Kidneys in Madeira

The railway buffet at Tsarskoye Selo, the royal retreat, was famed for its version of these succulent kidneys. Ironically, in Andrei Belyi’s novel Petersburg, they were also the dish chosen by Nikolai Apollonovich at a moment of high suspense, when he might be revealed as a political terrorist. But politics aside, Kidneys in Madeira is a lovely zakuska, befitting the tables of both anarchists and tsars.