T-Bone Whacks and Caviar Snacks

Cooking with Two Texans in Siberia and the Russian Far East

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Pub Date Apr 15 2018 | Archive Date Aug 31 2018

Description

T-Bone Whacks and Caviar Snacks is the first cookbook in America to focus on the foods of the Asian side of Russia. Filled with fascinating food history, cultural insights, and personal stories, it chronicles the culinary adventures of two intrepid Texans who lived, worked, and ate their way around Siberia and the Russian Far East. 


Featuring 140 traditional and modern recipes, with many illustrations, T-Bone Whacks and Caviar Snacks includes dozens of regional recipes from cooks in Asian Russia, along with recipes for the European and Tex-Mex dishes that the author and her husband cooked on the “Stoves-from-Hell” in their three Russian apartments, for intimate candlelight dinners during the dark Siberian winter and for lavish parties throughout the year.


You'll learn how to make fresh seafood dishes from Russia's Far East, pine nut meringues and frozen cranberry cream from Irkutsk, enticing appetizers from the dining car of a Trans-Siberian luxury train, and flaming “Baked Siberia” (the Russian twist on Baked Alaska). And here's the bonus: All of these recipes can be made with ingredients from your local supermarket or your nearest delicatessen.

T-Bone Whacks and Caviar Snacks is the first cookbook in America to focus on the foods of the Asian side of Russia. Filled with fascinating food history, cultural insights, and personal stories, it...


Available Editions

EDITION Hardcover
ISBN 9781574417142
PRICE $39.95 (USD)

Average rating from 9 members


Featured Reviews

What I was expecting with this book was a bog-standard cookbook that takes on an unusual theme, what I got was an adventure as told by a pair of foodies set in Siberia. It was quite the trip, personal accounts with really fascinating recipes made for an interesting read. This is definitely one I want to add to my personal collection and revisit, for both the recipes and the tales of Siberian food!

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Although I have an ever-growing collection of food memoirs and cookbooks from all over the world, I will always have a big weakness for those who are sharing more than cooking tips and recipes. All my favorite ones are bringing me closer to a special table culture, unique ingredients and historical approaches to food and nutrition.

T-Bone Whacks and Caviar Snacks by Sharon Hudgins and Tom Hudgins is my latest addition to the category of favorites. It is not only because it features a cuisine that I am fearfully approaching as a cook but due to its variety of dishes and certain familiarity. Over the years, I made peace with the thoughts that most probably will never made my own borscht - the Russian version to do not antagonize those who have a different story about the origin of this liquid meal - or Napoleon, but will always enjoy both, and many more, over a Samovar-made tea and a good story.

Although most of this book is made by recipes - with detailed directions that made me dream that maybe I can do at least one of them too - the cultural and anthropological background helped placing the recipes in their specific context.

You - at least I am guilty of such subjective thoughts - may rarely expect something outstanding coming up from Siberia and the Russian Far East. Nevertheless, while on various academic assignments in the mid-1990s and during late visits, Hudgins is revealing a world frozen - no only literally - in old culinary times, burgeoining from a visit to another following contact with new foods and eating habits, slowly arriving after the opening of the country to the Western consummerism.

The recipes are spiced with personal accounts of their encounters with local Russians and additional information about specific holidays and traditions, or literary references to food. As an unique American-authored book about Russian Far East, T-Bone Whacks and Caviar Snacks is not only a culinary resource but also an anthropological account of the local mentalities, histories and customs.

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Food that I hadn't come across before made this book exciting. Based on recipes from the Baltic. I enjoyed the mix of recipes and travelogue, both given in a humorous and witty way. How they cook with no heat and freezing temperatures is beyond me. I recommend this highly.

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