158 Chapter 4
customer was always right, and chefs and serving staff should try to cater
even to their capricious requests. A wise chef would regularly visit the din-
ing room, supervising the waitresses, making sure that every table was well
supplied with bread, napkins, and cutlery, and above all, listening to the
concerns of their clients.^74
These conscientious chefs, however, also chided the vacationers them-
selves for their reluctance to expand their culinary horizons. The best kind of
dining room service allowed vacationers to order in advance from a menu, but
some diners stayed with the safe and familiar, requesting buckwheat kasha
even for dinner. They avoided strange-sounding dishes like romshteks (bread-
ed beefsteak) or the Central Asian plov (pilaf). One diner ordered chopped
meat cutlet for breakfast, dinner, and supper, and his chef had to scold him:
“What, don’t you have any teeth?” Once the diner had tasted romshteks, he
enthusiastically ordered it the next day.^75 The chefs also emphasized the im-
portance of including dishes from various ethnicities on their menus, not just
for variety but because it was socially proper. “If Russian people come here
who have never tasted an ethnic dish, they are afraid to order it. You need to
coax them to try it, so that they know what it tastes like and they learn that
these dishes can be delicious.” Others agreed that Eastern and Asian dishes,
and even nonmeat dishes, possessed both nutritional and culinary value but
that they, like romshteks, had to be introduced into the dining room with tact.
As with the cultural programs, even in the dining room a Soviet vacation
should expand the horizons. Guided by experts like these, new Soviet vaca-
tioners would acquire valuable cultural and culinary literacy.Soviet Vacations and Market Thinking: From the Right to Rest to the Right to
Choose?
In the Cold War years of the early 1950s, Soviet vacation publicity increas-
ingly called attention to the difference between socialist vacations for all and
the capitalist system, in which only the rich could travel and play.^76 Socialist
consumerism would be democratic and universal, although under socialism
as well as capitalism, the very concept of consumerism implied assortment,
variety, and choice.^77 Soviet consumerism also differed from its capitalist
counterpart in its organization: rather than relying on the invisible hand of
the market, Soviet enterprises—including those serving leisure travel and
vacations—were managed by central bureaucratic structures, ministries and
powerful trade union committees that had been consolidated through the
fi ve-year plans of the 1930s and 1940s.- GARF, f. 9493, op. 3, d. 99, ll. 23–24, 32, 36, 48, 64–65, 68, 96; TsGAMO, f. 7223, op.
1, d. 329. - GARF, f. 9493, op. 3, d. 99, l. 36.
- Trud , 13 April 1952; 14 June 1953.
- Gronow, Caviar with Champagne.