Is that sour cream in the soup on the top right… or mashed potatoe?
And American factory workers were eating ham sandwiches or McDonald’s lmao
I can assure you they still do.
That’s if they even get a lunch.
It’s a pretty stark difference. One of the first social projects the Soviets embarked upon, to the point that they were doing it while they were still busy fighting the Civil War/Revolution, was establishing communal canteens for working people. The image of a great granddad in a canteen with his coworkers is burned into the psyche of every post-Soviet country, as surely as the image of American great granddads all sitting on a precariously high steel beam eating their box lunches is to Americans. A culture where food was provided versus one where food had to be brought.
Not just that, but think of the division of labour
A Soviet canteen was being run by people who wanted to cook, and were being paid a living wage to provide food for their comrades. An American factory worker likely had a lunch prepared by their wife who already had to deal with all the rest of the domestic labour for free, worse if she was working because she’d have to do all the domestic work then actual work, or if not that they’re buying it from an underpaid cook in a restaurant who’s paid barely above poverty wages
borscht on the bottom left? fuck me that’s a great looking lunch, like the kind of thing you’d pay a lot of money for nowadays at a fancy overpriced restaurant
Looks like an above average cafeteria meal. Apparently it cost like 50cents in USSR money.
sure but look at the intentionality, you know? each element is arranged in a way that makes it look like the sound it made being served was something other than “plop” lol it looks good because it doesn’t look like it was treated like slop
Fr, if they’re pulling off half decent presentation then chances are the rest of the food is pretty good too. You don’t learn that weird stuff until you know basics
this is fake everyone knows the ussr has no food its all plastic and they took th photo to trick people into thinking they have food.
I remember once on r/oldschoolcool someone uploaded a picture of their dad in the 70s Soviet Union grilling (proving that
transcends nationality and political ideology) on a beach and all the comments were saying it was fake because gommunism no food, it was peak reddit.I dated a girl from a former Eastern Bloc country and she once showed me some pics of her grandpa camping somewhere in the Carpathian’s with her grandma and dad as a kid My sister was SHOCKED when she saw them cuz she didn’t realize people went CAMPING IN GOMMUNIST RUZZIA!
It’s wild how many people straight up think that people never had fun in the Eastern Bloc
The media does a good job at representing Soviet Russia as a gloomy place where the laws are stricter than Saudi Arabia or the UAE. Even those countries manage to have have fun doing the same mundane things westerners do.
I always like to point out that the first woman in space was chosen in part because she had experience parachuting (as the space capsule at that time required you to bail out and parachute down on your own). Where did she get experience parachuting? In an “Aero Club” in Yaroslavl, which she joined while employed as a textile worker.
In the USSR women were forced to parachute out of planes even if what they really wanted to do was work another shift in the textile plant.
People still think that about places like China. The irony is that the USA IS like that for many people who have to work 70+ hours just to live.
Go to
Gulagwork all the time!
The biggest mystery of Dyatlov Pass is how they got the required experience anyway.
Or their equipment. The equipment probably came from aliens.
Ah yes the North Korea meal plan, fake food to fool tourists from Vice.
It’s all Potemkin Canapes
Clearly made with care, not just gross slop. Reminds me of this report from the CIA that Soviet diet was more nutritious.
FULL TEXT:
American and Soviet citizens eat about the same amount of food each but the Soviet diet may be more nutritious.
According to a CIA report released today (8 Jan, 1983)) both nationalities may be eatng too much for good health.
The CIA drew no conclusions about the nutritional makeup of the Soviet and American diets but commonly accepted U.S. health views suggest the Soviet diet may be slightly better.
According to Central Intelligence Agency, an average Soviet citizen consumes 3 280 calorious a day, compared to 3 520 calories for the American.
The average daily calorie intake in teh Soviet Union is: grain products and potates 44%; sugar 13%; dairy and eggs 11%; fats and oils 17%; meat and fish 8%; and other products 7%.
The american consumes daily: grain and potatoes 26%,; sugar 17%; dairy and eggs 12%; fats and oils 18%; meat and fish 21%; and other products 6%.
Americans eat more fish and more sugar, more dairy products and eggs, and more fats and oils and less grain the average Soviet citizen, and consumes more calories.
Generally held nutrional standards suggest individuals need fewer calories, less meat, less sugar and more grain to stay fit.
Wait how did the USSR citizens eat more gain than the Americans? Did they all get big spoons?
Stalin regurgitated the partially digested grain straight into soviet citizens’ mouths to ensure they grew up big and strong. The sources saying that he consumed all that grain himself all just go back to Goebbels
Incredibly oppressive to people who don’t enjoy soup.
have they considered differently abled people who cannot easily hold a spoon? no. this is ableist. this is why reconstituted meat and preserved veg are the only things we should serve to children, tankie
Its interesting how some cultures have such different texture profiles for their food
- America: CRONNNNNCH
- Japan: Wow so smooth, so slimy
- India: Imagine not eating stew. Are you fucking insane?
I think in Eastern Europe if you say you don’t like soup they throw you off a cliff Spartan style as a form of euthanasia.
Looks good. I posted on here on my old account a dream I had about running a cafeteria like this in America. It’d be a coop, you could subscribe instead of paying per meal, it’d be half a grill with a predictable menu and half a cafeteria with a different menu every day, with a sandwich stand for subs and chips to go for those who couldn’t sit and stay a while. And it would be decorated wall to wall with Communist propaganda posters.
As a cook, this is my dream.
Sounds kinda like my college cafeteria aside from the posters and the pricing structure. It would be a cool idea.
A big part of why restaurants cost so much is because there’s a wide range of things that are cooked to order in single portions. If there were larger batches cooked, a more limited number of options at one time, less meat and other expensive ingredients, and it was largely self-serve, the cost could be cut by well over half. As a bonus, it would remove much of the choice anxiety in menus.
I can’t speak for all-you-can-eat buffets but the efficiency aspect is a large part of what makes college cafeterias viable, although those are basically the same thing.
Yeah that’s definitely how it saves money in my head. I also remember when I was young sometimes my mom would take me to the chow hall - capitalist military doing the same thing because it works.
Automats were pretty neat
$1 in 1958 dollars for a meal doesn’t really impress me. $0.20 would.
It would be so cool getting to feed my fellow workers tasty and nutritious food assembled with care every day.
And not being paid starvation wages to do it
Yim yum. Tasty treats. Would eat
Tasty treat
USSR confirmed Lib!
I saw a documentary show about a Russian prison a few years ago and they had real cream (for their coffee), not cremora, real plates and silverware, not styrofoam and “plasticware,” etc.
Looks like a dessert of some kind?
So like, custard? What’s it sitting in thought? Everything else I recognize.
It’s pudding with a whipped cream topping
IT SHOULD HAVE BEEN ME, IT SHOULD HAVE BEEN ME
Ohhhhhhh, what kind of pudding tho?
Probably some sort of berry or fruit pudding that were very popular (and some still are) also here in Nordics around that time. It’s a sort of jelly with cream on top, that’s what it looks like at least.
Really? That stuff on top looks exactly like chicken broth with oil droplets sitting in it.
It could very well be that too, not sure. But pudding would seem likely in context of the other meal parts, starter, main and a side salad.
Might be some local element related to that borsch: broth and sourcream?
Not every meal has a dessert, especially not lunch in the USSR in the 80s. That’s like, burgerland shit.
It’s also a bit large for a dessert for my taste.
Could also be aspic/jello
Looks like tapioca to me
Kinda looks like a floating island? It’s meringue floating in custard
Applesauce
god damn this looks gourmet
The rose on the top left. You can tell they liked their job
From when it was posted on MarxistCulture, this is apparently 0.6 rubles. Can be paid in cash or taken in credit and deducted from the end of month salary. 0.6 rubles in the official conversion at that time would be about 0.8 dollars, or ~2.5 in today’s dollars.
Fucking hell, we lost the cold war. All of us. The whole planet lost the cold war.
I want to make a joke but I’m so depressed about America
Dang it, I just ate but now I want soup.
Shchi? my dad used to make it when i was little and the broth and sour cream looks very similar, tho it lacks a lot of the other components he would throw in (meat, veggies, etc)
