Alissa Timoshkina is a London-based food writer and historian specialising in Eastern European food culture. Her new cookbook, Kapusta: Vegetable-Forward Recipes from Eastern Europe, will be published on 20 February and showcases the diverse culinary cultures and histories from Hungary and Ukraine to Volga Tatar and Udmurt communities.
We spoke with Alissa about the story behind Kapusta, what we can learn about Eastern Europe through food – as well as her favourite books, who she’d invite to a dinner party, and what she would cook!
Alissa will be joining us on 26 February in conversation with Marina Sapritsky-Nahum and Nadia Ragozhina, to explore the relationship between food culture, language, and Jewish heritage and identity from Odesa to Siberia and beyond.
What are your top five recommended books?
I’m offering a list of cookbook or food-themed books:
- Jerusalem by Yotam Ottolenghi and Sami Tamimi
- Summer Kitchens by Olia Hercules
- Black Sea by Caroline Eden
- Mastering the Art of Soviet Cooking by Anya von Bremzen
- How to Change your Mind by Michael Pollan
What is a book that inspired you as a young person?
Jane Eyre was the first novel I read in English when I came to study in the UK. It was a real achievement for me as a non-native speaker but also gave me a first glimpse into feminist literature which was a huge revelation.
What is a book that takes you back to a specific place or time?
Arch of Triumph by Erich Maria Remarque.
I was an MA student, hopelessly in love with a guy in my year, and reading this book was a very healing experience. There was one evening where I just couldn’t put it down and ended up staying awake all night with the book in my lap (and a pack of cigarettes on the table). There was something beautiful about my willingness to suffer from a broken heart so completely. I felt like one of Remarque’s characters. Whenever I see that beaten copy on my shelf, it takes me straight back to that night.
Which book are you looking forward to reading?
How to Share an Egg by Bonny Reichert.
What is your desert island book?
If there was ever a single book to contain all of the works by Vasili Grossman, I would take it!
What is a book or poem that cheers you up?
Perhaps “cheer up” isn’t the exact term here but Viktor Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning is a book that has given me so much hope in some of the darker times.
What is a book you wish you’d written?
Two Babushkas by Masha Gessen
If you were having a fantasy dinner party, who would you invite? And which dishes would you cook?
My great grandmother, Rosalia – there are so many questions I wish I could ask her, and she’s never tasted my food
Agnes Varda – she is an absolute feminist icon and one of my favourite filmmakers.
Audrey Hepburn – I am a huge fan of her films but mostly of her as a human being, from her role in the Resistance as a child to her humanitarian work later in life.
Claudia Roden – a groundbreaking food writer. The Book of Jewish Food is my source of inspiration.
Michael Pollan – he’s one of my favourite voices in food writing, and I would love to hear his thoughts on Eastern European cuisine.
Hatshepsut – the gender-shifting Egyptian queen. I’d love to ask her about her experience, and talk to her about current affairs.
I’d cook an Eastern European style feast, featuring dishes from my new book! There would be borsch with knishes, stuffed cabbage rolls, dumplings with mushrooms and sauerkraut, a spread of pickles and ferments, and a poppyseed babka for dessert.
What is the story behind Kapusta?
Kapusta came out of the profound pain of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, and my work as co-founder of the Cook for Ukraine fundraising campaign. Through CfU I’ve met so many wonderful people sharing Ukrainian and Eastern European recipes, who inspired me to delve deeper into the cuisine of the region and my own family heritage.
It has also shown me how little is still known about the cuisine of Eastern Europe in the West (very generally speaking), so I felt it was time to write a book that would introduce people to the region, by looking at the most humble and accessible ingredients, like cabbage and beetroot, which are full of powerful flavours and tell fascinating stories about Eastern European food culture and history.
How has your family heritage and history shaped your work?
I was born in Siberia into a family of a mixed Eastern European heritage. I have Ukrainian Ashkenazi lineage on my moms side, and Russian, Ukrainian and Belorussian on my dads side. But as I grew up in my mother’s family, it’s their story that has had the greatest influence on my life.
For the first 10 years of my life, we lived together with my great grandmother, Rosalia, who was a Holocaust survivor, and her stories have always fascinated me. Her cooking was there everyday and the earliest food memories I have are all connected to her dishes: borsch, varenyky dumplings with mashed potato and caramelised onions, poppy seed rolls, and chocolate rugelach.
My entire adult life I was finding creative ways to engage with and make sense of my family’s Jewish lineage, and the history of Ashkenazi Jews in general. Before I went into food, I worked in academia, gaining a PhD in the subject of the Holocaust and Soviet cultural history. Food became another means of delving into the topics of Eastern European & Ashkenazi history and culture, so my food writing very much focuses on the themes of women in my family, family histories and Jewish culinary culture.
Is there a recipe (or recipes) in the book which is particularly meaningful to you?
I am very moved to observe how food becomes a tangible string connecting the different generations in one family. Recipes, that have been passed down from one generation to the next, create an almost mystical space where the past and the future meet at the dinner table. One such recipe in the book is of a very humble Ashkenazi brei, essentially a matzah omelette, which my great grandma used to make for me. My daughter, who is called after her, loves brei. And knows how special it is for me!
The other dish is cabbage rolls. This one is an unbeatable staple of Eastern European cooking; and has many names: golabki, holubtsi, sarmale. There are so many different variations and by studying the recipe we can gain such a profound insight into the history and geography of the region. I just love the fact that to so many people this dish is a staple that they would cook to represent their “regional” or “native” cuisine. We all have a personal connection to this dish, and in some way it then connects us to one another.
You focus on the five staple vegetables – cabbage, beetroot, potato, carrot and mushrooms – why are these at the heart of the book?
This idea was a result of a creative brainstorm with the wonderful editorial team at Quadrille. My initial idea was to dedicate the whole book to cabbage but eventually we have decided to use cabbage as a symbol of humble vegetable-forward cooking that defines the culinary philosophy of Eastern Europe, and include more vegetables that are indisputable staples, and would lend themselves well to dedicated chapters.
The five vegetables are probably the most common ones in the cuisine of most countries, and there is a really versatile range of recipes that these five yield. I really wanted to highlight the idea that these simple accessible vegetables can help us come closer to understanding one another. I’d like to see them as musical notes that form melodies we all recognise.
What perspectives can we gain about Eastern Europe, its histories, cultures and communities, through the prism of food?
The more I work in food the more I am blown away by what a fascinating prism it is to look at the world through. It’s at the intersection of personal stories and world histories. By looking at the food of Eastern Europe, I have found both heartbreaking and inspiring stories.
Eastern Europe is like a buffer zone between the West and the East with frequently shifting borders. While for many this historical specificity of the Eastern European region has led to associations with ‘poverty’, ‘lack of freedom’, ‘food shortages’, ‘uniformity’ and ‘oppression’, to me the fact that Eastern Europe withstood the conquests and saw the fall of many once-powerful empires, from the Roman to the Soviet, raising up with a renewed sense of pride and value of ones origin and history, speaks of courage, resourcefulness, endurance and freedom. And this is something that is reflected in the cuisine of the region.
And the best part about it is that studying the world through this prism doesn’t need to be “theoretical” or “conceptual”, it’s the most intimate and visceral way of learning about another culture. You can literally taste it!
What is your approach to Russian cuisine in the book?
For some this decision might be surprising or upsetting but to me at the time of writing and still today, this was a no-brainer. I have allowed myself a personal choice to limit references to Russia in the book. Living in a post-24/02/22 world, I simply couldn’t bring myself to celebrate the culinary culture of the country (albeit having been born there), which has launched an atrocious war in the heart of Eastern Europe, in Ukraine.
However, while refraining from using an umbrella term "Russian cuisine", I do give a voice to the indigenous ethnic groups residing in the Eastern European part of the country, such as the Volga Tatars and the Udmurts, whose little-known culinary culture deserves our attention. I think it’s essential to anyone connected to Russia (personally or professionally) to use critical optics to talk about the country at this time.
We can no longer throw around the term “Russian” without being very clear what we actually mean by it. I have found that the term “Russian food” is a very misleading one, and we can gain a far more honest and productive insight if we look deeper at the regional cuisine (as I attempt to do in the book) and challenge that umbrella term, especially in cases where “Russian cuisine” is used to talk about cuisines of Ukraine, Poland, the Baltics or Belarus. We really have to get a better understanding of the terminology.
Did you learn anything new or surprising while writing Kapusta?
Oh so much! I don’t think I’ll have enough space to answer this question. I never fully realised just how intricate the history of Eastern European countries and regions is. And how much of that we can see in the cuisine of this part of the world. It’s a true cultural and culinary crossroads between Asia and the West, with so many fascinating communities passing through, settling and leaving their mark there.
While it’s so marvellously diverse, there’s definitely a shared sense of the past and a common vision of the future. I loved learning about the relationship with its neighbours like Turkey, Greece, Austria and Germany. How there are Greek communities in the southern parts of Ukraine with centuries-long histories (which Putin’s regime is currently attempting to claim is “authentically Russian”). How Poland was such an essential domain for the formation of the Ashkenazi cuisine, mixing both Italian and German culinary legacies. The Asian narrative is also fascinating: how the history of the Tatar Mongol invasion of 10–13th centuries led to the creation of Lipka Tatar communities in Poland – you can find some recipes in the book. I was also fascinated to learn more about Roma cuisine, this is something I’ve not seen in any cook books so far.
Which chefs, food writers or food-related activists or initiatives inspire you?
I am sure anyone who knows my work will know that my friendship with Ukrainian chef and activist, Olia Hercules, has been so essential to my creative life! I really do admire her work and her stance. We have founded Cook for Ukraine together but Olia’s activism goes far beyond that project.
Of course, Cook for Syria! It was a revolutionary initiative which gave rise to our own campaign.
I really admire Migrateful, it’s a truly life-changing project that not only helps the people, displaced from their home countries, but also allows Londoners to taste food from all over the world.
What else are you working on at the moment? What are you working on next?
I have written a proposal for another cookbook which would allow me to delve deeper into subjects that are very dear to my heart: Ashkenazi food, Ukrainian history, Jewish and Eastern European women, the Socialist legacy. I can’t yet disclose more on that, but keep your fingers crossed for me to get a book deal!
I am also planning on relaunching my cookery classes, both online but also offering in-person sessions from my home. And I intend to host more fundraising events under the umbrella of Cook for Ukraine. You can find out more about that on my website and Instagram.