorated with small spicy cucumbers and hard-boiled eggs. Moreover, Olivier laid out a decorated potato slide not for eating, but for decorating the dish.

Imagine his amazement and even indignation when he saw that inexperienced visitors mixed all the ingredients of "Game Mayonnaise" with a spoon and only then absorbed this "barbaric" mixture with great pleasure. And then Olivier the next time he mixed all the ingredients and served a new dish to the table, moreover, he did it, wishing, as it were, to hurt indiscriminate eaters, but the effect was quite the opposite. The new salad immediately became so popular that visitors came to the Olivier restaurant just to taste a new unusual dish.

Secrets of the classic recipe for real Olivier salad

After the death of the famous restaurateur, no one else could repeat the classic recipe for a real Olivier salad, and only over time, by 1904, with the help of the restaurant's regulars, it was possible to restore almost all the ingredients.

But, nevertheless, it was still not the same salad.

The fact is that Olivier took with him to his grave some unique additives to the sauce, which he always kept in strict confidence. It is known that a real Olivier salad according to the classic recipe was seasoned with Provencal sauce, which was prepared exclusively with French vinegar, Provencal olive oil with the addition of the freshest egg yolks. But what else was included in Lucien Olivier's recipe is still a mystery.

Ingredients of real Olivier salad

So what was the real Olivier salad, the classic recipe of which was restored in 1904, consisted of?

The recipe was supposed to take:

Meat from two boiled hazel grouses

One boiled veal tongue

25 boiled crawfish, 1 large boiled lobster, or 1 can of canned lobster

100 grams of black pressed caviar

1 cup lanspik (thick broth jelly, diced)

200 grams of fresh salad

250 grams of pickled cucumbers (pickles)

250 grams of kabul sauce

Two fresh cucumbers

100 grams of capers

Five hard-boiled eggs.

It is unlikely that you will prepare a real Olivier salad according to the classic recipe, but, you must agree, it is interesting to know what kind of gourmets were the regulars of famous Russian restaurants. Although, the most delicious and real, the classic Olivier salad is the one that you will cook with passion, with love and imagination!