The Sergievskaya Kuchmisterskaya Museum

Preparations for the opening of the Sergievskaya Kukhmisterskaya Museum began in December 2017, but the idea of its creation arose much earlier. The main inspirer, creator, and activist is Lyubov Alexandrova Kornilova, who is known to many residents of Sergiev Posad. Thanks to her, on one of the central streets of the city, Karl Marx Street, a whole constellation of unique cafes appeared, which became favorite places not only for tourists, but also for the residents of Sergiev Posad. For more than 15 years, Lyubov Kornilova studied the intricacies of public catering and its various directions. Based on her rich experience in culinary art, Lyubov Alexandrovna conducted serious research activities in the field of the history of public catering in Russia.

The turn of the 20th century in Russia was a period of powerful development for industries, including the food industry. Most of the inventions known today, such as refrigerators, washing machines, dishwashers, kerosene lamps, stoves and primus, meat grinders, mechanical churns, graters, ice cream makers, and others, appeared precisely at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries. Also during this period, cookbooks containing a huge number of recipes were published. Of course, there were cookbooks before, but a book with such a detailed distribution of the product’s weight, a description of the cooking time, and even ways to fix the dish in case of failure appeared for the first time ever! Elena Molokhovets, who wrote “A Gift for Young Housewives and Means for Saving in the Household” in 1861, and Pelageya Alexandrova-Ignatieva with “Practical Basics of Culinary Arts” did a lot for women of that era!

The Soviet period made us forget a lot of what happened before the Revolution of 1917. For instance, how did they cook, what did they eat, where did they take food, how did they keep it fresh, and how long did it take to cook it with no gas and electricity? Today we don’t think about it. Another area, which Sergievskaya Kukhmisterskaya describes in detail, is the confectionery production of candy caramel, namely fruit drops (landrins). The thing is that the creator of the museum, Lyubov Kornilova, is a descendant of the owners of starch and syrup production, which was located in Sergiev Posad before the revolution, and syrup is one of the ingredients of caramel. Most modern children do not know how to make caramel, which they love so much. It is the process of making caramel and the detailed story about it that is demonstrated on a tour to the Sergievskaya Kukhmisterskaya Museum.

The museum offers visitors two types of tours, one of which includes a demonstration and a cooking workshop with a tasting. There is a cafe at the museum, on the menu of which there are more than 50 dishes prepared according to old recipes by Molokhovets and Ignatieva. In the evening, after the museum closes, once a week museum evenings are held on culinary and historical topics involving interesting hosts. During the New Year holidays, programs for children are held, such as a puppet show with a shadow play, and entertaining games from the 19th century.

The museum has a unique collection of cast-iron stoves (six pieces), samples of copper, glass, and porcelain dishes, kitchen machinery, e.g. mechanical churns, mixers, coffee grinders, meat grinders, ice cream makers, mechanisms for grinding and cutting products, a room glacier, and other kitchen attributes dating from the late 19th – early 20th century.