What did Soviet people eat in a day?

Breakfast:

A Soviet family having breakfast

Alexander Grashchenkov/Sputnik

Hardly anyone in the USSR skipped breakfast. You had to fuel up before work!

Breakfasts were quite standard and the main thing was that it shouldn't take long to cook/prepare:

• oatmeal or semolina porridge
• fried or boiled eggs
• sausage sandwich
• black tea

If you wanted something sweet, the most affordable thing was sliced bread with home-made jam.

A still from 'The Girls' movie

Yury Chulyukin/Mosfilm, 1961

The famous 'syrniki' (fried cottage cheese) or bliny (crepes) were made more often on weekends, when there was more time to maneuver in the morning.

Lunch:

Yury Gagarin having lunch in the canteen of the Cosmonaut Training Center

Andrei Pavlov/Sputnik

Usually, most people had lunch in canteens at work, school or institute. The standard lunch had the following three-course meal:

• soup (it was called ‘pervoye’, literally ‘the first’ aka the ‘starter’)
• macaroni and sausage, mashed potatoes with a cutlet or rice and fish (it was called ‘vtoroye’, which mean ‘seconds’ and was the main dish for lunch, with the most protein)
• salad (considered a side dish, usually vegetable salad or more nutritious salad with mayonnaise)
• a drink from fruits or berries: ‘mors’ or compote.

The standard three-course meal for lunch

Vladislav Shidlovsky/Sputnik

‘Poldnik’:

While the Brits drank their 5 o’clock tea, the Soviet people had ‘poldnik’. Which actually translates as a ‘half-day’ snack.

'Poldnik' in a kindergarten

Vladimir Akimov/Sputnik

‘Poldnik’ was especially important for kids to get all their daily calories. So what was on the menu? 

• kefir (fermented milk drink)
• biscuits, cookies or waffles
• apples or other seasonal fruits 

Adults, meanwhile, drank tea or coffee with cookies.

Dinner:

Waiting for dinner

Vladislav Cheishvili/Sputnik

In the evening, almost everyone ate at home. There were few restaurants and they were expensive. That's why housewives would always hurry home from work to prepare dinner. However, they cooked more often in advance, so that a family could eat each dish for several days. 

Soup for lunch or for dinner

V.Kuzmin/Sputnik

Therefore, lunch and dinner could easily coincide in terms of variation of dishes. What was typically served?

• soup
• ‘second course’, the same as at lunchtime
• something for a quick meal: macaroni with canned fish or meat, ‘pelmeni’ dumplings or just the canned fish with bread.

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