Zakuska, Ukha, Muscovite (1868)

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HANDBOOK FOR TRAVELLERS IN
RUSSIA, POLAND, AND FINLAND
Second Revised Edition
London: John Murray
1868


   I.--_Zakuska_.
    This is the _vorschmack_ (_dinette_) of most northern nations.  It
consists of  various relishes, such as fresh caviar, raw herrings, smoked
salmon, _balyk_ (sturgeon dried in the sun), raw  smoked goose, radishes,
cheese, butter, and other _comestibles_.  These need not be specified, the
word "Zakuska" comprehending everything of the kind in season.  A glass  of
Kummel (Alasch), or of "Listofka," an excellent spirit flavoured with the
young (Pg. 54--ed.) leaves of the black currant, is highly recommended.  The
curious may try the other liquors, or vodkas, which will be served up.

   II._The Obed, or Dinner_.
   1. Soups:--
   Okroshka: a cold iced soup of kvas (a beverage made of fermented rye),
with pieces of herring, cucumber, and meat floating in it.
   Batvenia: another cold soup of green colour, scarcely more palatable.
   Stchi: a very good cabbage soup; the sour cream served round should be
added.
   Ukha, or fish soup: this is rather expensive if made of sterlet, but is
very good of ershi, or stone-perch.
   Travellers would do well to order small quantities of each description of
potage, in the ratio of one portion for three or four.  A mere taste will
suffice in the case of the two cold soups.
   2.  Rastigai: patties of the isinglass and flesh of the sturgeon.  Very
much like muffins with fish.
   3.  Solianka, _Krasny Perets_: a dish composed of fish and cabbage.
Recommended.  Use cayenne.
   4.  Pojarskie kotlety: cutlets of chicken a la Pojarski, the patriot.
Very good.  Veal cutlets are also a specialty of Moscow.
   5.  Porosenok pod khrenom: cold boiled sucking pig with horse-radish
sauce.  Not a pretty dish, but very eatable.
   6.  Barany-bok s-kashoi: roast mutton stuffed with buckwheat.  An
excellent opportunity of tasting buckwheat, the staple food of the country.
   7.  Jarkoe: the roast, consisting of molodye tetereva, or young
capercailzie (up to September); riabchik, a kind of grouse (all year round);
and dupelia, or double snipe (in September).  Salted cucumbers as salad.
Vegetables will not be served unless ordered.
   8. Pirojnoe: sweet dishes.  Gurief pudding, made principally of buckwheat,
is not a bad dish.
   Order Nesselrode pudding, an excellent combination of plum-pudding and
ices, and Muscovite, something between an ice and a jelly, flavoured with the
fruit of the season.
   Should digestion require it, the _Syr_, or cheese from the Zakuska, and
even the caviar, may be served up again, though it is not customary at a
Russian table.

(OED has 1885 for "zakuska."  I had previously posted a citation from 1876.
OED has 1911 for "ukha."  "Nesselrode" is recorded from 1845, then 1877.
"Muscovite" was a popular dish in the 19th century and should probably be in
the revised OED...Perhaps I'll find a "zakuska" in the republic of
Georgia--ed.)