The Secret Life of Olivier.

When “Salad Olivier” is prepared and served in my family, life suddenly becomes joyful and satisfying. Even with the abundance of delicacies around, we still end up fighting for the leftovers of Olivier. The story of creating and consuming Olivier, though, has its ups and downs. At some point, it became political.“

Vladimir Mayakovsky famously wrote, after the 1917 Bolshevik revolution:

“Eat your pineapples, gobble your grouse,
Your last day is coming, you bourgeois louse”

Obviously, the pineapple and the grouse were the symbols of bourgeois well being, their satisfied life in pre-revolutionary Russia. Grouse also happened to be a major ingredient in a famous restaurant delicacy in Moscow – Salad Olivier. The name of that restaurant was the Hermitage.

It was Lucien Olivier, a restaurant chef of Belgian origin, who created a celebrated salad arrangement that made his name famous during his lifetime and long after his death. However, the exact recipe of Salad Olivier, particularly the dressing, remains unknown since it was a carefully guarded secret causing jealousy and envy of many Moscow restaurateurs at the time.

There were unsuccessful attempts to steal the recipe during the chef’s lifetime and sell it to Moscow’s cookbook publishers. One of the most notorious recipe thieves of that time, Ivan Ivanov, managed to smuggle the list of major salad ingredients. Yet, some secret ingredients, especially the French sauce, were missing in Ivan’s stolen version making the salad taste quite different.

Lucien Olivier died young, at age 45,  and was buried in Moscow in 1883. He took the secret of the famous salad recipe with him. The chef was dead, but his legendary creation lived on often causing political and class clashes.

Since the time of Lucien Olivier’s death, many restaurant and home chefs had been trying to recreate the salad. The adaptations of the salad were traditionally referred to as “Olivier” remotely matching the taste of the original.

Some variations of the famous dish were a far cry from the original recipe. The foods that were rare, expensive or seasonal, were gradually replaced with cheaper and more available ingredients destroying the original masterpiece. It often happens when gourmet recipes become very popular.

Lucien Olivier would have been horrified seeing a remote vulgarized version of his salad. Who wouldn’t be?

In 1905, the Hermitage Restaurant was closed. Then came the 1917 revolution and the name of Olivier started sounding foreign and bourgeois. The ingredients that symbolized sumptuous and luxurious dining, had to be done away with.

The recipe, though, traveled with emigrants who flew from Russia during the revolution and who miraculously spread the recipe all over the world. Along the way, it acquired the new names such as Russian Salad, Moscow Salad, Capital Salad. But, among Russians, it is still called “Olivier”.

One of the first printed versions of the Salad Olivier in 1884, called for half of a hazel grouse, smoked duck, veal tongue, caviar, two boiled potatoes, one large cornichon, three crayfish tails, one teaspoon of capers, 4 pitted olives, 3 lettuce leaves, ¼ cup of aspic cubes made from grouse bones broth, and Provençal dressing (present day mayonnaise). It is possible that the recipe varied seasonally and not all of the above ingredients were present.

 The simplified version of the salad features in the Soviet Cookbook sponsored by the Kremlin with an Introduction by none other than Joseph Stalin, but “Olivier” is not even mentioned. The name Olivier reappeared much later together with nostalgia about the Russian bourgeois past. The name, however, didn’t match the original recipe. Potatoes, eggs and canned peas stood out, and grouse was replaced by boiled sausage, or chicken, or crab meat, at best. It was a proletarian version of Olivier.

The modern version of Olivier is not only different from the original, but varies among the modern cooks.

Our family recipe that we follow today calls for:

2/3 lb of juicy roasted turkey breast. A Board Head Oven Gold turkey is a good substitute.

1/3 lb of smoked turkey,

6 in-skin boiled potatoes,

3 in-skin boiled carrots,

8 hard-boiled eggs,

3 crispy apples,

salt, pepper to taste,

4-5 tbsp homemade or brand name mayonnaise.

Chop turkey into a large bowl.

Peel eggs, carrots and apples, and cut into 1/4 inch cubes. Mix well with turkey.

Peel potatoes, cut into 1/3 inch cubes, and spread in a layer over the mix.

Salt and pepper potatoes’ layer and leave it for a while to allow salt to be absorbed by potatoes.

Mix all together, adding mayonnaise by 1 tbsp at a time.

Adjust taste and consistency, adding salt or mayonnaise, if needed.

The salad arrangement may include a bunch of capers, a spoon of caviar and/or crab meat. It’s an easy recipe, which requires a lot of chopping, but the result is worth the labor.

Homemade mayo is notoriously difficult to make but it’s a bit of an exaggeration. You need one egg yolk, ¼ tsp of mustard powder and 1 ½ tsp of lemon juice or vinegar, ¼ tsp of salt plus more to taste. Then you pour in ¾ cup of olive oil in a thin stream and in small portions, as you continue to beat rapidly.

Traditionally, Salad Olivier is prepared and served for dinner during New Year Celebration. It is a rich salad and goes well with wine or other drinks keeping heavy drinkers from alcohol intoxication before the clock strikes Midnight.

Happy New Year!       С Новым Годом!

P.S. All the food featured in this post has been prepared and photographed by me.