Levshinsky Lunch Gastronomic Festival at SheLESt restaurant

From November 15 to December 15, the third Levshinsky Lunch historical and gastronomic festival, named after the famous culinary author Vasily Levshin, is taking place in the Tula region.

As part of the gastrofestival , Anton Krupenin, the brand chef of the SheLESt restaurant, recreated three dishes based on recipes from Vasily Levshin's "Russian Cookery" from 1796-1797. The author's presentation of dishes immersing guests in the pages of the history of gastronomy at the end of the XVIII century:

- "Ears or kundyuki" in the author's version: "Kundyums with mushrooms and millet, boiled with green and wild mushrooms, with sour cream and fir oil";

- "Pike with cauliflower" in the author's version: "Pike cutlet with cauliflower mousse, fresh tomatoes and special Tula gingerbread and dried lemons";

- "Nimetskaya milk porridge" in the author's version: "Guriev porridge with cream of boiled condensed milk, semolina mousse with Tula gingerbread, red-hot walnuts and cherries with cinnamon."

You can taste all these dishes only from November 15th to December 15th, 2023.

The cost of lunch is 1,900 rubles

The works of Vasily Levshin and Andrey Bolotov have continued for many years to inspire the team of the Just WOOD country hotel and the SheLESt restaurant to create new gastronomic experiences for guests, telling them about the traditions and history of the Tula Region in the language of dishes, preserving the memory of the great founders of Russian cuisine and Russian cooking.

A bit of history:

In the last quarter of the 18th century, the first printed cookbooks appeared in the Russian Empire, which began to replace handwritten recipe collections. Thanks to these books, as well as foreign chefs, educated Russian society learned about the culinary life of other countries and peoples. Getting to know foreign dishes, products and cooking methods has launched a complex process of updating and enriching Russian cuisine. The natives of Tula province stood at the origins of Russian culinary literature.

In 1775, Alexander Sokovnin, an artillery captain and a poor landowner in Tula County, published a "New Cookbook", translated by him from German. This edition can be considered the first printed cookbook in Russian.

In the neighborhood, in the village of Dvoreninov (now Dvoryaninovo) of Aleksinsky district, Andrei Bolotov was engaged in "rural economy" in the same years. In 1780-1789, he published one of the first private agricultural magazines, The Economic Magazine. Andrey Timofeevich published a lot of "foreign comments", including recipes for dishes and preparations.

Vasily Levshin, a Belevsky landowner, was Bolotov's "diligent correspondent" and a good friend. His six-volume Dictionary of Cooking ... (1795-1797) became the largest culinary work of the era. It was Vasily Alekseevich who first raised the question of the national identity of Russian cuisine, publishing in the fifth part of his dictionary "Russian Cookery"