Vladimir Mukhin - Modernizing Russian Cuisine
By: Edward Micu
Tags: Soviet Union, Vladimir Mukhin, Food, Russia

When you think of Russian food, what do you think of? Probably borscht and caviar. It’s not just those two things, according to Vladimir Mukhin and hundreds of millions of other Russians.

The national Russian cuisine has evolved in a multicultural and multiethnic state, with strong mutual influence from the cuisines of other ethnic groups that live within the nation's borders or had been a part of the Russian state historically.

As such, multiple dishes that originated in these ethnic cuisines became over time so customary for ethnic Russians that they are commonly associated with Russian cuisine.

Russian cuisine is also geographically diverse, its variations dependent on raw materials and cooking methods available locally. In the north of Russia, it incorporates local berries such as cloudberry or crowberry, fish such as cod, game meat such as elk, or even edible moss known as yagel.

Conversely, in Siberia it includes the local fish varieties, particularly those of the coregonus genus such as arctic cisco or muksun, and borrows the local cooking methods, to result in raw fish eaten frozen or combined with spices. Further East, local specialties are added such as eagle fern, kolomikta fruit, scallops and Kamchatka crabs.

Soups and stews are centered on seasonal or storable produce, fish and meats. Such food remained the staple for the vast majority of Russians well into the 20th century.

“Russians suffered 75 years, two-and-a-half generations of Soviet time when people were fooled into eating gray, urban grub" He says.

Vladimir is a fifth-generation chef and the head chef at White Rabbit. Mukhin began his career at 12 years old in the kitchen of a restaurant where his father worked in the small town of Essentuki, located at the base of the Caucasus mountains.

"The idea of Russian cuisine is almost the same. The majority of foreigners see Russian cuisine as very simple and almost crass, but it's not just about vodka and the snacks that go with it as people may think... There's an interesting cuisine" said Andrei Zakharin, academy chair of the World's 50 Best Restaurants.

In Moscow, he worked his way up from dishwasher to executive chef, eventually arriving at White Rabbit, a restaurant that over the last eight years has gained international renown for its experimental Russian recipes and ingredients – including traditional "Borodinsky" black bread made with birch bark (Borodinsky bread is traditionally sweetened with molasses and flavored with coriander and caraway seeds)

White Rabbit is located on the sixteenth floor of a skyscraper in Smolenskaya Square (itself home to the country's Ministry of Foreign Affairs)

The furniture is upholstered in lush suede; there are velvet pillows everywhere, jewel-toned accents and paintings of anthropomorphized white rabbits in royal regalia.

It's like Alice in Wonderland meets Imperial Russia. And that nod to Imperial Russia is not accidental.

"It's full-on Alice and Wonderland when you walk into White Rabbit. Vladimir takes the theme as far as it can go. There's giant cartoonish images all over the place. It's this onslaught of stimuli, it's a lot to take in… but, if you think about it, Vladimir's leading diners down the rabbit hole, into a new sort of Russian cuisine" said Jay Cheshes, a writer for the Wall Street Journal.

The foundations of Russian cuisine were laid by the peasant food of the rural population in an often harsh climate, with a combination of plentiful fish, pork, poultry, caviar, mushrooms, berries, and honey. Crops of rye, wheat, barley and millet provided the ingredients for a plethora of breads, pancakes, pies, cereals, beer and vodka.

The 16th through 18th centuries brought more refined culinary techniques. It was during this time period that smoked meats and fish, pastry cooking, salads and green vegetables, chocolate, ice cream, wines, and juice were imported from abroad. At least for the urban aristocracy and provincial gentry, this opened the doors for the creative integration of these new foodstuffs with traditional Russian dishes.

In the early 20th century the Revolution saw a rapid decline of elite cuisine, driven both by the new egalitarian state ideology and by disappearance of the old Imperial elites who used to be its consumers. The distinct Soviet cuisine was born, emphasizing fusion of the Union's national cuisines, scientific approach to a diet, and industrial approach to food preparation and serving.

After World War II, the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic and the rest of the Soviet Union came under the brutal authoritarian rule of Josef Stalin, the dictator who implemented collectivist policies, gulags, and other repressive tactics to maintain power.

The standard of living dropped sharply and people struggled to survive, often looking for any food they could find.

As the Cold War continued, Russian leaders such as Nikita Khrushchev and Mikhail Gorbachev made changes to the communist stronghold, but finding enough food remained a problem for millions.

To survive, people often resorted to unconventional foods, relying on culinary traditions as much as any resources that were available. The unconventional fare that found its way onto Russian dinner tables and into the stomachs of hungry Soviets reflected the multiculturalism of the Soviet Union itself while highlighting issues of scarcity and innovation in the kitchen.

"I hate cooking from the Soviet period because it totally killed Russian food," Mukhin says. "Before [the Soviet Union], Russian food had color. The Soviet period was gray. Everything was gray. Everybody was gray."

Soviet food was often heavy, drab and smothered in mayonnaise.

"Russians are often offended that abroad, we are associated with the words "pies," "pancakes," "caviar," "borscht" Vladimir does a very important thing. He discovers the old cuisine and old recipes, but he filters them in his personal style to such an extent that it becomes interesting to the contemporary public. He shows that there is diversity to our cuisine" says Pavel Syutkin, a Russian food historian and author of the "CCCP Cookbook"

But there were vestiges of pre-Soviet cooking in which Mukhin grew up. His grandmother would cook recipes that had been in the family for decades.

Her honey cakes were sublime, he says. Her crayfish borscht was a revelation. No one could beat his grandmother's Russian black bread.

The fall of the Soviet Union saw the end of state monopoly on food service, and a corresponding diversification of food. As average prosperity grew starting with the second decade after the collapse, so did the demand for fresh culinary experiences, prompting a renaissance of Imperial-era elite cuisine, as well as a wide search for novelty, local specialties, and creative reinterpretations, leading to the birth of what has been dubbed the New Russian cuisine.

When Mukhin opened White Rabbit in 2011, he did so to celebrate and pick up these classic flavors. He got his ingredients from Russian farms. He even bought farms so that he could cultivate everything he wanted.

But luxury Russian cuisine was not an easy sale for the urban population of Moscow. Russians preferred French, Japanese and Italian cuisines over restaurants serving Russian cuisine.

Then the help came in the least likely way - through sanctions. In 2014, the Russian army invaded Ukraine and annexed Crimea.

The United States and its NATO allies have responded by imposing sanctions on Russia. In response to Western sanctions, President Vladimir Putin placed an embargo on goods in Western countries. No more French cheeses, Italian olive oil or Spanish tomatoes for Russian chefs.

But Mukhin, with his farm-to-table business model, sniffed the opportunity:

"So now we start to make some cheese from Italy in Russia. Because we have beautiful milk, why can't we make the cheese here? That's why my idea is: We must grow Russian cuisine." He said.

And he took the idea on the road. Mukhin has been preaching the gospel of Russian cuisine all over the world. He recently caught up with a barbeque chef in Dallas.

Mukhin tried American-style coleslaw while in Texas and was not impressed. So he turned the grilled cook into Russian-style fermented cabbage as a side dish instead of cabbage salad. He tried it and said, “Oh, yes. This will work well"

Mukhin's cuisine speaks to both the future and the past.

"Russian food is me. I have borscht in my blood. I think and hope that my children, and the children of my children, will grow up with the new Russian cuisine. With a Russian cuisine evolution." “I have known Vladimir for a very long time, he’s always in the pursuit for something more and he doesn’t hide his ambitions to become the best chef in the world. He was the first one who broke into the international arena and showed everyone what Russians are capable of, it’s not just ballet and rockets… There’s the new Russian cuisine” Andrei Zakharin said. “My task is to prove to those people who live in our country that Russian cuisine existed, exists and will exist” Vladimir said.

Photo from “Chef’s Table” Season 3 Episode 2.