All over the world, Olivye salad is called “Russian”, and only here it is called “Olivye”. Indeed, the recipe was created in Russia more than 150 years ago by the owner of the Moscow Hermitage restaurant, French chef Lucien Olivier.
The original recipe was so delicious that it became the symbol of the restaurant. The salad was based on partridge and hazel grouse meat, boiled crayfish necks and sliced veal tongues. The salad was decorated with chopped gherkins, potatoes and eggs. The salad was dressed with a sauce of his own, which Lucien Olivier called “Provençal”. At that time the salad was called “venison mayonnaise,” but guests asked for Monsieur Olivier salad.
An interesting fact is that initially the salad was not supposed to be mixed, but one day Olivier saw the guests mixing the ingredients and was horrified. According to legend, he then ignorantly began to generously pour mayonnaise on the dish and mix all the ingredients. To his surprise, the salad became even more popular when served this way.
After the revolution, salad was forgotten, like other delights of bourgeois life. Lucien Olivier’s student and the chef of the Soviet restaurant “Moscow” remembered him. According to the times, he introduced some changes to the recipe, for example, added carrot, and all meat delicacies were replaced with chicken. The salad was called “Stolychny”.
The desire for everything French gradually began to return, after 1937 “Soviet Champagne” appeared, and new ingredients began to be added to the capital’s salad recipe, for example, canned peas (at that time a new product for Soviet people), and the name changed to “Olivye”. Champagne and Olivye became attributes of a rich festive table.
Since 1937, the celebration of the New Year has become national, with the head of state addressing the population and opening champagne to the sound of the clock. Olivye salad gradually replaced vinaigrette as the main appetizer on the New Year's table, but at the same time, in order to become more accessible, the meat ingredient was replaced with more affordable boiled sausage.
Today there are hundreds of recipes for “Olivye” or “Russian salad”, including crayfish necks, shrimp, caviar and various meat ingredients that have begun to return to the recipe. For 150 years, the only unchanged ingredients have remained potatoes, eggs and canned or fresh cucumbers.
