What's Cooking in the Kremlin: From Rasputin to Putin, How Russia Built an Empire with a Knife and Fork

8vo, br. ed. 384pp. ìEntertaining . . . A heady mix of propaganda and paranoia . . . [Szablowski writes] sensitively . . . not just about food but also its terrible absence.î óThe New York Times Book Review ìRivetingóa delicious odyssey full of history, humor, and jaw-dropping stories. If you want to understand the making of modern Russia, read this book.î óDaniel Stone, bestselling author of The Food Explorer A high-spirited, eye-opening, appetite-whetting culinary travel adventure that tells the story of the last hundred years of Russian power through food, by an award-winning Polish journalist whoís been praised by both Timothy Snyder and Bill Buford In the gonzo spirit of Anthony Bourdain and Hunter S. Thompson, Witold Szablowski has tracked downóand broken bread withópeople whose stories of working in Kremlin kitchens impart a surprising flavor to our understanding of one of the worldís superpowers. In revealing what Tsar Nicholas IIís and Leninís favorite meals were, why Stalinís cook taught Gorbachevís cook to sing to his dough, how Stalin had a food tester while he was starving the Ukrainians during the Great Famine, what the recipe was for the first soup flown into outer space, why Brezhnev hated caviar, what was served to the Soviet Unionís leaders at the very moment they decided the USSR should cease to exist, and whether Putinís grandfather really did cook for Lenin and Stalin, Szablowski has written a fascinating oral historyócomplete with recipes and photosóof Russiaís evolution from culinary indifference to decadence, famine to feasts, and of the Kremlinís Olympics-style preoccupation with food as an expression of the countryís global standing. Traveling across Stalinís Georgia, the war fronts of Afghanistan, the nuclear wastelands of Chornobyl, and even to a besieged steelworks plant in Mariupolóoften with one-of-a-kind access to locales forbidden to foreign eyes, and with a rousing sense of adventure and an inimitable ability to get people to spill the teaóhe shows that a century after the revolution, Russia still uses food as an instrument of war and feeds its people on propaganda.