As you know, in the old days the main winter holiday in Russia was Christmas, not New Year. It was not celebrated on such a scale as today. Nevertheless, in tsarist times, January 1 was an important holiday.
On this day, a ceremony of congratulating the emperor by members of the diplomatic corps was held annually in the Winter Palace. Like many of the palace ceremonies, it ended with the highest breakfast. What was served there – recalled colleagues from the newspaper “St. Petersburg Vedomosti”, the information partner of “Rossiyskaya Gazeta”.
For example, on January 1, 1891, the highest breakfast was prepared for 40 people. A blue banquet service was set up on the tables.
Live oysters were listed first on the menu. They were served on a platter with ice in the open doors of their own shells. The oysters were accompanied by traditional lemons and dry champagne. Then on the table was served “Bagration crayfish cream soup with pies”, which was “accompanied” by French dry white wine – Montrachet Musset. The third course – “cold salmi of sirloin poulard with a side dish”, to which was served Madeira No. 3. Then came lamb cutlets with two sauces and one side dish (celery puree), to which French wine Château-Larose was served. The understandable cutlets were followed by the mysterious Shu-Grill a la cream with two sauces, to which Monopol champagne was served. And at the end of the breakfast – dessert. As a rule, it was something from the palace greenhouses – for example, strawberries.
Today, the ingredients of all of the above can be easily bought in stores, recipes can be found on the Internet. So, maybe some of the readers would like to use the menu of the highest breakfast from the time of Alexander III.
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