Where for the first time began to prepare a vinaigrette. The origin of the word "vinaigrette"

Vinaigrette was the first Russian salad, there were no salads in traditional Russian cuisine before.

How did the word "vinaigrette" appear?

But the origin of the word "vinaigrette" is not Russian at all, but French - "vinaigrette", where "vin" is wine, and "aigre" is sour, together "vinaigre" is vinegar sauce, which is not at all like a modern salad. In general, the original French word meant the preparation of different sauces based on vinegar and vegetable oil. In French restaurants, you can meet such a salad, only under the name "salad russe", that the French have a meaning of confusion, hash. Here is such a change of concepts, and even more interesting is that the vinaigrette itself, the origin of the word and the composition - everything came from Scandinavia.

The Legend of the Vinaigrette

And in Russia, mention of vinaigrette appeared in the XIX century. As the legend says, during the reign of Alexander the First in the kitchen, the king worked French chef Antoine Karem. Seeing how the Russian cooks make a strange salad, just mixing all the ingredients and then pouring all the vinegar, he asked in surprise "Vinaigre?" (In French "vinegar"), and they answered: "Vinaigrette! The vinaigrette!". So in the royal menu there was a new dish, and then it passed into the people and became a snack, without which there was not a single feast. The recipe for salad has since been greatly simplified, but there are still cooking secrets. For example, if you want all the ingredients to have their own natural color, then the beets need to be mixed in the oil separately, and if you want all the ingredients to turn pink from the beet juice, you need to mix everything together.

The recipe for the most popular Russian salad

Vinaigrette is probably the most popular salad in Russia and the USSR, and it was considered to be a truly Russian dish. Probably, people simply did not know that the vinaigrette - the origin of the salad and the way of cooking - were once borrowed in other countries. In the Soviet Union, this salad was a New Year's dish, along with olivier, but the recipes for cooking were very different.

The most famous recipe for this snack is boiled potatoes, beets, carrots, sliced onions and pickles, all in equal quantities. Previously, the same composition, only without beet, was used for okroshki. Also some housewives add sauerkraut, soaked herring in milk, green canned peas to the salad. William Pokhlebkin, a well-known culinary publicist, also could not know what vinaigrette is, the origin of the word, and from where the salad comes from. So, he said that in a native Russian salad there should be a boiled egg. It should be noted that this salad is a perishable dish, due to pickled cucumbers and a dressing of oil and vinegar. The use of it already after a day can cause indigestion.

Vinaigrette or Salmagundi?

It is interesting that in the English cookbook of 1845, a salad similar to a vinaigrette called "Swedish herring salad" was also found. In addition to all the ingredients of Russian vinaigrette, a grated apple was added there. The most interesting is that if we came from Scandinavia itself vinaigrette, the origin of the word went from the French name, then to England the same salad, it turns out, came from Sweden.

And in France, for example, similar to our salad appeared in the 17th century. And not anyone started to cook it, but pirates and hunters. Used any meat (tortoise, duck or pigeon), then marinated it in vinegar or wine, added spices, could also add fish, then everything turned into a hodgepodge, greens and vegetables added, called Salmagundi salad.

Thus, the vinaigrette itself, the origin of the word and the fact that it is seasoned with vinegar, originates in France and Scandinavia, but the salad can in fact be called world salad. It's all about the simplicity of the components and the availability of those in almost all European countries.