New Year's holidays without New Year's Eve hassle, tangerine, the film "Irony of Fate or Enjoy Your Bath", confetti, fireworks and the legendary salad "Herring under a fur coat" at the head of the table.
The "Herring under a fur coat" salad gained its popularity in the 60-70s of the last century, but its roots go much deeper, namely to the beginning of the 20th century. By the way, few people know that "fur coat" is an abbreviation, according to a folk legend.
And the legend says that in 1918 there lived a merchant named Anastas Bogomilov. He lived and did not grieve, owned a network of taverns in Moscow and Tver, took care of his property and tried to save it with all his might, because outside the window, and in the country as a whole, it was restless - the proletariat fought with the peasantry ... Often within the walls of its entertainment establishments you could meet visitors who got drunk and staged political disputes, which usually escalated into fights. Subsequently, these fights suffered the property of taverns. Once, one of the cooks, a certain Aristarkh Prokoptsev, suggested to Mr. Bogomilov a harmless option on how to protect dishes, furniture, windows from drunken and ferocious guests. In fact, Prokoptsev came up with a way to avoid a civil war, at least in the establishments of his owner.
His idea was to feed the patrons well and prevent them from getting drunk quickly. In turn, the chef invented a new dish, the idea of which was to take a herring, symbolizing the proletarians, add potatoes (symbolizing the peasants), blood-red beets (the color of blood and the Bolshevik banner) and smear all this with French Provence sauce (or something like a sign of respect for the creators of the Great French bourgeois revolution, or, on the contrary, as a reminder of the external enemy of the Bolsheviks, which included France).
In Anastas Bogomilov's tavern this dish was presented on New Year's Eve 1919. All the guests were delighted and asked for more. The name of the dish was to match the current political situation and the events that took place the day before, namely: Chauvinism and Decadence - Boycott and Anathema, and in short - S.U.B.A.
It is difficult to judge how plausible this legend is, but the fact that "Herring under a fur coat" has taken root and has become an integral attribute of every New Year's table is a fact!
In our time, despite the presence of a classic recipe, everyone prepares this salad in their own way. There is even a vegetarian version of "Herring under a fur coat" and is called "Sea under a fur coat." Herring is replaced with seaweed or seaweed, and according to avid vegetarians, the real fishy taste of these seaweed perfectly complements the taste of the fish itself.
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