The disparity between fact and theory in the availability of supplies is one of the factors which pose, for anyone who proposes to write about Russian cooking, the basic dilemma: whether to be idealistic or realistic. One can either produce a mouth-watering selection of recipes based on nineteenth-century cookery books, literary and historical sources; or one can base oneâs work on what is physically available and possible in the Soviet Union today in terms of money, time, energy and ingredients. The conditions of life of a Soviet woman, combining the problems of housekeeping and queueing in shops with a full-time job, are very different from those of a nineteenth-century housewife with her retinue of servants and plenty of money and leisure.