Taste for life. William Pokhlebkin

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30 March An eminent historian, scientist, writer, delicate connoisseur of culinary art, author of numerous books and scientific studies William Pokhlebkin died in the city of Podolsk, Moscow Region.





If you ask, what attitude story Pokhlebkina has to "Military Review"? My answer is the closest. He was a front-line chef (it was in those difficult conditions that his talent developed), and in his popular books historical themes were always closely intertwined with culinary themes. Evidence of this is in the words of the scientist himself:

“The absence of culinary culture is not only a gap in the general cultural development of a person. For citizens of our multinational country, the inability to navigate the culinary skills of the Russian people is an indicator of weak political culture, indifference, and indifference to national phenomena and processes that characterize the social life of our country. ”


The name that determined the fate

Born this extraordinary man 20 August 1923 year in Moscow. Parents said they called their son after William Shakespeare. And the surname Pokhlebkin was in fact a revolutionary pseudonym for his father, Vasily Mikhailov. The family has preserved the story of how William's great-grandfather, who served as a cook for the masters, was preparing noble stews. Hence his nickname. This strange combination of a high name and a peasant surname was reflected in the character of the boy. He grew up susceptible, vulnerable, many fantasized and enthusiastically watched what is happening in the kitchen.

If for someone the cooking process was an ordinary event, then for him it was magic, in which each action entailed new and new discoveries.

Taste for life. William Pokhlebkin


... When the war came, William was 18 years old. He went to the front, and because of his quick wit and great intelligence, he was taken to the scouts. However, in battles under the capital of Pokhlebikin, the contusilos did not return to the front line — he was sent to the regimental headquarters as a polyglot, speaking fluently in three (and by the end of his life in seven!) Languages. Around the same time, he began to actively engage in the soldiers' kitchen. Or rather, he invented real culinary masterpieces in the military field.
About this period of his life, he writes in the book "Secrets of good cuisine" (here he tells about himself in the second person):

"... Both parts received the same vegetables: potatoes, carrots, cabbage, a little dried parsley and onions, not to mention spices: pepper, lavrushka. But the chef from the next part" drove "of them only two dishes: today having concentrated cabbage for two or three days, he made cabbage soup, and tomorrow, on the contrary, by choosing potatoes from the warehouse that was not received in the past days, he prepared potato soup with carrots. Our cook made different soups and sometimes main dishes with the same products, who called the “vegetable disorder” - he apparently coined the name himself, for nowhere in it didn’t appear in cookbooks. In winter, this vegetable stew was especially desirable and desirable. In the summer, when a part was in the steppe, he sent an order to gather wild garlic and spelled, in the forest - berries, mushrooms, saran roots, nuts, near settlements - nettle and quinoa. No matter how often they collected these random additions to dinner, he put any small amount into a common pot. And the familiar dish acquired a new flavor and smell, was perceived as completely unfamiliar and ate with great appetite and therefore with greater benefit.
The first ever quinoa soup to our soldier-cook was brought in exactly in the army, and it was a truly wonderful, long-remembered dish. It has greatly shaken the idea of ​​a swan as the classic food of the hungry and disadvantaged created by literature in many.



There were other examples of the creative approach of a modest battalion cook to the usual soldiers' lunch. Once, already at the end of the war in the spring of 1944, maize (corn) flour arrived, which was sent by the allies. No one knew what to do with it. In some places they began to add it to wheat flour when baking bread, which caused it to become brittle, quickly become stale, and caused soldiers to complain. But in another way they could not use this essentially valuable food product. The soldiers grumbled at the cooks, the cooks scolded the commissaries, who, in turn, cursed the allies who fused us with maize, which the devil himself would not understand. Only our chef did not hurt. He immediately took the crescent rate instead of daily gram supplements, sent a reinforced outfit to the steppe, asking him to collect almost everything - quinoa, alfalfa, shepherd's bag, sorrel, wild garlic, and made delicious corn tortillas with greens, bright , yellow outside and hot-green inside. They were soft, fragrant, fresh, like spring itself, and better than any other means they reminded the soldiers of the house, of the imminent end of the war, of a peaceful life.
Two weeks later, the cook made hominy, almost the entire battalion met this national Moldovan dish for the first time. The soldiers regretted that the maize had been sent too little, and would have been willing to exchange wheat flour for it.
... The fighting mood of the soldiers was not least created by the cook, his skill, his talent ..., food not only literally, as physiological fuel, but also in a purely emotional sense influenced the growth of the spirit, helped to forge the victory, contributed significant contribution to the combat training of soldiers .... "

Compromise is not for him

When the outcome of the war was already clear, William Pokhlebkin sent a letter to the head of the Main Political Department of the Red Army, in which he noted that it would be good to send all capable people who no longer bring visible benefit to the front for training, so that they would gain knowledge and actively engage in restoring peace of life. In response, a study permit came.

Pokhlebkin’s entry into the Faculty of International Relations at Moscow State University was no surprise to anyone. He studied well, but because of the four on Marxism-Leninism, he did not receive a red diploma. After graduating from the university, Pokhlebkin took up science - received a candidate degree and even wrote a large study on the history of Croatia. Then he headed his brainchild for six years - the magazine "Scandinavian collection", which financed from his own pocket. Therefore, he lived as an ascetic - no frills.



William had another trait that irritated many of his contemporaries, he was crystally honest and critical of his worthless and lazy colleagues. I was not even afraid to criticize that colleagues from the Institute of History of the USSR Academy of Sciences spend their working days in smoking rooms and gossip, but there is no real work.

This performance was not forgiven to Pokhlebkin - they restricted access to the special security of the Lenin Library to the state archives. With "collective science," Vasily Vasilyevich said goodbye and moved on to "individual creativity."

There are still a few touches to the character of this hero - some loved him and considered him a genius, others perceived him as a city madman or a dissident. He was attentive to details, and if he came to the truth, stood his ground to the end. Compromise and Pokhlebkin stood at different poles.

It is because of this that in science he was completely "blocked oxygen", and for many years he was forced to survive. Experimentally, I found out that you can live and even work on tea and Borodino bread. So he wrote himself, but colleagues who visited him recalled that he was emaciated to exhaustion. However, cheese, sausage or butter rejected as a present, arguing that they are accustomed to live on their modest ration, and here they can “spoil” and want more oil, and this thought will disturb him.

It all started with tea



At the same time, hungry for him, the scientist writes his first work on cooking and it is about tea - the Pokhlebkinu theme is very familiar, because he was the owner of a large tea collection. In 1968, the book went to print.
Here are some quotes from it:

"Mixing tea with lemon in one dish is a purely Russian invention."

“It should be emphasized that the British strictly adhere to the rule of pouring tea into milk, and in no case the opposite. It is noticed that pouring milk into tea spoils the aroma and taste of the drink, and therefore such a mistake is considered as ignorance. ”


The book was so fresh, non-trivial, that it began to be discussed in the kitchens and even at meetings of dissenters, which could not but irritate. And soon there were negative reviews in the Soviet press. Critics did not understand why such a familiar drink as tea, which fits in three letters, you need to write such a large book?



But the scientist William Pokhlebkin found what he knew, knew how, and what he liked. He began to be invited to magazines as a columnist, he had Tasty Stories, and he tried almost all of his recipes himself.

“Cooking, and especially national cooking, is not a“ stomach problem ”, about which a supposedly“ enlightened ”person has nothing to wrestle with (let the cook take care of it!), But a heart problem, a problem of mind, the problem of restoring the“ national soul ” - he reasoned.

He was very fond of Russian cuisine and devoted a lot of lyrical lines to it. He also spoke about Russian soup with a thousand-year history, and about black bread and kvass.



Despite dozens of cookbooks, most often the name of William Pokhlebkin is associated with the monograph “The History of Vodka”. She came out in 1991 year. And its goal was to prove that vodka was born in Russia, and not in Poland (at the end of 70's, Poland declared its right to this brand). Relying on historical sources, the scientist once again proved to the world that vodka is exclusively our invention. The monograph by William Pokhlebkin “The History of Vodka” was awarded the Lange Ceretto Prize.

Revenge is a cold serving dish.

We have not told about the personal life of William Pokhlebkin. He was married twice. In the first marriage, his daughter Gudrun was born, and in the second - the son Augustus. Like most creative people, most of all in life, he Pokhlebkin loved his work, so the main love of his life was science.

He experienced the collapse of the USSR very hard: as a historian, he understood that nothing good would come of it. Therefore, he wrote letters, sharply and openly spoke in the media. He told friends that he was being watched and threatened because of his political position.
Who knows what caused his murder? Is this a motive or rumors that secret collections and millions are kept in a typical Khrushchev’s popular writer?

Found William Pokhlebkin at the beginning of April 2000, in his apartment. Investigators have counted on the body of the scientist 11 injuries allegedly inflicted by a long thin screwdriver. Moreover, there were no signs of hacking or robbery in the house. The killer was never found.

They buried this unusual scientist and culinary specialist at the Golovinsky cemetery.



“One of my credo - life, socio-political, culinary - is that you can not ignore the historical past, both on a universal human scale and nationally. Otherwise, history will inevitably revenge itself — all those who have forgotten that the world existed long before they were born, ”wrote William Pokhlebkin.
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32 comments
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  1. +14
    17 March 2017 06: 43
    Tatars and Russia. 360 years of relations between Russia and the Tatar states in the XIII — XVI centuries., 1238-1598. (From the battle on the Sit river to the conquest of Siberia), 1985 ... An excellent book, and like all the other works .. It’s a pity the life of a remarkable man and scientist was tragically cut short ...
    1. +2
      17 March 2017 18: 57
      Very interesting book, "The Great Alias" ....
      1. 0
        17 March 2017 19: 01
        I agree, I read ... An interesting person .. I'm talking about the author ..
        1. +1
          17 March 2017 19: 50
          Very, very interesting! And how many more would write! Unfortunately, "we all walk under God" ....
          1. 0
            17 March 2017 20: 21
            Yes here ... not under God .. in his situation ... Worse ...
            1. +4
              17 March 2017 22: 26
              William Pokhlebkin! As I loved in childhood, flipping through his "Book about tasty and healthy food."
              What pictures were there. So many years have passed, but I remember.
              As an adult, he was surprised to learn that the term "vodka" was officially assigned to Russia thanks only to his research.
              And today, with no less surprise, I learned that William Vasilievich is a front-line soldier.
              Eternal memory to him!
  2. +6
    17 March 2017 06: 52
    I understood that the path to the heart lies through the stomach. By the way, The Great Alias ​​is also his work. It is believed that, for her, and "suffered" ...
  3. +8
    17 March 2017 08: 13
    . Both parts received the same vegetables: potatoes, carrots, cabbage, a little dried parsley and onions, not to mention spices: pepper, lavrushka.
    Those who served in Amiya probably remember what dry potatoes are. Reading this article recalled how in the spring we also collected wild leek and wild onions for addition to the boiler. Fortunately, our division stood in the taiga and there were many wild plants .. Thanks to the author for the article about V. Pokhlebkik. I got acquainted with his work by reading the book "The History of Vodka".
    1. +6
      17 March 2017 08: 36
      Read about tea. It's worth it.
    2. +2
      17 March 2017 10: 23
      The History of Vodka is perhaps not his most powerful book. Better Rodionov V.P. History of Russian strong drink. But this is my opinion.
      1. +2
        17 March 2017 11: 27
        Quote: Curious
        The History of Vodka is perhaps not his most powerful book. Better Rodionov V.P. History of Russian strong drink. But this is my opinion.

        Okay, look, thanks. I’ll add another Kurukin. I.V. "The daily life of a Russian tavern from Ivan the Terrible to Boris Yeltsin."
  4. +7
    17 March 2017 08: 36
    Pokhlebkin's books are a storehouse for the amateur to cook. The main thing is that he told how to UNDERSTAND the dish, how this or that element will affect the taste palette.
    I love to cook, so his books are very valuable. It is a pity that they are not easy to find and they cost a lot, as they are published in chic gift versions.
    1. +9
      17 March 2017 08: 48
      Quote: Lord_Bran
      I love to cook, so his books are very valuable. It is a pity that they are not easy to find and they cost a lot, as they are published in chic gift versions.

      Get a link to 23 books by this author, legal and affordable.
      https://www.litmir.co/a/?id=1505
      1. +10
        17 March 2017 09: 33
        Finally, an article appeared about William Pokhlebkin. Why finally? We somehow discussed with Nikolai and others. Remarkable was a man. Patriot. Encyclopedist.
        It turned out --- he was starving. For the sake of money, he changed and moved to Podolsk. This is because in the present time Moscow absorbed Podolsk. And at the time when he moved there, it was a small city and it was necessary to take him on the bus for a long time .... I read about William Pokhlebkin. a book when I was in the hospital for a long time. It was there that I loved and collected books and no matter how hard it was — I didn’t sell it, I didn’t part with them.
        There are a lot of stories about him in YouTube.
        1. +6
          17 March 2017 09: 48
          amazing was a man truly "in love with cooking."
          1. +11
            17 March 2017 10: 09
            A wonderful person was ----- loving his homeland ----- USSR !!!!!
            1. +9
              17 March 2017 10: 50
              and your people. And our roots.
    2. +7
      17 March 2017 10: 10
      Oddly enough, but from his books on cooking, you can draw certain historical conclusions.
      For example: one of the most ancient Armenian nations. By the way, the so-called most typical “Jewish image” is just the Armenian one. And actually the "Jewish cuisine" is completely secondary, borrowed completely from the "German" cuisine.
      No wonder, after all, the “Jew” is only a migrant. Europe is a country (from the side) of immigrants, that is, Jews (Europeans). And the Jew is not just “praising God,” as the founder of the modern historical version Morozov wrote, but in Russian is ideological. Only.
  5. +4
    17 March 2017 08: 36
    I read ... Respect !!!
    And from me the cook is useless ... request My signature dish is the Eastern Front feel all that is edible (to a reasonable extent) is thrown into the pan and cooked \ stewed ... tongue
    In general, I wilderly quote pearl barley! Well, and 100 grams with a salty cucumber! Yes
    1. +5
      17 March 2017 08: 41
      Quote: Maximillian von Adelheid
      Well, and 100 grams with a salty cucumber!

      ... well, you can don’t have a bite, why translate "good" ...
    2. +6
      17 March 2017 10: 55
      In general, I wilderly quote pearl barley! Well, and 100 grams with a salty cucumber! yes

      respectable, esteemed, well, answer me! laughing Well, what the hell to say that in the morning ?? !! It’s full of affairs, and now I’ll be thinking about your dish all day! winked Or at least about buckwheat or dumplings! And about the desired hundred grams with pickles! fellow Sadist you, my friend .. good drinks
      1. +3
        17 March 2017 12: 57
        Accept my apologies!!! smile For I have a day off today or tomorrow ... feel
        1. +4
          17 March 2017 13: 09
          in this case, you - sincerely excusable! drinks but your advice a little bit in the evening - I use it today with true pleasure! good by a little!
  6. +5
    17 March 2017 08: 50
    Spelled one of the names of wild garlic, and in very some places in Siberia, a few villages in the Krasnoyarsk Territory, the Kemerovo region of Novosibirsk and Tomsk regions call wild garlic. Well, as if wild garlic grows in marshy areas of Siberia, in the wild garlic steppe - spelled does not grow, in the European part of Russia it does not.
    1. +6
      17 March 2017 11: 11
      Spelled and wild garlic are two different things.
      Spelled is a special kind of wheat
      The ramson has several names: wild onions, chanzels, levurda, spelled, Jewish onions, victorious onions, viper and forest garlic. Wild garlic is listed in the Red Book of several regions of Russia. The wild garlic has a mixed taste of garlic and onion, but less spicy.
      She has one more name "Flask".
      1. +5
        17 March 2017 14: 09
        In Belarus, wild leek, wild leek, is also found and is listed in the Red Book.
  7. +9
    17 March 2017 11: 34
    A wonderful person, a typical representative of Russian silverless. His books must be studied, including for the development of their own culture. Cooking is a language that everyone understands. Now, in general, the trend in the Moscow restaurant world is old Russian dishes using once ordinary, and now rare products.

    His culinary books are also ideal for study by the Caucasian peoples - he has become much more about the national cuisine of the Caucasian peoples than these peoples themselves. In addition, he investigated the genesis of national dishes, while studying it turned out that the national dish of one people is a long-standing borrowing from another. He writes a lot about the Armenian cuisine, which was already mentioned here.
  8. +4
    17 March 2017 15: 15
    real wild garlic is a thing! who knows will understand. and as for vodka, it’s such a versatile drink that you can bite it with anything, even a cake)
    1. +1
      17 March 2017 23: 26
      for sure - a thing!
      my mother-in-law makes small fried pies with wild garlic!
      yummy !!! you won’t drag by ears !!!
  9. 0
    18 March 2017 20: 04
    Unique person. Only his dissertation was not about Croatia, but about Finland. He wrote a lot in the journal "Science and Life", and paid great attention to the technology of cooking. And a lot depends on the cook in the army, when my son served there, they had a kid from the "culinary college" in the kitchen, so his dishes were no different from home ones.
  10. 0
    21 March 2017 15: 17
    Cook Pokhlebkin - a pun comes out.
  11. +6
    19 July 2017 21: 41
    Cool uncle. Somewhere in the parents remained his book about Russian cuisine. good drinks

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