THE COOKBOOK TEST #0078: KACHKA: A RETURN TO RUSSIAN COOKING

INSTALLMENT #0078 (PAID) RUSSIAN DOLL / EXTRA EXTRAS / PUMP IT UP

Dear Subscribers,

Identity is a mess. Dig deeply enough (and for most of us, it’s not very deep), and we're all blends of different places and people and cultures, the products of constantly shifting geopolitical and interpersonal landscapes.

KACHKA: A RETURN TO RUSSIAN COOKING does such a compelling, clear, and ultimately beautiful job of capturing this idea that it could be used as material to teach the topic. Author Bonnie Frumkin Morales comes from a Jewish family from Belarus, and her story of the former Soviet Union's complex nested geographic / religious / cultural identity is fascinating, beautifully written, and at times harrowing. 

All of this is to say: even though Kachka is a "Russian" cookbook, there are complex flavors and recipes from all over the former Soviet empire, and they're thoughtfully framed and presented and contextualized. The author fearlessly took on a topic that is a sprawling, challenging mess from an organizational perspective, and I greatly admire her for that. 

Morales is also a restaurateur (of the highly regarded, James Beard award-nominated Portland restaurant Kachka), and her professionalism and skill comes through in the recipes, which are thorough, well-organized, smartly introduced and absolutely Serious Business without being intimidating or excessively chef-y. This is a truly well-written book, and while I'm grateful to any of my friends who send me interesting cookbooks, the particular friend who sent me Kachka gets a bonus shout-out for truly knowing her stuff. (And also for sending it to me via my beloved neighborhood bookstore, Moon Palace.) 

at your service,

James

KACHKA: A RETURN TO RUSSIAN COOKING
BONNIE FRUMKIN MORALES WITH DEENA PRICHEP
FLATIRON BOOKS | 2017 | $44

I think I outlined above why Kachka works so effectively as a cookbook, and why it's worth owning on those merits. What I want to briefly add here is that it's really a cookbook PLUS - it's also stuffed with a number of really well written and elegantly presented featurettes that include everything from a detailed and smart guide to Russian drinking to a thorough and useful Caviar 101 feature to a guide to embezzling rubles while producing industrial-scale sauerkraut under the Soviet system.