The Siberian Gourmet

Patte Barham’s “Peasant to Palace”(Romar Books) will make you want to sing “ Ochi Chernye ,” kick up your legs in a kazatska and cook blinis , kasha , stuffed cabbage and borscht dolloped with sour cream.

It’s not that the recipes are wonderfully different or even particularly exciting. It’s the stories behind the recipes. They come from the controversial daughter of the controversial Grigori Efimovich Rasputin, the Siberian visionary and healer who rose from humble farmer to adviser to the czar until his assassination during the Russian Revolution.

After escaping from Russia, Maria Rasputin, who had once played with the czar’s daughters and eaten butterscotch balls from the hand of the czarina, launched a career as cabaret dancer in Germany and France. She found work as a lion tamer with an English circus, where she was billed as “The Daughter of the Mad Monk, Rasputin,” and worked in an American defense plant during World War II. She continued her life as a recluse in San Diego until her death in 1978.

In the meantime, she had met Patte Barham, the daughter of Los Angeles Herald publisher Frank F. Barham (and the first woman assigned to cover the Korean War). Barham helped Maria Rasputin organize her exhaustive diaries and memories of her father into the book “The Man Behind the Myth,” published in 1977.

“When I met Maria, she was my challenge,” Barham writes. “Historians and journalists have made Rasputin an enigma, a paradox of himself, a complex, self-contradictory being both clouded and overblown by legend. . . . Maria too is charged with sustaining the confusion.”

Maria also had a number of recipes, saved over the years on bits of paper, scratch pads and backs of recipe books. Barham assembled “Peasant to Palace” from them and from Maria’s memories to provide “an insight on the pre-Revolutionary period in Russian history and culture.”

The description of palace dining is particularly vivid: “Maria, Varya (her sister) and their father were usually met by the Tsarina and her daughters in a reception area and invited into the huge formal dining room. The room was illuminated by elaborate overhead crystal chandeliers and dominated by a large rectangular table surrounded by ten chairs.

“Behind each chair stood an imposing-looking footman--imposing, at least, to two youngsters from Pokrovskoye--in a blue-and-gold uniform, wearing white gloves. Fresh flowers were almost always in evidence: Rose petals were scattered on the tabletop; a garland of flowers wreathed each plate, and a simple yet elegant arrangement from the palace garden or greenhouse provided a dramatic centerpiece.”

If his daughters were not used to such royal surroundings, neither, at first, was Rasputin himself. “Like many Russian commoners,” Barham writes, “Rasputin had never learned to use a knife and fork. At the royal table, he could negotiate the zakuski table with its stock of finger foods, and the soup course was no problem. But when he was served the fish course, his only variation from his vegetarian fare, he didn’t know which piece of silverware to use. He busied himself with talking and telling nebulous futures for the guests. Consequently, the servants would remove his plate untouched, and he naturally left alone the meat courses and desserts. He literally went hungry at the fine banquets with the Royal Family.

“Upon returning home, Maria would ask her father how the dinner was, and he unhappily replied with a heavy and hungry heart, ‘I’m starving. Give me something to eat!’ ”

With a few exceptions, the recipes in the book are familiar Russian fare: borscht , Eggplant Caviar, chicken or veal smetane (with sour cream), chicken Pozharski (cutlets), blini , pirogi and kulebiaka (salmon-filled pastry).

You’ll learn that Rasputin credited his incredible sexual prowess--called vozmuzalost in Russian--to codfish soup. “We do know that according to all sources, including his own family, Rasputin’s charisma was unchallenged. Ladies from all walks of life fell in love with him and pursued him unashamedly from parlor to palace. . . . As Rasputin gained fame, word of his ‘secret for virility’ spread.”

A few recipe surprises might make a cook looking for something new and different take notice, such as a recipe for roast chicken stuffed with walnuts, said to have been popular at royal banquets, and a roast pork with a souffle-like stuffing surrounding the roast. Flank steak stuffed with artichoke hearts, rosemary and thyme also sounds good, as does a recipe for goose stuffed with sauerkraut. There is a flaming duck using Grand Marnier and crushed sarsaparilla, which also is intriguing.

If fish is a favorite food, there are several recipes to tempt a whirl over a hot stove. Baked sturgeon is simple enough, cooked first in water and then buttered and seasoned generously before baking, and there are fish cutlets served with cucumber sauce, carp cooked in wine, salmon in sour cream, and the freshwater fish, bream (related to bass), served with buckwheat kasha, Rasputin’s daily staple.

It’s hard to imagine a Russian cookbook without the one food Russians do so well--bread. In “Peasant to Palace” you have the usual roster: flat bread (like pita bread), the crisp Armenian cracker known as lavash, rye bread and Russian biscuits, which are crisp and somewhat thinner than usual biscuits. Among the more interesting are poppy seed rolls, saffron buns and almond rolls which are usually eaten with coffee, tea or cocoa.

In the dessert department, there are deep-fried dough “twigs” ( khvorost ), honey-gingerbread cookies, cheese and rice fritters, puddings, creams and butterscotch balls (the last food Maria ever ate at the royal table), the Easter cheesecake pashka , poppy-seed cake and sweet cutlets known as tvorozhniki.

The recipes, as do the stories behind the recipes, become a legacy handed down by a good friend.

This is a toned-down version of the soup that Rasputin always said gave him his health, vigor . . . and virility. It was, according to his daughter, his favorite dish. “Restaurants in Petrograd and Moscow,” Barham writes, “would prepare the concoction whenever they expected Rasputin to dine.” Paprika and minced ginger usually went into his recipe.

RASPUTIN’S CODFISH SOUP 2 small whole codfish or 1 to 1 1/2 pounds codfish fillets 1 cup milk 1 cup heavy whipping cream Salt, pepper

Clean codfish. Remove head and cut fish into fillets. Remove fish bones. Cut fillets into 2-inch pieces and place in saucepan. Add milk and whipping cream. Place over medium heat and bring to scalding temperature. Do not boil.

Reduce heat and continue simmering until fish is done. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Ladle into soup bowls and serve hot. Makes about 1 quart, or 4 servings.

“Faux caviars, such as eggplant and mushroom caviars, are usually used as the base for the popular faux variations,” Barham writes. “Russians call them caviar, and more than a few people prefer them to the true roe.”

EGGPLANT CAVIAR 1 medium eggplant Salt 3 tablespoons olive oil 3 onions, minced 1 tomato, minced 2 teaspoons lemon juice Pepper

Bake eggplant at 375 degrees about 30 minutes or until tender. Peel and chop. Sprinkle chopped eggplant with salt to taste and let stand 1 to 2 hours.

Heat 2 tablespoons olive oil in large skillet. Add eggplant, onion and tomato and cook over low heat until eggplant is tender. Add remaining 1 tablespoon oil, lemon juice and salt and pepper to taste. Continue to cook over low heat, few minutes to blend flavors.

Chill well before serving as appetizer or dip for crackers or vegetables. Makes 3 1/2 cups or 8 appetizer servings.

Beef Stroganov was Maria’s favorite dish in exile, according to Barham.

BEEF STROGANOV 2 tablespoons flour Salt, pepper 2 pounds top sirloin, cut into thin strips 1-inch wide Butter 1 medium onion, chopped 1/4 pound small button mushrooms 1 (8-ounce) can tomato sauce 1 bay leaf 1 cup sour cream

Combine flour and salt and pepper to taste. Add beef strips and toss to coat evenly. Melt 2 tablespoons butter in large skillet over medium heat. Add onion and cook until just beginning to become tender. Add mushrooms and cook briefly. Remove from pan. Add additional 2 to 3 tablespoons butter as necessary to saute meat. Add floured beef and cook until lightly browned.

Combine beef and onion-mushroom mixture in casserole. Stir in tomato sauce and tuck in bay leaf. Cover and bake at 350 degrees about 1 hour, or until meat is tender. Just before serving, stir in sour cream. Makes 6 servings.