Leo Tolstoy – omelet with vegetables
Leo Tolstoy loved to eat and was known to tease himself about it. He started days with oatmeal and sour milk, yet coffee and biscuits accompanied him through the hours. Above all, the author of War and Peace favored egg dishes: a mushroom omelet, a veggie omelet, and a comforting egg soup.
Sophia Andreevna, Tolstoy’s wife, remembered how the writer watched his own appetite with alarm and counted every penny. “I watched in horror as I ate: first salted milk mushrooms, then four large buckwheat toasts with soup, sour kvass, and black bread. It all added up to a huge amount,” she recalled.
By the time he reached fifty, Tolstoy’s dietary preferences shifted toward vegetarianism. He would later publish the essay “First Step,” advocating what he called an immortal diet. He did not become a vegan; dairy and eggs remained part of his meals. The diet leaned on rice with beans, applesauce with prunes, cabbage soup, and a variety of roots.
Fyodor Dostoevsky – chicken with warm milk
Fyodor Dostoevsky, a great lover of Russian cuisine, enjoyed meals in generous quantities. He often grabbed a cheese sandwich, but his favorite dish was boiled chicken served with a glass of warm milk.
Anna, the writer’s wife, wrote in her diary about his constant requests for chicken, noting the tensions that arose over meals. “Fedya began to bother me terribly why there was no chicken, so we argued almost every time,” she wrote.
From Berlin to other cities, Dostoevsky’s letters reveal a taste for grand dinners, yet he often found foreign courses excessive. “I wanted a dinner with ten dishes, five of which were well prepared, and I grew tired of the meal,” he confessed in a letter describing a Berlin stay.
Maya Plisetskaya – beer and ravioli
Russian ballet icon Maya Plisetskaya defied stereotypes with her hearty tastes. She cherished homemade meals, especially pies and herring. “I always ate a great amount. My weight fluctuated, sometimes rising, sometimes falling during intense rehearsals,” she admitted.
Her fondness extended to Serbian cuisine, with spinach ravioli prepared by visiting chefs. Bavarian beer became a favorite drink after a tour in Munich, a choice that amused and delighted friends alike.
Ivan Krylov – oysters
Even in his own time, jokes followed Ivan Krylov about his appetite. The fabulist did not hide his indulgences and preferred generous servings. His diet included cabbage soup, kulubika, turkey, rich pies, goose with milk mushrooms, white fish with eggs, and a pig roasted with horseradish. “Oysters tempt his stomach, sometimes up to eighty or even a hundred,” recalled contemporaries.
Despite medical warnings, Krylov quipped, “I’ll probably stop eating dinner the day I stop eating lunch.”
Anton Chekhov – sour cream carp
Anton Chekhov took a more selective approach to food. He rarely sampled treats, even among frequent meals, yet he delighted in caviar and certain seafoods. “The best quiet fish is the crucian fried in sour cream; it needs a day in milk to stay delicate, and it is a true delicacy,” the playwright noted.
Ilya Repin – straw juice
Before the Russian Revolution, Ilya Repin championed raw food and extreme health practices. His experiments occasionally sparked debate and laughter, especially the famed straw juice that made headlines. His daily meals often included mashed sandwiches with olives, roots, soaked peas, and nettle tea.
Repin encouraged like-minded students, organized free meals for people of all classes, and wrote about his beliefs. “I’m going on a journey with nutritious vegetable juices. The plant’s vital energy purifies and refreshes the blood. Eggs are harmful, cheeses are avoided, meat is abandoned. Salads are wonderful. A life with olive oil is delightful. A broth from straw, roots, and herbs is the elixir of life. Fruits, red wine, dried fruits, olives, prunes, and nuts provide energy. Who could list all the pleasures of a vegetable table?” Repin wrote to a friend.
Vladimir Mayakovsky – barbecue and buns
Meat-loving Vladimir Mayakovsky, in his diary, recalled Ilya Repin’s vegan table with a touch of irony. “I arranged seven dinner appointments. Sunday means I eat with Chukovsky, Monday with Evreinov, and so on. Thursday is the worst—I’m eating Repin’s herbs. This isn’t ideal for a tall futurist.”
Though Mayakovsky joked about the bourgeois appetite, he did not shy from his own indulgences. He defended roast beef’s need to breathe and did not miss a pineapple grouse. He even sent a photo to Lilya Brik with the caption: “Your dog is atop Ai-Petri with a barbecue in hand.” Buns, however, remained a lifelong favorite for the poet.
Anna Akhmatova – millet porridge with pumpkin
Anna Akhmatova preferred simplicity in the kitchen. Millet porridge with pumpkin, boiled mushrooms with sour cream and herbs, and minimal culinary fuss defined her meals. The era of revolution, the Great Patriotic War, and food shortages during World War I shaped her eating habits more than any particular taste. “We cooked rarely—there was little to cook and nothing to cook with,” Akhmatova recalled.
Korney Chukovsky – Nestlé flour
Korney Chukovsky also faced hunger’s hardships. “If I could eat an ear of corn today, even dipped in oil, I would be happy.” During a visit to Akhmatova, a rare food treasure became the talk of the day—a tin of Nestlé flour, a super-nutritive concentrate. Diluted in boiling water, it felt like a hearty meal to those who were starving. They all envied the owner of such a find in that difficult year.
Pyotr Tchaikovsky – dishes with mushrooms
Pyotr Tchaikovsky’s favorite treats were mushroom-based dishes. He enjoyed cooking them almost as much as gathering them in the forest. A contemporary music critic recalled that the composer knew his way around the woods and often wandered at secret mushroom spots, keeping them to himself to avoid crowds.