Russia - the birthplace of elephants? Anecdot.ru claims that ice cream was invented in our country

The story of how Novye Izvestia ice cream appeared in the USSR has been told more than once. Recall that in the summer of 1936, the People's Commissar (Minister) of Foreign Trade Anastas Mikoyan, at the head of the Soviet delegation, flew to the United States, where, among other things, he got acquainted with the production technology of this delicacy. In Soviet Russia, it was never produced on an industrial scale and was known only from pre-revolutionary cookbooks by Elena Molokhovets. As a result of this visit, with the help of the United States, the first ice cream production line in the USSR was created, which was launched on the eve of the 20th anniversary of the main event in the history of the Land of Soviets - the October Revolution - on November 4, 1937.

It would seem that everything is clear. An no. Today, due to the sharp deterioration of Russian-American relations and a radical revision of the history of Russia, even the very version of the American origin of domestic ice cream is being questioned. Journalist Alexander Grigoriyev writes about this in his blog:

“For many years I have been reading stories from the site Anecdot.ru, with the founder of which Dima Verner, I even knew each other when he lived in Baltimore.

A bike is always a bike, but recently the stories and anecdotes on this site have become clearly propaganda. Here is a fresh story: a certain author reacted to knowledge new to him - that the recipe and equipment for making ice cream on an industrial scale were brought to the USSR by Mikoyan from the USA (this is true).

Here is what he writes: “Even before the penetration of all sorts of foreign trends into the country, we knew how to treat ourselves to cold sweet goodies. By Easter or Christmas, for example, they made frozen mixtures of sour cream, cottage cheese, nuts, raisins and honey, sculpted figures of animals and birds from them, and took them out to the frosty porch - here you have homemade ice cream! (From me - this is NOT ice cream, ice cream is made differently. In addition, in the pre-Petrine era, cottage cheese, sour cream and raisins were incredibly expensive products that were inaccessible to the vast majority of the country's inhabitants).

I continue the quote: “In the European version, a cold dessert appeared in the second half of the 18th century at the court of Catherine II. Mother Empress respected him very much, she could not imagine a day without ice cream! And she ate herself, and regaled favorites, and guests at assemblies and numerous carnivals...

Apparently, ice cream was to the taste of many Russian monarchs, otherwise it would not have become an indispensable component of the coronation dinner. (...)

Total - we are not obliged to any America. In America, if they invented it, then only popsicles. But the very idea of ice cream... did they plagiarize from Russia? BUT?".

And here is a quote from the book “Kitchen of the Century” by the great culinary historian William Pokhlebkin: “In terms of its social status and history, ice cream was a delicacy of a completely different kind. In Russia, it became known in noble circles only in the 20s of the 19th century. after the return in 1819 of the Russian troops that participated in the occupation of France, and, in particular, Paris. However, almost until the beginning of the XX century. ice cream remained a rare and exquisite dessert. It was prepared by hand in the kitchens of princely and count families and was used at the court at the royal table, and not so often, since it was included as an exceptional dish in the meal menu in honor of imperial coronations, including the last tsars - Alexander III and Nicholas II.

In cookbooks published in Russia, recipes for making ice cream have been found since the 70s of the 19th century, but in practice these recipes were used only occasionally in aristocratic families, in rich noble houses, where there were both people and utensils (ice cream maker, buckets - tanks), and raw materials, as well as time and means.

The peculiarity of America is not that she invented ice cream or made it delicious: she made it available to everyone..."

In principle, there is nothing strange in such a revision of seemingly unshakable historical facts; propaganda is capable of much, even of literally making them molehills. Just curious: how far will this process go?