Why do Russians eat potatoes without the skin?

[Andrey Shcherbenok]

I would agree that in Russia most people would traditionally peel potatoes
rather than eat them "v mundire", and this process bore quite a bit of
cultural connotations, especially around the military service (a place where
one would be assigned peeling potatoes for the whole regiment, etc.). A
solution of "chistit kartoshku kubikom" was also introduced in such contexts
-- this wastes a lot of food but only requires 6 moves of a knife per
potato. 

The reason for this might have something to do with the way potatoes were
stored in Russia. Most people in Russia would not peel "new", freshly
harvested potatoes (especially from their private gardens) that have thin
skins; however, potatoes bought in a Soviet supermarket in the middle of
winter, after they have been sitting in some huge storage for months, would
develop such thick and coarse skins that peeling became necessary. It would
be more difficult to wash these potatoes clean (if it were at all possible)
than to peel them. My hypothesis is that this tradition persists even though
you can now buy much cleaner potatoes in Russian stores.

Andrey

----
Dr. Andrey Shcherbenok
Royal Society Newton Research Fellow
 
Department of Russian and Slavonic Studies
University of Sheffield, Jessop West
1 Upper Hanover St, Sheffield S3 7RA
United Kingdom
Tel: (+44) (0)114 222 7404 
Tel: (+44) (0)793 014 3021
E-mail: shcherbenok at gmail.com
 
 

-----Original Message-----
From: SEELANGS: Slavic & East European Languages and Literatures list
[mailto:SEELANGS at bama.ua.edu] On Behalf Of Laura Kline
Sent: Sunday, February 07, 2010 6:00 PM
To: SEELANGS at bama.ua.edu
Subject: Re: [SEELANGS] Why do Russians eat potatoes without the skin?

What I find surprising is that in a country which has known so much hunger,
a food product is being wasted.

-----Original Message-----
From: SEELANGS: Slavic & East European Languages and Literatures list
[mailto:SEELANGS at bama.ua.edu] On Behalf Of Alina Israeli
Sent: Saturday, February 06, 2010 11:20 PM
To: SEELANGS at bama.ua.edu
Subject: Re: [SEELANGS] Why do Russians eat potatoes without the skin?

Since the peels are called картофельные очистки (kartofel'nye  
ochistki), the name carries the idea of being discarded. So if the  
soup is made of them (суп из картофельных очистков) it simply means  
that there are no potatoes there, just the peels, someone else got  
the potatoes and you are having объедки.

On Feb 6, 2010, at 9:26 PM, Laura Kline wrote:

> Dear All,
> As I understand it, Russians almost never eat potatoes with the  
> skin on.
> There even the account of a female prisoner who complained of  
> potato skins
> in the prison soup. Does anyone know why this is?
> Thanks,
> Laura
>

Alina Israeli
Associate Professor of Russian
LFS, American University
4400 Massachusetts Ave.
Washington DC 20016
(202) 885-2387 	fax (202) 885-1076
aisrael at american.edu





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