Salad Olivier - the history

When I first arrived in Russia and started talking to students about food, it quickly became apparent that the two most popular Russian dishes in their eyes were pelmeniy and Olivier Salad. It was to their astonishment that I'd heard of neither.

Going off at a slight tangent, I once nearly made a group of Russian teenagers cry by telling them that Russian vodka wasn't the best in the world (seriously) and 'proving' this claim by pointing out, with a straight face, that Finnish vodka was about 4 times the price because of the relative quality (not true - it's tax) and that even Britain produced better vodka but Russia refused to import it so as to not lower the status of the domestic product (again not true - hell, I don't even know if the UK distills any, but it was a great lie and fun to see a class full of quivering lips and actually so angrily animated in English to defend their prized, national drink).

In the biggest blow to the collective, Russian, culinary ego since then, I'll start by pointing out the fact (yes, fact, not some fibs to tease a class) that one of Russia's most (self-)acclaimed dishes was created by the francophone, Lucien Olivier, probably Belgian, who had trained in French haute cuisine. Not Russian... cue lots of trembling lower lips...


Lucien Olivier was the co-owner and head chef of the Hermitage Restaurant in Moscow. It opened in 1864 and the business did not continue after the Russian Revolution in 1917. The building survived, though, and is currently home to the School of Modern Drama. Olivier created a dish which he originally called mayonnaise from gamebird. This was an artfully prepared dish believed to have contained grouse, caviar, crayfish tails, veal tongue, smoked duck and capers set in jelly, lightly covered in a provençal sauce and decorated with potato and egg figures. The diners less artfully mixed it up with a spoon and ate it that way and so Olivier ended up serving it already mixed under the new name of Salat Olivier.

The building in 2008

The exact recipe went to the grave with Lucien Olivier's in 1883. However, an employee, Ivan Ivanov, had tried to steal it and created the Salat Stolichnaya (Capital Salad) based on what he knew for another restaurant but it was viewed as lacking something.

Olivier's legacy is the the salad's name and certainly not the recipe, which has been transformed into something completely different over the years. The original dish was a luxury affair and unsurprisingly peas have replaced capers; sausage or boiled beef or chicken are more affordable substitutes for duck and grouse and so on.

 

Salad Olivier, at the back, pre-mayonnaise

I doubt that Lucien Olivier, as a gourmet chef, would have approved of the exact changes to the recipe but it would probably flatter any chef's ego to see their name live on, and in such abundance at New Year.

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Elsewhere on this site:
Olivier Salad Recipe
An Overview of the Sea of Mayonnaise that is Russian Salad
Other Recipes