November 15, 2024 • 40 mins
This savory, creamy, starchy dish can be made in all sorts of ways, and it has a tangle of historical ties to match. Anney and Lauren dig into the history and cultures behind stroganoff.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:09):
Hello, and welcome to save your production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
I'm Annie Reese and I'm Lauren vogel Baum, and today
we have an episode for you about Stroganov.
Speaker 1 (00:17):
Yes, oh, yes, it was quite a lot. Uh yeah, yeah.
Was there any particular reason this was on your mind? Lauren?
Speaker 2 (00:28):
I had been looking for a dish to talk about
and realized that this one was a little bit of
a cluster hug, And I was like, this sounds like
it's going to be fun to look into. And I
guess it is, depending on your definition of fun. It
made you as what like, it definitely made me and
you have confirmed like it made both of us feel
(00:49):
a little bit crazy. Yes it did, because there's a
lot of Stroganovs, and here we are, there's a.
Speaker 1 (00:58):
Lot of Stroganov and a lot of their names are similar,
and there's a deep history and we we love history here,
as you know, but we're not quite a history show.
So cool, really difficult to uh huh.
Speaker 2 (01:15):
And I love I genuinely love I know that my
sarcasm voice sounds like my regular voice. Sometimes I genuinely
love it. When we're doing the reading for an episode
and I'm like, I just wanted to talk about fish paste. Okay,
we're gonna get We're gonna get into a deep history
of a country, the history of which I've never learned about. Okay, here,
(01:35):
we are cool.
Speaker 1 (01:37):
Yes, it can be.
Speaker 2 (01:39):
It can be frustrating when you're on a deadline. Yeah,
and you suddenly realize exactly how much your American education.
Speaker 1 (01:49):
Has failed you. Yes, yeah, uh no, it's always because
we say it all the time on here. You can't
separate food from history and politics and all of those things.
But I was not anticipating the depth. I felt like
(02:13):
I was in The Ring when she's like looking in
the library and looking at lighthouses trying to figure out.
For people who haven't seen The Ring, you don't know
what I'm talking about. But the montage and any movie
where they go to research, and it's just like leading
to another thing and another thing, and yeah, why this
is so much bigger than I thought it was, which
(02:35):
makes sense, Oh yeah, sure, But that actually does lead
me to my point of my experience with Stroganoff. I
thought it was super fancy growing up. It was never
made in my house, but my mom would make something
that she called like as good as like as close
(02:58):
as we'll get to beef strogan off, and it was
the very Americanized version that we'll talk about. But so
it was egg noodles and cream of mushroom suit and
ground beef. So it didn't have like the other things
that a lot of the Americanized versions like to add,
like ketchup or tomato paste and worshter. Sure, but I
(03:22):
loved it. I loved it was very comforting, and I
just I grew up with this idea that strogan off
was very fancy. No.
Speaker 2 (03:35):
I mean, well, you know, like any iteration of it
is really delicious. I mean at a certain point you've
got like a cream sauce with noodles, like a cream
sauce with starch and savory, something that's just good. That's
just yeah. I also I also felt like it was
a fancier dish. It it was something that my dad
would make at home. He was a professional cook and
(03:59):
so he usually was not up for making real food
at home, but this was one of his go to
dishes when on the rare occasion that he was and
so like it always it always felt special, like like
maybe not like special occasion special, but yeah, but I
was just like oh yeah, yeah, it's stroganoff night. Heck yeah,
exciting night.
Speaker 1 (04:19):
Mm hmmm mm hmmmm. Well I guess this brings us
to our question, sure, stroganoff, what is it?
Speaker 2 (04:33):
Well, stroganoff can be a lot of things, but what
we are basically looking at is, yes, a main coarse
dish of a rich, creamy sauce featuring some kind of
savory stuff like mushrooms before both cooked until tender. This
is one of those like rich and savory all the
way down dishes, like where you're just stacking like pike
(04:55):
and onions and other allions with them reduced stock and
butter mommy c like orsester shear sauce, tomato paste or paprika,
like a pop of round complexity from white wine or
dry sherry. Maybe you get you get all these flavors
in there, and you saute them down, make sure your
beef or your mushrooms or whatever are like perfectly browned,
(05:16):
and then finish the sauce with a hit of sour
cream or cream cream or similar. And then you usually
pour it over a starch like rice or egg noodles
or potatoes. Maybe top it with parsley or potato straws
or dill. So the result is this oomammi bomb of
a comfort food dish, just hearty and stick to your ribs.
(05:38):
It's like it's like pulling on like a really nice
cable nit wool sweater like homy and classic and warming,
but it also feels fancy and it can be either
like quick and cheap or an absolute luxury product depending
on how it was made.
Speaker 1 (06:00):
Yes, agreed as someone who's been like I have all
these sweaters and I want to wear them. It's too warm.
Speaker 2 (06:09):
It's still too warm.
Speaker 1 (06:11):
Yeah, yeah, there's something so comforting about yeah, yourself up
in that. Yeah, I'm really looking forward.
Speaker 2 (06:21):
I have I have this like new black sweater I
haven't been.
Speaker 1 (06:23):
Able to wear yet.
Speaker 2 (06:24):
Anyway, Okay, we're okay, all right, Because we recently were
talking about gulash and listener, mail, I do want to
acknowledge the fact that someone out there right now is
saying what you're talking about is also called gulash, and
I want to make a point of division. Feel free
(06:45):
to argue with me, but generally speaking, stroganoff is a
quick cooking saute recipe, whereas the many varieties of gulash
are slow cooking stew recipes I'm not going to argue
with you. If you would like to argue with me,
please do. I will accept what you say and thank
(07:06):
you for it, and we will do the Goolash episode eventually,
but for now, stroking off. There are a lot of variations,
like what is your main stuff? Is it mushrooms? Is
it beef? Is it both? If it's beef, what kind
of beef? Is it ground? Thin, sliced, cubed? Do you
flour coat the beef before you saute it? You can
use alternative proteins like chicken cutlets, porkloin, meat balls, or liver.
(07:28):
You can make it vegetarian or vegan. Do you serve
the stuff in the sauce by itself? Do you serve
it over rice or perhaps buckwheat? Do over noodles? Over potatoes?
What kind of noodles or potatoes? Scalped potatoes, mashed potatoes?
Speaker 1 (07:42):
The world is your shaken off.
Speaker 2 (07:47):
There are variants everywhere that the dish is spread, which
is a lot of places. Savory ingredients from like soy
sauce to ketchup make their way in. I read a
recipe with fish sauce in it.
Speaker 1 (07:59):
The boo.
Speaker 2 (08:00):
This element could be brandy or driver Mooth. Seasonings could
include nutmeg, mustard, horse radish, hot pepper like cayenne, herbs
like thyme. Additional vegetables might include chopped carrots or pickles.
Some recipes add cheese. In the United States, you can
buy like boxed like Hamburger helper style versions with a
(08:20):
powdered sauce packet and some kind of dried starch. It's
also not uncommon at all to use a can of
condensed cream of mushroom soup for a quicker, easier sauce.
If you are making it from scratch without cream of
mushroom soup, making a roo will help prevent the sauce
from clumping when you add your sour cream. There are
(08:41):
lots of other tips and tricks out there, as per
the usual jkenng Lopez Alt has a really great breakdown
on serious eats. But yeah, the world, the world really
is your strokenoff.
Speaker 1 (08:52):
Indeed, it is which brings us to the nutrition.
Speaker 2 (08:57):
It really depends on how you make it. There, I
will say there are also a great deal of like
lighter stroganoff recipes out there. I don't know, you know,
like eat a vegetable drink. Some water cream and sour
cream and beef for that matter, are like nutritionally dense foods,
(09:18):
as is butter. So you know, yeah, you know here
we are.
Speaker 1 (09:23):
Here, we are. It's so lovely and so nice. So
oh it is. If you need a stroganof we support you.
I think we have something sort of number y for you.
Oh wow.
Speaker 2 (09:40):
Yeah. So this being like a really widespread dish, it's
very difficult to track down numbers that mean anything to
anyone about anything related to Stroganoff. But September twenty first
here in the United States is National Beef strogan Off Day.
So there you go. All right, Okay, it's the turn
(10:04):
of fall. I get it, you know, like we're moving
into sweater weather. Yeah, there we go, all comes back around.
Speaker 1 (10:13):
Okay, Well, as we mentioned, this one does have quite
the history.
Speaker 2 (10:18):
Oh oh it does, yes, and we are going to
get into that as soon as we get back from
a quick break for a word from our sponsors, and
we're back. Thank you sponsor, Yes, thank you, and yes
(10:39):
we're back.
Speaker 1 (10:41):
With this very dense history. Also, apologies an advance for
my Russian. Interestingly to me, I guess my older brother
speaks Russian. Oh so he would practice it a lot
around the house, but none of that has helped me,
I have found. But I'll do my best.
Speaker 2 (11:04):
Yeah yeah, yeah, Well we'll try to work through it together. Yeah, yes,
all right.
Speaker 1 (11:10):
So a lot of the tracing of this history of
this dish has centered around getting to the bottom of
the name. Where did this Stroganov come from? So the
wealthy Stroganov dynasty has been involved in the upper echelons
of Russian society since the mid fifteenth century, and that's
where most people assume that it comes from. Oh yeah, yeah.
(11:32):
For centuries they were one of the oldest and richest
families in Russia. They had a huge fortune and palaces
and property all over the country. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (11:41):
They'd come up partially in the salt industry, which I
thought was interesting. Their financial support of Peter the Great
in the seventeen hundreds elevated them to the aristocracy. They
were patrons of the arts and sciences. They married a
few Romanovs, they frequently were involved in the government. Just
hugely influential family.
Speaker 1 (12:01):
Yes, they really really were. And under the Csars at
this time, wealthy families like the Shogunhavs liked to travel
to France and might own property there. Sometimes they sent
their children to schools in France, and they like to
hire French staff, including cooks, for their homes in Russia.
A part of this also had to do with the
(12:22):
eighteen twelve French invasion of Russia during the Napoleonic War
and the fallout of that.
Speaker 2 (12:28):
Remember also from our episodes on French cuisine and chefs
that France's like sociopolitical clout made their cuisine very posh
before the Revolution in seventeen eighty nine, and that revolution
sent a bunch of these career chefs for the noble
class looking for work in places like Imperial Russia.
Speaker 1 (12:54):
Right, but okay, the name of the dish, there are
a few candidates.
Speaker 2 (13:01):
A few specific Stroganoff family candidates, Yes, there are.
Speaker 1 (13:06):
One of the most popular theories is that the name
originated with Alexander Grigorovich Strokanov, who held the position of
Governor general over Novo Orsiya Novo Ritia in the eighteen.
Speaker 2 (13:19):
Hundreds what's now part of Ukraine.
Speaker 1 (13:22):
He spent most of his life living in Odessa, where
the story goes he adhered to the local tradition of
keeping what was called an open table, and this was
a custom wherein anyone dressed properly or with a certain
level of education could pop in unannounced for dinner.
Speaker 2 (13:39):
Yeah, the host of these things would expect to be
serving like forty to sixty people at a time. I
understand it was a little bit like an open salon.
Working artists and students and civil servants and travelers would
come get a nice meal out of it, and their
contribution was their stories or performance of poetry or whatever.
(14:00):
Odessa was and is a university town, and so you'd
have a lot of these types coming through.
Speaker 1 (14:06):
And Stroganoff was wealthy, so his cooks took care of
the meal. According to this story, one of them came
up with the idea to pull together some Russian and
French influences cut fried pieces of meat served with the
sauce instead of having the sauce served separately. Not only
was it really tasty, it was relatively easy to make
(14:29):
and portion out.
Speaker 2 (14:31):
Yeah, the sour cream and the sauce would have been
a way to like russianify what's otherwise just basically like
a French frickacy.
Speaker 1 (14:41):
And this timeline matches with the first known written mention
of Stroganoff meat or beef strogan Off in the eighteen
sixties and Elena molokovits Gift for Young Housewives. Yeah, this
was a recipe book. The recipe that she wrote calls
for cubes of beef seasoned with salt and allspice, pan
(15:03):
fried and butter. The sauce is a rude diluted with
beef broth and then seasoned with mustard and pepper, with
a sour cream added in at the end. Just mix
it up and serve. Also, I cannot tell you how
much to do there is about the cubes versus the strips. Oh, yes,
(15:23):
and these early recipes. We'll get into that a little
bit more later. Well, speaking of kind of, however, some
argue that the recipe is older than this, and that
there are similar recipes in eighteenth century French culinary works.
In this case, many credit Charles Briere, a chef working
(15:46):
in Saint Petersburg, for the name. After the death of
Stroganoff in eighteen ninety one, he sent the recipe to
Larte Colinaire, named in Stroganov's owner. This may or may
not have been part of a cooking competition. More on
that later as well. Yeah, others point to similar recipes
(16:06):
in Russia going back as far as the early eighteen
hundreds that may have served as stepping stones or beef
shroken off like this was not the first instance of
something like this, Oh dear well others Okay, Others think
that the name comes from Grigory Alexandrovich Stroganoff, who lived
(16:29):
from the late seventeen hundreds to the mid eighteen hundreds
and was known in part for enjoying food. The legend
goes that one of the Schroganov chefs invented his dish
for him when he got older and had troubled chewing
and swallowing meat.
Speaker 2 (16:44):
So this is like a thin sliced or possibly ground
beef version exactly.
Speaker 1 (16:50):
Still. Others, though, attributed it to the famed diplomat Pavel
Alexandrovitch Stroganoff, who operated in the late seventeen hundreds and
early eighteen hundreds. He was gonna celebrity oh yeah, at
the time. In this version, it was either Stroganoff or
his chef who came up with the dish, possibly while
encountering frozen meat in Siberia that could only be cut
(17:14):
into thin strips. Impossibly, also because Pavel had bad teeth,
or Lauren. Uh huh. The potential cooking competition mentioned earlier
happened under Pavel's Stroganof instead, and the chef named it
after him his employer. However, that timeline doesn't really work out. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (17:37):
Yeah, Pavel passed in eighteen seventeen, and whenever people talk
about this hypothetical culinary competition, they tie it to the
year eighteen ninety one, So like, it's not impossible for
a chef of his to have still been working then,
But I want to say improbable.
Speaker 1 (17:56):
I'm going to agree with you. Okay, in some cases,
I suspect some people mixed up their strogan Offs in
the telling of these stories. Yes, yes, which during this
research I understand, I thought I was losing my mind
trying to keep track. I also was like, wasn't he
(18:17):
long dead by the yes? But I also think people
really really wanted to attribute this to Pavel. They really
wanted the Stroganoff in question to be him. Who Yes,
he was somewhat of a celebrity. I'm not saying they're wrong,
because that would make sense in terms of name recognition.
(18:38):
It's just that, Yeah, a lot of the dates don't
match up. It doesn't really work.
Speaker 2 (18:44):
It doesn't really make sense.
Speaker 1 (18:45):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So all of that to say,
the general takeaway is that there were other similar French
and Russian dishes that served as inspiration, but the name
came from a French or French influence chef who made
it for their employer, a Stroganoff, and named it after them,
(19:08):
as was custom at the time.
Speaker 2 (19:10):
Probably probably this this is not based on anything that
I read. It's just a pet theory. But like, it
would not surprise me if the Stroganoff family had nothing
to do with the creation of this recipe and that
their name got attached to it because they were rich
and famous, you know, like their name meant luxury. To
(19:32):
this day, one of their palaces in Saint Petersburg this
like wild Baroque fever dream of a palace that's like
painted pink on the outside. It's part of the museum system.
Now it's still a tourist attraction, and apparently a lot
of the tourist driven restaurants in the immediate area serve
(19:53):
this dish. So I think, I don't know, I don't know.
It could be based on one or all of these knovs,
or none of them and just have gotten their name
attached to it because they were popular people.
Speaker 1 (20:08):
Definitely, definitely, we cannot get to the bottom of this
mystery of history today. No, no, I don't do another mossage.
Breakout the library books, whatever the case. Recipes started proliferating
in Russia in the eighteen seventies, in part due to
(20:30):
a resurgence in traditional Russian cuisine and the practice of
sending printed recipes all over the country. From what I read,
the early versions didn't include mushrooms of or paprika, and
we're pretty mustard for it.
Speaker 2 (20:45):
Yeah, I understand. The mushrooms didn't hit the recipe until
around the turn of the century. The first recipe to
feature them and tomato was The Practical Guide of the
Basics of Culinary Arts, which was published in nineteen twelve.
That was also when the potato straws came in. I
am so upset for the record that I've never had
a dish of stroken off with potato straws on top
(21:07):
of it. I'm like, why not layer your starches, why
not start on startron starch?
Speaker 1 (21:11):
That sounds so good. I have had that either, And
when I read it, I was like, obviously, what are
we doing now the name aside. Some sources claim that
beef stroganoff really started as a dish for poor folks
who are attempting to make me last. As they traveled
(21:32):
further into Europe, they took the dish with them. Another
source I found, though, claimed that a part of this
dish's popularity was that it was customizable and could be
made very expensively or very cheaply, and because of that
it was popular across class lines. Yeah, yeah, makes sense.
(21:52):
It makes sense to me. As Russians immigrated and people
traveled around the world in the early twentieth century, beef
stroganof became well known around the globe. It was particularly
popular in Shanghai, where it was often served over rice,
and this was in part due to political relations between
China and Russia.
Speaker 2 (22:10):
Yeah. Leading up to the Revolution, Russian investments in like
northeast China and particularly especially in the railways, led to
a bunch of Russian immigration there. So there was already
like a cultural base in Shanghai and surrounding areas. Yes,
and then many Russians fled after the nineteen seventeen Revolution
(22:31):
in Russia, and in some pockets this dish really really
took off One of those pockets was Brazil, where it
allegedly is so popular many Brazilians believe it originated there
are they just like to claim it it does. Yeah,
that's the Brazilian version, I believe, often has tomato in
(22:55):
it and is right usually served with those potato straws
or like shoestring fried potatoes. Yes.
Speaker 1 (23:01):
Yes, Japan is another pocket where I read it's made
with mushrooms, soy sauce and heavy cream served over rice.
But please, listeners write in oh.
Speaker 2 (23:11):
Yeah, whatever Stroganoff is to you, we want to hear
about it. Absolutely, absolutely we do.
Speaker 1 (23:18):
However, it did take time for Stroknof to catch on
in the US, possibly because immigrants arriving from Russia to
the US were not in the mood to make it,
since many were fleeing a not so great situation in Russia.
It wasn't until a second wave of Russian immigrants arrived,
some of them of the upper class, and those immigrants
(23:40):
started opening restaurants that the dish started to get a
foothold in the US. For example, the famous Russian Tea
Room opened in New York City in nineteen twenty six,
still open. The first English language recipe for the dish
was featured in a nineteen thirty two cooks book. A
(24:00):
recipe for it appeared in a Larus Gastronomique in nineteen
thirty eight, crediting the recipe to Charles Rier after he
sent it to Lart culinaiar And some people think that's
where all this confusion, some of this confusion comes in.
Speaker 2 (24:17):
Sure, sure, yeah.
Speaker 1 (24:19):
The popularity of the dish in the United States really
took off with Americans returning from World War Two with
a more adventurous palette. And this had a ripple effect
since not only did some of them go on to
work in the food industry and shaped it that way,
on a more personal level, they shared these dishes and
taste with those in their lives. This is also when
(24:43):
people were moving into the suburbs and dinner parties were
in fashion, and beef strogan off stroganof was a popular
offering because it was simple to make, not that expensive,
depending but was seen as something fancy, something you're which
at the time was something fancy in the US. And
(25:05):
again it was tasty, especially in comparison to the previous
years of rationing. For the war. It started appearing on
menus at nice restaurants. People started experimenting with it, adding
Worcester sauce, condensed mushroom soup or tomato paste, slash ketchup,
typically serving it over egg noodles or maybe mashed potatoes
(25:27):
or rice. Strips of beef were swapped for ground beef,
the sour cream was swapped for sweet cream. A lot
of experimentation. So as I was reading this, I was
just I was curious because it was happening during the
Red Scare and the Cold War with the USSR. I
could only find theories about why it was that this
(25:48):
dish seemed to be shielded from all of that, And
it sounds like part of it was the americanization of it.
Our people were more likely to associate it with France,
or maybe it didn't really matter to folks go and
it tasted good and maybe they just didn't think about it.
Speaker 2 (26:07):
Yeah, yeah, oh, I do think that there was like
a divide in thought in America about communist Russia versus
imperial Russia. And this is clearly an imperial dish and
part of that kind of old world European fanciness that
a lot of Americans were sort of aspiring to at
the time.
Speaker 1 (26:29):
Yeah, yeah, that makes sense. And another reason this dish
grew in popularity at the time is that this is
when a lot of innovations around convenience foods like boxed mixes,
seasoning packets, or microwaveable meals were happening, and Stroganoff got
wrapped into all of that. Oh yeah. I tried to
(26:52):
find specifics and I really couldn't. But by the sixties
and seventies, companies like Swanson were offering frozen beef strogan
Off meals and I actually found it an eBay listing
where you can buy the cardboard box. Oh wow, yeah,
okay cool. When Hamburger Helper launched at large across the
(27:13):
US in nineteen seventy one with five flavors, one of
them was potato stroken Off. Actually their list of flavors,
those five flavors gave me a little bit of piles.
They weren't quite what I was expecting, but I mean,
they're nothing quite wild, but I was just like, really,
it's again like when we talked about things like that,
(27:35):
it's interesting to think about what was going on at
the time and what were the taste at the time. Yeah, yeah,
I will say, you know, do this. We always get
our cravings. And I was trying to find like this
beef stroked off frozen meal, which I know I had had,
and I couldn't find it. What kept showing up Swedish meatballs?
(27:58):
Oh sure, And I went on a deep dive about
the difference between Swedish meatballs joking and this is the
risk of Yeah, podcaster, I am that's a nutmeg and
(28:19):
the Swedish.
Speaker 2 (28:21):
There you go, there you go.
Speaker 1 (28:24):
I haven't.
Speaker 2 (28:25):
Yeah, we we have not done an episode on Swedish meatballs.
Speaker 1 (28:28):
There you go.
Speaker 2 (28:28):
Stuff stuff to talk about in the future. Maybe we
should have a whole show that's just stuff to talk
about in the future, and it's just us talking about
things we would like to talk about. Yeah, today, this
isn't an episode about this, but gosh, doesn't it sound
like it would probably be cool.
Speaker 1 (28:46):
It's just as we used to have these wild ideas
where we would like, how weird can we go?
Speaker 2 (28:52):
It?
Speaker 1 (28:52):
Just us listing topics that.
Speaker 2 (28:55):
That we're not doing. Yeah, yeah, get real, get real,
get real bonkers, just go ganza with it.
Speaker 1 (29:02):
Yeah, yeah, well, it seems I did check. The Hamburger
Helper stroganof still exists. You can still buy that, and
you can still get the flavor packet to make it
your own, I guess, but I couldn't find any of
(29:24):
the frozen meals at my local grocery store, all Swedish meatball,
all just Swedish meatballs.
Speaker 2 (29:31):
Well well, apparently the people have spoken.
Speaker 1 (29:33):
I don't know, but I also checked the menu of
the Russian Tearing just because I was curious, and their
version of stroganoff sounds, based on this research, a bit
more americanized to me. Nothing that's bad at all, that's great,
(29:56):
but it's just interesting because there is a big back
and forth about, as always in these episodes, is this
drop or is it this? Is it all of these things?
But there seemed a bit more of what I my
American palette would think. It's beef stroke now, But I
don't know if anyone's ever been Oh yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (30:19):
And and rights, as we said, we would be so
curious to hear what strove enough means to you. Yes,
like the version my dad made was pretty pretty like
French leaning, like yeah, like onions and mushrooms sauteed down,
maybe dredged, some beef cubes and flour frying off in
(30:43):
butter and then finish out of sauce with some broth
and sour cream from there kind of thing. But sounds
so good. Yeah, yeah, I know the cravings, the cravings.
Speaker 1 (31:01):
The cravings are real. Well, yeah, please write in and
let us know, because I think that's what we have
to say about Struggnoff from now.
Speaker 2 (31:10):
I think it is. But we already do have some
listener mail for you, and we are going to get
into that as soon as we get back from one
more quick break for a word from our sponsors, and
we're back. Thank you sponsor, Yes, thank you, and we're
(31:31):
back with listener. Oh yeah, I loved the movie and
Anastasia when I was growing up.
Speaker 1 (31:45):
Oh yeah, oh yeah, it has that song. I sing
it all the time. Once por in December, I was
going to try to do that. I was like, I
can't put more on through whatever that choreography would be,
thank you, So to showcase the warmth and comfort of
(32:05):
the dish like Strokernoff, Yeah, Tracy wrote. Currently listening to
the White Tail Deer episode and I totally related to
Lauren's front yard deer fear. I lived in Missoula, Montana
for a few years and a whole herd used to
(32:27):
sleep under an oak tree in the front yard made
coming home from the bar a little scary sometimes. I
also wanted to recommend a great book. I recently listened
to The Only Good Indians. There is some quality deer
body horror and a lot of interesting perspectives on indigenous
food ways. I think you both would enjoy. I listened
(32:48):
to the audio book, which was so well performed, but
I also listened to it all the way through one
weekend when I was home alone and it scared. So
I had read this book, but I looked it up
and I know the author and I read the primis
Oh yes, yes, yah, so awesome.
Speaker 2 (33:09):
Yeah. Also, I also relate really hard to doing something
that you probably shouldn't, like listening to a really creepy
audiobook at home alone in like one weekend and scaring
yourself and just being like, well, here I am.
Speaker 1 (33:28):
It's almost like I could have predicted it. I'm scared now.
I like it though. That's fun too.
Speaker 2 (33:41):
Oh the deer fear, the deer fear.
Speaker 1 (33:43):
It's real. It is now there's a squirrel fear. As
Lauren was.
Speaker 2 (33:47):
Telling I, don't have a squirrel fear. You injected the
squirrel fear into the story.
Speaker 1 (33:53):
I'm projecting it into you.
Speaker 2 (33:55):
Yeah that I was telling Annie before we started that.
For like a solid twenty minutes earlier this afternoon, there
was a squirrel just sitting on my back porch, railing,
just screaming, just screaming for like twenty minutes. And I
really felt that squirrel.
Speaker 1 (34:13):
You know, so you connect with the squirrel.
Speaker 2 (34:18):
Yeah, yeah, it was a squirrel connection, not a squirrel fear.
Ohund okay, No, I mean if it jumped at my face,
I would be unhappy about that, but you know, well,
keep us posted.
Speaker 1 (34:31):
Yeah, oh goodness, and we appreciate the recommendation. Thanks.
Speaker 2 (34:38):
Oh yeah, yes, yes, thank you, thank you. Eric wrote,
I really wish I could have seen an automat when
they were around. The concept sounds really interesting. While large
vending machine options exist, something that is more of a
like recently cooked prepared option sounds like. Something that is
more of a recently cooked prepared option really sounds like
(34:58):
something to see. I could see a place for them
in a city with a fair amount of people around.
I don't know if it would work, but it seems
like it could if you find the right mix of food.
Christine hit the nail on the head about it. We
live on coffee and caffeine. The amount of coffee and
various energy drinks you see around it groups will make
your head spin. Yes, overdose of caffeine pun intended. I
(35:21):
had to see if California walnuts were the same as
English walnuts, and in general they are unless marked as
black and so forth. Walnuts are just a great all
around not for use in things. I actually used a
mix of toasted walnuts and toasted pepitas in a vegan
pesto I made tonight basil spinach parsley, a nutritional yeast
in place of the palm, lemon juice, olive oil, garlic,
(35:42):
and the toasted nuts had a different way of flavor
I really liked anyway. The walnut talk, of course, led
me down a walnut rabbit hole, which always leads to
interesting things. I don't know how you find time to
do episodes if you end up in those rabbit holes.
Different types of venison are always interesting. I haven't hunted
in over thirty years, but I have friends who still
hunt who provide deer meat. Whitetail is definitely the most common.
(36:06):
I have to grill it or prepare it when my
wife is not around, as she does not like the
gamey smell. It doesn't bother me as I like the
smell and taste. I really enjoy getting ground venison or
chunking up the meat and making venison chili. If you
make venison chili, I highly, highly highly recommend doing a
Cincinnati style chili, as I think the cocoa powder, nutmeg,
and cinnamon really add to the flavoring complexity without losing
(36:28):
the venison flavor. Something else to try is grilled venison tacos.
Do a light rub with some chili powder, granulated garlic,
granulated onion, and cumin. Grill and slice and add two
flower tortillas with some pickled ribbons of carrot and just
a little cootiha or a wahaka. Always always look forward
to what cravings and rabbit holes the ostensibly a food
(36:48):
show takes us down.
Speaker 1 (36:52):
There are many they are illusions. Oh they are they are.
Speaker 2 (36:57):
I was like, what was immigration from Russia to hy
of like in the late eighteen and early nineteen hundreds.
Let's look into that. Here we are.
Speaker 1 (37:07):
I was like, oh wow, people can make so much
money selling these old frozen food box The rabbit holes
are a plenty, yeah, is what I'm saying. They are.
Often they're they're fun, but they can be a time suck.
Yeah yeah, sometimes are on a deadline. Yeah, yes, exactly. Oh.
Speaker 2 (37:30):
Thanks is always for the for the recipes and recommendations.
All that sounds delicious.
Speaker 1 (37:37):
It does. I The cravings are real right now for
so many different things. I do want to shout out
over on stuff. One ever told you the other podcast
I do Friend of the Show when co host over
there is Samantha. She recently did an episode on soup
oh and just gender ideas around soup, of course, but
(38:04):
in it she came out hard against Cincinnati style chili.
I'm under the bus, right really she did, And I
was like, you realize you're you're you're the stars. But
I think, to me, that sounds that sounds delicious.
Speaker 2 (38:27):
Oh yeah, my I wouldn't call the chili that I
that I make Cincinnati style, but for sure, coca powder
and cinnamon are two of my like secret ingredients. That's
secret and like heavy scare quotes because I'm saying it
into a microphone that's going out in an international podcast.
Speaker 1 (38:49):
But now you're in on it. There you go. There
you go.
Speaker 2 (38:54):
It's just our secret. You know, coca powder and cinnamon
are terrific in chili.
Speaker 1 (39:01):
I feel like chili, so.
Speaker 2 (39:06):
You can.
Speaker 1 (39:06):
It's some days you might want that, some days you
might want something completely different. I feel go a lot
different ways. Also, this is another conversation we got into,
which we'll have to say for another podcast, But we
were arguing about whether chili is a stew or not
is a stew. I think chili is in its own category,
(39:27):
but she thinks it's a stewp Oh, it's a stew.
Well I'm disagree, but that's all right. I think chili
should have its own like little branch.
Speaker 2 (39:46):
Yeah, yeah, it's a little taxonomical. Sure, yeah, you're like, no,
it's its own species. Sorry, it's neither stup nor stew. Yeah, no,
we can. We can argue about that later, for sure.
Speaker 1 (39:56):
And we shall great meantime, thank you to both of
these listeners so much for writing it. If you would
like to write to us, you can. Our email is
Hello at savorpod dot com. We're also on social media.
Speaker 2 (40:11):
You can find us on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram at
saverpod and we do hope to hear from you. Savor
is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from my
heart Radio, you can visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. Thanks as
always to our super producers Dylan Fagan and Andrew Howard.
Thanks to you for listening, and we hope that lots
more good things are coming your way.
Hello, and welcome to save your production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
I'm Annie Reese and I'm Lauren vogel Baum, and today
we have an episode for you about Stroganov.
Speaker 1 (00:17):
Yes, oh, yes, it was quite a lot. Uh yeah, yeah.
Was there any particular reason this was on your mind? Lauren?
Speaker 2 (00:28):
I had been looking for a dish to talk about
and realized that this one was a little bit of
a cluster hug, And I was like, this sounds like
it's going to be fun to look into. And I
guess it is, depending on your definition of fun. It
made you as what like, it definitely made me and
you have confirmed like it made both of us feel
(00:49):
a little bit crazy. Yes it did, because there's a
lot of Stroganovs, and here we are, there's a.
Speaker 1 (00:58):
Lot of Stroganov and a lot of their names are similar,
and there's a deep history and we we love history here,
as you know, but we're not quite a history show.
So cool, really difficult to uh huh.
Speaker 2 (01:15):
And I love I genuinely love I know that my
sarcasm voice sounds like my regular voice. Sometimes I genuinely
love it. When we're doing the reading for an episode
and I'm like, I just wanted to talk about fish paste. Okay,
we're gonna get We're gonna get into a deep history
of a country, the history of which I've never learned about. Okay, here,
(01:35):
we are cool.
Speaker 1 (01:37):
Yes, it can be.
Speaker 2 (01:39):
It can be frustrating when you're on a deadline. Yeah,
and you suddenly realize exactly how much your American education.
Speaker 1 (01:49):
Has failed you. Yes, yeah, uh no, it's always because
we say it all the time on here. You can't
separate food from history and politics and all of those things.
But I was not anticipating the depth. I felt like
(02:13):
I was in The Ring when she's like looking in
the library and looking at lighthouses trying to figure out.
For people who haven't seen The Ring, you don't know
what I'm talking about. But the montage and any movie
where they go to research, and it's just like leading
to another thing and another thing, and yeah, why this
is so much bigger than I thought it was, which
(02:35):
makes sense, Oh yeah, sure, But that actually does lead
me to my point of my experience with Stroganoff. I
thought it was super fancy growing up. It was never
made in my house, but my mom would make something
that she called like as good as like as close
(02:58):
as we'll get to beef strogan off, and it was
the very Americanized version that we'll talk about. But so
it was egg noodles and cream of mushroom suit and
ground beef. So it didn't have like the other things
that a lot of the Americanized versions like to add,
like ketchup or tomato paste and worshter. Sure, but I
(03:22):
loved it. I loved it was very comforting, and I
just I grew up with this idea that strogan off
was very fancy. No.
Speaker 2 (03:35):
I mean, well, you know, like any iteration of it
is really delicious. I mean at a certain point you've
got like a cream sauce with noodles, like a cream
sauce with starch and savory, something that's just good. That's
just yeah. I also I also felt like it was
a fancier dish. It it was something that my dad
would make at home. He was a professional cook and
(03:59):
so he usually was not up for making real food
at home, but this was one of his go to
dishes when on the rare occasion that he was and
so like it always it always felt special, like like
maybe not like special occasion special, but yeah, but I
was just like oh yeah, yeah, it's stroganoff night. Heck yeah,
exciting night.
Speaker 1 (04:19):
Mm hmmm mm hmmmm. Well I guess this brings us
to our question, sure, stroganoff, what is it?
Speaker 2 (04:33):
Well, stroganoff can be a lot of things, but what
we are basically looking at is, yes, a main coarse
dish of a rich, creamy sauce featuring some kind of
savory stuff like mushrooms before both cooked until tender. This
is one of those like rich and savory all the
way down dishes, like where you're just stacking like pike
(04:55):
and onions and other allions with them reduced stock and
butter mommy c like orsester shear sauce, tomato paste or paprika,
like a pop of round complexity from white wine or
dry sherry. Maybe you get you get all these flavors
in there, and you saute them down, make sure your
beef or your mushrooms or whatever are like perfectly browned,
(05:16):
and then finish the sauce with a hit of sour
cream or cream cream or similar. And then you usually
pour it over a starch like rice or egg noodles
or potatoes. Maybe top it with parsley or potato straws
or dill. So the result is this oomammi bomb of
a comfort food dish, just hearty and stick to your ribs.
(05:38):
It's like it's like pulling on like a really nice
cable nit wool sweater like homy and classic and warming,
but it also feels fancy and it can be either
like quick and cheap or an absolute luxury product depending
on how it was made.
Speaker 1 (06:00):
Yes, agreed as someone who's been like I have all
these sweaters and I want to wear them. It's too warm.
Speaker 2 (06:09):
It's still too warm.
Speaker 1 (06:11):
Yeah, yeah, there's something so comforting about yeah, yourself up
in that. Yeah, I'm really looking forward.
Speaker 2 (06:21):
I have I have this like new black sweater I
haven't been.
Speaker 1 (06:23):
Able to wear yet.
Speaker 2 (06:24):
Anyway, Okay, we're okay, all right, Because we recently were
talking about gulash and listener, mail, I do want to
acknowledge the fact that someone out there right now is
saying what you're talking about is also called gulash, and
I want to make a point of division. Feel free
(06:45):
to argue with me, but generally speaking, stroganoff is a
quick cooking saute recipe, whereas the many varieties of gulash
are slow cooking stew recipes I'm not going to argue
with you. If you would like to argue with me,
please do. I will accept what you say and thank
(07:06):
you for it, and we will do the Goolash episode eventually,
but for now, stroking off. There are a lot of variations,
like what is your main stuff? Is it mushrooms? Is
it beef? Is it both? If it's beef, what kind
of beef? Is it ground? Thin, sliced, cubed? Do you
flour coat the beef before you saute it? You can
use alternative proteins like chicken cutlets, porkloin, meat balls, or liver.
(07:28):
You can make it vegetarian or vegan. Do you serve
the stuff in the sauce by itself? Do you serve
it over rice or perhaps buckwheat? Do over noodles? Over potatoes?
What kind of noodles or potatoes? Scalped potatoes, mashed potatoes?
Speaker 1 (07:42):
The world is your shaken off.
Speaker 2 (07:47):
There are variants everywhere that the dish is spread, which
is a lot of places. Savory ingredients from like soy
sauce to ketchup make their way in. I read a
recipe with fish sauce in it.
Speaker 1 (07:59):
The boo.
Speaker 2 (08:00):
This element could be brandy or driver Mooth. Seasonings could
include nutmeg, mustard, horse radish, hot pepper like cayenne, herbs
like thyme. Additional vegetables might include chopped carrots or pickles.
Some recipes add cheese. In the United States, you can
buy like boxed like Hamburger helper style versions with a
(08:20):
powdered sauce packet and some kind of dried starch. It's
also not uncommon at all to use a can of
condensed cream of mushroom soup for a quicker, easier sauce.
If you are making it from scratch without cream of
mushroom soup, making a roo will help prevent the sauce
from clumping when you add your sour cream. There are
(08:41):
lots of other tips and tricks out there, as per
the usual jkenng Lopez Alt has a really great breakdown
on serious eats. But yeah, the world, the world really
is your strokenoff.
Speaker 1 (08:52):
Indeed, it is which brings us to the nutrition.
Speaker 2 (08:57):
It really depends on how you make it. There, I
will say there are also a great deal of like
lighter stroganoff recipes out there. I don't know, you know,
like eat a vegetable drink. Some water cream and sour
cream and beef for that matter, are like nutritionally dense foods,
(09:18):
as is butter. So you know, yeah, you know here
we are.
Speaker 1 (09:23):
Here, we are. It's so lovely and so nice. So
oh it is. If you need a stroganof we support you.
I think we have something sort of number y for you.
Oh wow.
Speaker 2 (09:40):
Yeah. So this being like a really widespread dish, it's
very difficult to track down numbers that mean anything to
anyone about anything related to Stroganoff. But September twenty first
here in the United States is National Beef strogan Off Day.
So there you go. All right, Okay, it's the turn
(10:04):
of fall. I get it, you know, like we're moving
into sweater weather. Yeah, there we go, all comes back around.
Speaker 1 (10:13):
Okay, Well, as we mentioned, this one does have quite
the history.
Speaker 2 (10:18):
Oh oh it does, yes, and we are going to
get into that as soon as we get back from
a quick break for a word from our sponsors, and
we're back. Thank you sponsor, Yes, thank you, and yes
(10:39):
we're back.
Speaker 1 (10:41):
With this very dense history. Also, apologies an advance for
my Russian. Interestingly to me, I guess my older brother
speaks Russian. Oh so he would practice it a lot
around the house, but none of that has helped me,
I have found. But I'll do my best.
Speaker 2 (11:04):
Yeah yeah, yeah, Well we'll try to work through it together. Yeah, yes,
all right.
Speaker 1 (11:10):
So a lot of the tracing of this history of
this dish has centered around getting to the bottom of
the name. Where did this Stroganov come from? So the
wealthy Stroganov dynasty has been involved in the upper echelons
of Russian society since the mid fifteenth century, and that's
where most people assume that it comes from. Oh yeah, yeah.
(11:32):
For centuries they were one of the oldest and richest
families in Russia. They had a huge fortune and palaces
and property all over the country. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (11:41):
They'd come up partially in the salt industry, which I
thought was interesting. Their financial support of Peter the Great
in the seventeen hundreds elevated them to the aristocracy. They
were patrons of the arts and sciences. They married a
few Romanovs, they frequently were involved in the government. Just
hugely influential family.
Speaker 1 (12:01):
Yes, they really really were. And under the Csars at
this time, wealthy families like the Shogunhavs liked to travel
to France and might own property there. Sometimes they sent
their children to schools in France, and they like to
hire French staff, including cooks, for their homes in Russia.
A part of this also had to do with the
(12:22):
eighteen twelve French invasion of Russia during the Napoleonic War
and the fallout of that.
Speaker 2 (12:28):
Remember also from our episodes on French cuisine and chefs
that France's like sociopolitical clout made their cuisine very posh
before the Revolution in seventeen eighty nine, and that revolution
sent a bunch of these career chefs for the noble
class looking for work in places like Imperial Russia.
Speaker 1 (12:54):
Right, but okay, the name of the dish, there are
a few candidates.
Speaker 2 (13:01):
A few specific Stroganoff family candidates, Yes, there are.
Speaker 1 (13:06):
One of the most popular theories is that the name
originated with Alexander Grigorovich Strokanov, who held the position of
Governor general over Novo Orsiya Novo Ritia in the eighteen.
Speaker 2 (13:19):
Hundreds what's now part of Ukraine.
Speaker 1 (13:22):
He spent most of his life living in Odessa, where
the story goes he adhered to the local tradition of
keeping what was called an open table, and this was
a custom wherein anyone dressed properly or with a certain
level of education could pop in unannounced for dinner.
Speaker 2 (13:39):
Yeah, the host of these things would expect to be
serving like forty to sixty people at a time. I
understand it was a little bit like an open salon.
Working artists and students and civil servants and travelers would
come get a nice meal out of it, and their
contribution was their stories or performance of poetry or whatever.
(14:00):
Odessa was and is a university town, and so you'd
have a lot of these types coming through.
Speaker 1 (14:06):
And Stroganoff was wealthy, so his cooks took care of
the meal. According to this story, one of them came
up with the idea to pull together some Russian and
French influences cut fried pieces of meat served with the
sauce instead of having the sauce served separately. Not only
was it really tasty, it was relatively easy to make
(14:29):
and portion out.
Speaker 2 (14:31):
Yeah, the sour cream and the sauce would have been
a way to like russianify what's otherwise just basically like
a French frickacy.
Speaker 1 (14:41):
And this timeline matches with the first known written mention
of Stroganoff meat or beef strogan Off in the eighteen
sixties and Elena molokovits Gift for Young Housewives. Yeah, this
was a recipe book. The recipe that she wrote calls
for cubes of beef seasoned with salt and allspice, pan
(15:03):
fried and butter. The sauce is a rude diluted with
beef broth and then seasoned with mustard and pepper, with
a sour cream added in at the end. Just mix
it up and serve. Also, I cannot tell you how
much to do there is about the cubes versus the strips. Oh, yes,
(15:23):
and these early recipes. We'll get into that a little
bit more later. Well, speaking of kind of, however, some
argue that the recipe is older than this, and that
there are similar recipes in eighteenth century French culinary works.
In this case, many credit Charles Briere, a chef working
(15:46):
in Saint Petersburg, for the name. After the death of
Stroganoff in eighteen ninety one, he sent the recipe to
Larte Colinaire, named in Stroganov's owner. This may or may
not have been part of a cooking competition. More on
that later as well. Yeah, others point to similar recipes
(16:06):
in Russia going back as far as the early eighteen
hundreds that may have served as stepping stones or beef
shroken off like this was not the first instance of
something like this, Oh dear well others Okay, Others think
that the name comes from Grigory Alexandrovich Stroganoff, who lived
(16:29):
from the late seventeen hundreds to the mid eighteen hundreds
and was known in part for enjoying food. The legend
goes that one of the Schroganov chefs invented his dish
for him when he got older and had troubled chewing
and swallowing meat.
Speaker 2 (16:44):
So this is like a thin sliced or possibly ground
beef version exactly.
Speaker 1 (16:50):
Still. Others, though, attributed it to the famed diplomat Pavel
Alexandrovitch Stroganoff, who operated in the late seventeen hundreds and
early eighteen hundreds. He was gonna celebrity oh yeah, at
the time. In this version, it was either Stroganoff or
his chef who came up with the dish, possibly while
encountering frozen meat in Siberia that could only be cut
(17:14):
into thin strips. Impossibly, also because Pavel had bad teeth,
or Lauren. Uh huh. The potential cooking competition mentioned earlier
happened under Pavel's Stroganof instead, and the chef named it
after him his employer. However, that timeline doesn't really work out. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (17:37):
Yeah, Pavel passed in eighteen seventeen, and whenever people talk
about this hypothetical culinary competition, they tie it to the
year eighteen ninety one, So like, it's not impossible for
a chef of his to have still been working then,
But I want to say improbable.
Speaker 1 (17:56):
I'm going to agree with you. Okay, in some cases,
I suspect some people mixed up their strogan Offs in
the telling of these stories. Yes, yes, which during this
research I understand, I thought I was losing my mind
trying to keep track. I also was like, wasn't he
(18:17):
long dead by the yes? But I also think people
really really wanted to attribute this to Pavel. They really
wanted the Stroganoff in question to be him. Who Yes,
he was somewhat of a celebrity. I'm not saying they're wrong,
because that would make sense in terms of name recognition.
(18:38):
It's just that, Yeah, a lot of the dates don't
match up. It doesn't really work.
Speaker 2 (18:44):
It doesn't really make sense.
Speaker 1 (18:45):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So all of that to say,
the general takeaway is that there were other similar French
and Russian dishes that served as inspiration, but the name
came from a French or French influence chef who made
it for their employer, a Stroganoff, and named it after them,
(19:08):
as was custom at the time.
Speaker 2 (19:10):
Probably probably this this is not based on anything that
I read. It's just a pet theory. But like, it
would not surprise me if the Stroganoff family had nothing
to do with the creation of this recipe and that
their name got attached to it because they were rich
and famous, you know, like their name meant luxury. To
(19:32):
this day, one of their palaces in Saint Petersburg this
like wild Baroque fever dream of a palace that's like
painted pink on the outside. It's part of the museum system.
Now it's still a tourist attraction, and apparently a lot
of the tourist driven restaurants in the immediate area serve
(19:53):
this dish. So I think, I don't know, I don't know.
It could be based on one or all of these knovs,
or none of them and just have gotten their name
attached to it because they were popular people.
Speaker 1 (20:08):
Definitely, definitely, we cannot get to the bottom of this
mystery of history today. No, no, I don't do another mossage.
Breakout the library books, whatever the case. Recipes started proliferating
in Russia in the eighteen seventies, in part due to
(20:30):
a resurgence in traditional Russian cuisine and the practice of
sending printed recipes all over the country. From what I read,
the early versions didn't include mushrooms of or paprika, and
we're pretty mustard for it.
Speaker 2 (20:45):
Yeah, I understand. The mushrooms didn't hit the recipe until
around the turn of the century. The first recipe to
feature them and tomato was The Practical Guide of the
Basics of Culinary Arts, which was published in nineteen twelve.
That was also when the potato straws came in. I
am so upset for the record that I've never had
a dish of stroken off with potato straws on top
(21:07):
of it. I'm like, why not layer your starches, why
not start on startron starch?
Speaker 1 (21:11):
That sounds so good. I have had that either, And
when I read it, I was like, obviously, what are
we doing now the name aside. Some sources claim that
beef stroganoff really started as a dish for poor folks
who are attempting to make me last. As they traveled
(21:32):
further into Europe, they took the dish with them. Another
source I found, though, claimed that a part of this
dish's popularity was that it was customizable and could be
made very expensively or very cheaply, and because of that
it was popular across class lines. Yeah, yeah, makes sense.
(21:52):
It makes sense to me. As Russians immigrated and people
traveled around the world in the early twentieth century, beef
stroganof became well known around the globe. It was particularly
popular in Shanghai, where it was often served over rice,
and this was in part due to political relations between
China and Russia.
Speaker 2 (22:10):
Yeah. Leading up to the Revolution, Russian investments in like
northeast China and particularly especially in the railways, led to
a bunch of Russian immigration there. So there was already
like a cultural base in Shanghai and surrounding areas. Yes,
and then many Russians fled after the nineteen seventeen Revolution
(22:31):
in Russia, and in some pockets this dish really really
took off One of those pockets was Brazil, where it
allegedly is so popular many Brazilians believe it originated there
are they just like to claim it it does. Yeah,
that's the Brazilian version, I believe, often has tomato in
(22:55):
it and is right usually served with those potato straws
or like shoestring fried potatoes. Yes.
Speaker 1 (23:01):
Yes, Japan is another pocket where I read it's made
with mushrooms, soy sauce and heavy cream served over rice.
But please, listeners write in oh.
Speaker 2 (23:11):
Yeah, whatever Stroganoff is to you, we want to hear
about it. Absolutely, absolutely we do.
Speaker 1 (23:18):
However, it did take time for Stroknof to catch on
in the US, possibly because immigrants arriving from Russia to
the US were not in the mood to make it,
since many were fleeing a not so great situation in Russia.
It wasn't until a second wave of Russian immigrants arrived,
some of them of the upper class, and those immigrants
(23:40):
started opening restaurants that the dish started to get a
foothold in the US. For example, the famous Russian Tea
Room opened in New York City in nineteen twenty six,
still open. The first English language recipe for the dish
was featured in a nineteen thirty two cooks book. A
(24:00):
recipe for it appeared in a Larus Gastronomique in nineteen
thirty eight, crediting the recipe to Charles Rier after he
sent it to Lart culinaiar And some people think that's
where all this confusion, some of this confusion comes in.
Speaker 2 (24:17):
Sure, sure, yeah.
Speaker 1 (24:19):
The popularity of the dish in the United States really
took off with Americans returning from World War Two with
a more adventurous palette. And this had a ripple effect
since not only did some of them go on to
work in the food industry and shaped it that way,
on a more personal level, they shared these dishes and
taste with those in their lives. This is also when
(24:43):
people were moving into the suburbs and dinner parties were
in fashion, and beef strogan off stroganof was a popular
offering because it was simple to make, not that expensive,
depending but was seen as something fancy, something you're which
at the time was something fancy in the US. And
(25:05):
again it was tasty, especially in comparison to the previous
years of rationing. For the war. It started appearing on
menus at nice restaurants. People started experimenting with it, adding
Worcester sauce, condensed mushroom soup or tomato paste, slash ketchup,
typically serving it over egg noodles or maybe mashed potatoes
(25:27):
or rice. Strips of beef were swapped for ground beef,
the sour cream was swapped for sweet cream. A lot
of experimentation. So as I was reading this, I was
just I was curious because it was happening during the
Red Scare and the Cold War with the USSR. I
could only find theories about why it was that this
(25:48):
dish seemed to be shielded from all of that, And
it sounds like part of it was the americanization of it.
Our people were more likely to associate it with France,
or maybe it didn't really matter to folks go and
it tasted good and maybe they just didn't think about it.
Speaker 2 (26:07):
Yeah, yeah, oh, I do think that there was like
a divide in thought in America about communist Russia versus
imperial Russia. And this is clearly an imperial dish and
part of that kind of old world European fanciness that
a lot of Americans were sort of aspiring to at
the time.
Speaker 1 (26:29):
Yeah, yeah, that makes sense. And another reason this dish
grew in popularity at the time is that this is
when a lot of innovations around convenience foods like boxed mixes,
seasoning packets, or microwaveable meals were happening, and Stroganoff got
wrapped into all of that. Oh yeah. I tried to
(26:52):
find specifics and I really couldn't. But by the sixties
and seventies, companies like Swanson were offering frozen beef strogan
Off meals and I actually found it an eBay listing
where you can buy the cardboard box. Oh wow, yeah,
okay cool. When Hamburger Helper launched at large across the
(27:13):
US in nineteen seventy one with five flavors, one of
them was potato stroken Off. Actually their list of flavors,
those five flavors gave me a little bit of piles.
They weren't quite what I was expecting, but I mean,
they're nothing quite wild, but I was just like, really,
it's again like when we talked about things like that,
(27:35):
it's interesting to think about what was going on at
the time and what were the taste at the time. Yeah, yeah,
I will say, you know, do this. We always get
our cravings. And I was trying to find like this
beef stroked off frozen meal, which I know I had had,
and I couldn't find it. What kept showing up Swedish meatballs?
(27:58):
Oh sure, And I went on a deep dive about
the difference between Swedish meatballs joking and this is the
risk of Yeah, podcaster, I am that's a nutmeg and
(28:19):
the Swedish.
Speaker 2 (28:21):
There you go, there you go.
Speaker 1 (28:24):
I haven't.
Speaker 2 (28:25):
Yeah, we we have not done an episode on Swedish meatballs.
Speaker 1 (28:28):
There you go.
Speaker 2 (28:28):
Stuff stuff to talk about in the future. Maybe we
should have a whole show that's just stuff to talk
about in the future, and it's just us talking about
things we would like to talk about. Yeah, today, this
isn't an episode about this, but gosh, doesn't it sound
like it would probably be cool.
Speaker 1 (28:46):
It's just as we used to have these wild ideas
where we would like, how weird can we go?
Speaker 2 (28:52):
It?
Speaker 1 (28:52):
Just us listing topics that.
Speaker 2 (28:55):
That we're not doing. Yeah, yeah, get real, get real,
get real bonkers, just go ganza with it.
Speaker 1 (29:02):
Yeah, yeah, well, it seems I did check. The Hamburger
Helper stroganof still exists. You can still buy that, and
you can still get the flavor packet to make it
your own, I guess, but I couldn't find any of
(29:24):
the frozen meals at my local grocery store, all Swedish meatball,
all just Swedish meatballs.
Speaker 2 (29:31):
Well well, apparently the people have spoken.
Speaker 1 (29:33):
I don't know, but I also checked the menu of
the Russian Tearing just because I was curious, and their
version of stroganoff sounds, based on this research, a bit
more americanized to me. Nothing that's bad at all, that's great,
(29:56):
but it's just interesting because there is a big back
and forth about, as always in these episodes, is this
drop or is it this? Is it all of these things?
But there seemed a bit more of what I my
American palette would think. It's beef stroke now, But I
don't know if anyone's ever been Oh yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (30:19):
And and rights, as we said, we would be so
curious to hear what strove enough means to you. Yes,
like the version my dad made was pretty pretty like
French leaning, like yeah, like onions and mushrooms sauteed down,
maybe dredged, some beef cubes and flour frying off in
(30:43):
butter and then finish out of sauce with some broth
and sour cream from there kind of thing. But sounds
so good. Yeah, yeah, I know the cravings, the cravings.
Speaker 1 (31:01):
The cravings are real. Well, yeah, please write in and
let us know, because I think that's what we have
to say about Struggnoff from now.
Speaker 2 (31:10):
I think it is. But we already do have some
listener mail for you, and we are going to get
into that as soon as we get back from one
more quick break for a word from our sponsors, and
we're back. Thank you sponsor, Yes, thank you, and we're
(31:31):
back with listener. Oh yeah, I loved the movie and
Anastasia when I was growing up.
Speaker 1 (31:45):
Oh yeah, oh yeah, it has that song. I sing
it all the time. Once por in December, I was
going to try to do that. I was like, I
can't put more on through whatever that choreography would be,
thank you, So to showcase the warmth and comfort of
(32:05):
the dish like Strokernoff, Yeah, Tracy wrote. Currently listening to
the White Tail Deer episode and I totally related to
Lauren's front yard deer fear. I lived in Missoula, Montana
for a few years and a whole herd used to
(32:27):
sleep under an oak tree in the front yard made
coming home from the bar a little scary sometimes. I
also wanted to recommend a great book. I recently listened
to The Only Good Indians. There is some quality deer
body horror and a lot of interesting perspectives on indigenous
food ways. I think you both would enjoy. I listened
(32:48):
to the audio book, which was so well performed, but
I also listened to it all the way through one
weekend when I was home alone and it scared. So
I had read this book, but I looked it up
and I know the author and I read the primis
Oh yes, yes, yah, so awesome.
Speaker 2 (33:09):
Yeah. Also, I also relate really hard to doing something
that you probably shouldn't, like listening to a really creepy
audiobook at home alone in like one weekend and scaring
yourself and just being like, well, here I am.
Speaker 1 (33:28):
It's almost like I could have predicted it. I'm scared now.
I like it though. That's fun too.
Speaker 2 (33:41):
Oh the deer fear, the deer fear.
Speaker 1 (33:43):
It's real. It is now there's a squirrel fear. As
Lauren was.
Speaker 2 (33:47):
Telling I, don't have a squirrel fear. You injected the
squirrel fear into the story.
Speaker 1 (33:53):
I'm projecting it into you.
Speaker 2 (33:55):
Yeah that I was telling Annie before we started that.
For like a solid twenty minutes earlier this afternoon, there
was a squirrel just sitting on my back porch, railing,
just screaming, just screaming for like twenty minutes. And I
really felt that squirrel.
Speaker 1 (34:13):
You know, so you connect with the squirrel.
Speaker 2 (34:18):
Yeah, yeah, it was a squirrel connection, not a squirrel fear.
Ohund okay, No, I mean if it jumped at my face,
I would be unhappy about that, but you know, well,
keep us posted.
Speaker 1 (34:31):
Yeah, oh goodness, and we appreciate the recommendation. Thanks.
Speaker 2 (34:38):
Oh yeah, yes, yes, thank you, thank you. Eric wrote,
I really wish I could have seen an automat when
they were around. The concept sounds really interesting. While large
vending machine options exist, something that is more of a
like recently cooked prepared option sounds like. Something that is
more of a recently cooked prepared option really sounds like
(34:58):
something to see. I could see a place for them
in a city with a fair amount of people around.
I don't know if it would work, but it seems
like it could if you find the right mix of food.
Christine hit the nail on the head about it. We
live on coffee and caffeine. The amount of coffee and
various energy drinks you see around it groups will make
your head spin. Yes, overdose of caffeine pun intended. I
(35:21):
had to see if California walnuts were the same as
English walnuts, and in general they are unless marked as
black and so forth. Walnuts are just a great all
around not for use in things. I actually used a
mix of toasted walnuts and toasted pepitas in a vegan
pesto I made tonight basil spinach parsley, a nutritional yeast
in place of the palm, lemon juice, olive oil, garlic,
(35:42):
and the toasted nuts had a different way of flavor
I really liked anyway. The walnut talk, of course, led
me down a walnut rabbit hole, which always leads to
interesting things. I don't know how you find time to
do episodes if you end up in those rabbit holes.
Different types of venison are always interesting. I haven't hunted
in over thirty years, but I have friends who still
hunt who provide deer meat. Whitetail is definitely the most common.
(36:06):
I have to grill it or prepare it when my
wife is not around, as she does not like the
gamey smell. It doesn't bother me as I like the
smell and taste. I really enjoy getting ground venison or
chunking up the meat and making venison chili. If you
make venison chili, I highly, highly highly recommend doing a
Cincinnati style chili, as I think the cocoa powder, nutmeg,
and cinnamon really add to the flavoring complexity without losing
(36:28):
the venison flavor. Something else to try is grilled venison tacos.
Do a light rub with some chili powder, granulated garlic,
granulated onion, and cumin. Grill and slice and add two
flower tortillas with some pickled ribbons of carrot and just
a little cootiha or a wahaka. Always always look forward
to what cravings and rabbit holes the ostensibly a food
(36:48):
show takes us down.
Speaker 1 (36:52):
There are many they are illusions. Oh they are they are.
Speaker 2 (36:57):
I was like, what was immigration from Russia to hy
of like in the late eighteen and early nineteen hundreds.
Let's look into that. Here we are.
Speaker 1 (37:07):
I was like, oh wow, people can make so much
money selling these old frozen food box The rabbit holes
are a plenty, yeah, is what I'm saying. They are.
Often they're they're fun, but they can be a time suck.
Yeah yeah, sometimes are on a deadline. Yeah, yes, exactly. Oh.
Speaker 2 (37:30):
Thanks is always for the for the recipes and recommendations.
All that sounds delicious.
Speaker 1 (37:37):
It does. I The cravings are real right now for
so many different things. I do want to shout out
over on stuff. One ever told you the other podcast
I do Friend of the Show when co host over
there is Samantha. She recently did an episode on soup
oh and just gender ideas around soup, of course, but
(38:04):
in it she came out hard against Cincinnati style chili.
I'm under the bus, right really she did, And I
was like, you realize you're you're you're the stars. But
I think, to me, that sounds that sounds delicious.
Speaker 2 (38:27):
Oh yeah, my I wouldn't call the chili that I
that I make Cincinnati style, but for sure, coca powder
and cinnamon are two of my like secret ingredients. That's
secret and like heavy scare quotes because I'm saying it
into a microphone that's going out in an international podcast.
Speaker 1 (38:49):
But now you're in on it. There you go. There
you go.
Speaker 2 (38:54):
It's just our secret. You know, coca powder and cinnamon
are terrific in chili.
Speaker 1 (39:01):
I feel like chili, so.
Speaker 2 (39:06):
You can.
Speaker 1 (39:06):
It's some days you might want that, some days you
might want something completely different. I feel go a lot
different ways. Also, this is another conversation we got into,
which we'll have to say for another podcast, But we
were arguing about whether chili is a stew or not
is a stew. I think chili is in its own category,
(39:27):
but she thinks it's a stewp Oh, it's a stew.
Well I'm disagree, but that's all right. I think chili
should have its own like little branch.
Speaker 2 (39:46):
Yeah, yeah, it's a little taxonomical. Sure, yeah, you're like, no,
it's its own species. Sorry, it's neither stup nor stew. Yeah, no,
we can. We can argue about that later, for sure.
Speaker 1 (39:56):
And we shall great meantime, thank you to both of
these listeners so much for writing it. If you would
like to write to us, you can. Our email is
Hello at savorpod dot com. We're also on social media.
Speaker 2 (40:11):
You can find us on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram at
saverpod and we do hope to hear from you. Savor
is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from my
heart Radio, you can visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. Thanks as
always to our super producers Dylan Fagan and Andrew Howard.
Thanks to you for listening, and we hope that lots
more good things are coming your way.
Savor News
Hosts And Creators
Anney Reese
Lauren Vogelbaum
Popular Podcasts
Las Culturistas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang
Ding dong! Join your culture consultants, Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang, on an unforgettable journey into the beating heart of CULTURE. Alongside sizzling special guests, they GET INTO the hottest pop-culture moments of the day and the formative cultural experiences that turned them into Culturistas. Produced by the Big Money Players Network and iHeartRadio.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations.
Crime Junkie
If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people.