Traditional Cuisine of the Nekrasov Cossacks

Abstract

The article is a comparative historical cross-cultural study of the traditional cuisine of the Nekrasov Cossacks – a group of Russian Old Believers known for their rich migration experience. Since the basis of the food system is fish, Nekrasovite’s cuisine has many fish dishes, and at the same time the high status of cereal dishes remains. In the recipe and methods of preparation, the preservation of old Russian traditions is noticeable. In supplements to the main ration, one can see the influence of South European and Turkic cultures.
 The purpose of this study is to identify the marking qualities of culinary traditions in the field of the historical dynamics of the cultural identity of the Nekrasov community.
 The study shows that in the field of culinary traditions, numerous evidences of the historical path of this unique ethnosocial group have been accumulated. Despite the relative preservation of the ritual sphere, in the everyday and festive cooking of the Nekrasov Cossacks, multiple borrowings from the Danube and Mediterranean cuisine associated with complex processes of discrete inculturation have been revealed. New borrowings in the central zone of culture are explained by the fact that, with multiple migrations, it becomes more and more difficult for migrants to differentiate “their own” and “foreign” in such minute details as required by tradition, since in addition to the main cultural and genetic metropolis, a certain set of places of origin is formed in their minds.