Vinaigret became the first Russian salad, there were no salads in traditional Russian cuisine before it.
How did the word "vinaigrette" come about?
But the origin of the word "vinaigrette" is not Russian at all, but French - "vinaigrette", where "vin" is wine, and "aigre" is sour, together "vinaigre" is vinegar sauce, which is not at all similar with modern salad. In general, the original French word meant the preparation of various sauces based on vinegar and vegetable oil. In French restaurants, you can find such a salad, only under the name "salad russe", which the French have the meaning of confusion, hash. Here is such a change of concepts, and even more interesting is that the vinaigrette itself, the origin of the word and the composition - everything happened from Scandinavia.
Legend about vinaigrette
And in Russia, references to vinaigrette appeared in the 19th century. According to legend, during the reign of Alexander the First, the French chef Antoine Karem worked in the king's kitchen. Seeing how Russian chefs make a strange salad by simply mixing all the ingredients and then pouring vinegar over everything, he asked in surprise "Vinaigre?" (French for "vinegar"), and they answered: "Vinaigret!The vinaigrette!". So a new dish appeared in the royal menu, and then it passed to the people and became an appetizer, without which not a single feast could do. The salad recipe has since become much simpler, but there are still cooking secrets. For example, if you want all the ingredients to have their natural color, then you need to knead the beets in oil separately, and if you want all the ingredients to turn pink from beet juice, then you need to knead everything together.
The most popular Russian salad recipe
Vinaigret is probably the most popular salad in Russia and the USSR, and it was considered an original Russian dish. Probably, people simply did not know that vinaigrette - the origin of the salad and the method of preparation - were once borrowed in other countries. In the Soviet Union, this salad was a New Year's dish, along with Olivier, but the cooking recipes were very different.
The most famous recipe for this snack is boiled potatoes, beets, carrots, chopped onions and pickles, all in equal amounts. Previously, the same composition, only without beets, was used for okroshka. Also, some housewives add sauerkraut, herring soaked in milk, canned green peas to the salad. William Pokhlebkin, a previously well-known culinary publicist, also might not know what vinaigrette is, the origin of the word, and where the salad comes from. So, he talked about the fact that a boiled egg should be present in the original Russian salad. It should be noted that this salad is a perishable dish, due to pickles andoil and vinegar dressing. Drinking it after a day can cause indigestion.
Vinaigret or Salmagundi?
Interestingly, an 1845 English cookbook also found a vinaigrette-like salad called "Swedish herring salad". In addition to all the ingredients of the Russian vinaigrette, a grated apple was added there. The most interesting thing is that if the vinaigrette itself came from Scandinavia, the origin of the word came from the French name, then it turns out that the same salad came to England from Sweden.
And in France, for example, a salad similar to ours appeared in the 17th century. And it was not just anyone who began to cook it, but pirates and hunters. They used any meat (turtle, duck or pigeon), then marinated it in vinegar or wine, added spices, they could also add fish, then everything turned into a hodgepodge, greens and vegetables were added, such a salad was called "Salmagundi".
Thus, the vinaigrette itself, the origin of the word and the fact that it is seasoned with vinegar, originates in France and Scandinavia, but the salad can actually be called global. It's all about the simplicity of the components and their availability in almost all European countries.
