Sourcing and Saving Food in Siberian Kitchens

Encompassing a wide range of landscapes and climate zones—Arctic tundra, high mountains, boreal forests, grassy steppes, lush wetlands—Siberia is home to a large number of wild edible flora and fauna, as well as certain cultivated crops and domestic animals. Based on the author's on-site research combined with her own culinary experiences when living in post-Soviet Siberia, this article describes the multiple influences on the food supply and taste preferences of Siberians; many of the wild foods available to Siberians for thousands of years; the challenges of food supplies and urban kitchens in early post-Soviet Siberia; traditional methods of food preservation among native and immigrant populations; summer kitchens; and the importance of dacha gardens to the food supply of Siberia.