SOVIET FOODSTUFFS

I’m afraid I cannot identify any of these dishes, apparently originating from the former United Soviet Socialist Republic circa the ’40s or ’50s. A world-traveling friend of my sister’s was in the Ukraine when he liberated a profusely illustrated cookbook and smuggled it back into the U.S. Sadly, I do not have access to the original book — these are but hurriedly made copies of only some of its pages. But even if the colors are off and the book’s center crease sometimes shows, these disturbing images reveal an array of food items that were perhaps used as a form of government-sponsored oppression. We can only be thankful that the liberating era of glasnost brought more civilized Pizza Huts and McDonald’s to this beaten nation and that such forms of brutality are (hopefully) no longer part of this world.