Garlic, Identity, and the Post-Soviet Diaspora: A Conversation with Polina Chesnakova (Patreon)

The “Chesnok” author taught me how to make her mother’s kotleti recipe while we discussed Eastern European cuisine and its evolving identity in a post-Soviet era.

My friend Polina Chesnakova stopped by my place to discuss her newest book, “Chesnok: Cooking from My Corner of the Diaspora.” Polina was born in Ukraine to Russian and Armenian parents from Georgia and this cookbook is emblematic of those roots—the title itself, “chesnok,” being the Russian word for garlic from which her last name, “Chesnakova,” is derived. 

During our discussion, Polina notes that had this book been published ten years ago, it would have been labeled just another generic Russian cookbook. That wasn’t a narrative she was interested in. Instead, Polina begins to peel back the layers to what cuisine and identity look like across the Eastern European diaspora in an ever-evolving post-Soviet world. 

Our conversation explored how, for many immigrant and displaced communities, food can act as a touchpoint to home when home is no longer physically accessible. Polina’s recipes do the same, acting as a snapshot of the meals her childhood was filled with shaped by her unique family history. Together, we made her Mama’s Kotleti (fried meat patties), a staple dish across ex-Soviet states that every chef has their own take on. Polina’s dish—or more accurately, Polina’s mother’s dish—is heavily influenced by the culinary traditions of Georgia, featuring lots of fresh herbs, garlic, and adjika (crushed hot pepper).  You can find the full recipe, excerpted from her book, here.

Enjoy some excerpts from our conversation below.

Chesnok, garlic, and the title of Polina’s new book

Kenji: You recently came out with this book, Chesnok.

Polina: Yes, Chesnok. [The title is] a play on my last name. Chesnok means garlic in Russian. It is also a cornerstone ingredient of Georgian cuisine. And it sort of speaks to my roots in both Eastern Europe and the Caucasus… I have a newsletter on Substack called Chesnok [and, for a while] I wanted to get away from that name with this book, but I was like, you know what? It really speaks to both my roots and, symbolically, it's like the cloves of garlic symbolize all the different cultures that I carry and write about.

Kenji: So, is your name literally a translation of “garlic person”?

Polina: “Person,” yeah. Or, “garlic farmer.”

On evolving identities in a post-Soviet era

Polina: I started working on this book a few months after Russia invaded Ukraine. And, you know, if this book came out ten years ago, it would probably just be labeled as another Russian cookbook. Russian was always kind of used as a benign umbrella term to describe this community and this part of the world and the food that we cooked.

But obviously, in this post-invasion world, you couldn't really get away with that. And I didn't want to do that. So how do you make sure you talk about this diaspora and spotlighting all these different cuisines and people and really talk about the diversity and vibrancy without reducing it to one single term?

I started using the term “post-Soviet,” which some people have issues with because, I mean, they're trying to get away from their Soviet past. So to kind of define them by their Soviet past, it sort of cancels everything out. And I write about that—that essay is called an Evolving Identity—because I'm also still figuring out how do I talk about it and write about it.

Unraveling identity

Kenji: You're changing and your relationship to the food is changing and the culture is changing. But of course, the geopolitical situation in Eastern Europe is also changing and evolving.

Polina: Yeah. When Russia invaded Ukraine, like, I have a Russian family that has been living in Ukraine for decades, and they were displaced and they've lost everything. They didn't want this. [And while] they're living in Ukraine, meanwhile, we have family members in Russia and all of a sudden they're pitted against each other. So, you know, I had a bit of an identity crisis: how do I describe myself and this food and my family? The book helped me sort of peel back the layers and figure that out. It’s been really enriching and meaningful for me to talk about that experience and also shine light on this immigrant experience that other people are living through as well.

Adding adjika to your dishes

Polina: My Mama’s Kotleti is an example of how my family blends typical Eastern European Slavic foods with our Georgian roots. Georgians cook with a lot of herbs, garlic, and adjika (dried chili paste). I always tell people that when they're cooking with adjika, there's a lot of jarred versions that are tomato based, and you want to look for ones that are pepper based. If you can't get your hands on adjika, you can swap it out with chili garlic sauce.

Kenji: It almost has, like, a Sriracha-type flare. 

Polina: Yeah, so you could do chili garlic sauce or where I grew up in Rhode Island there’s a big Portuguese community and they cook a lot with hot crushed pepper that has the same sort of relish consistency. We always had a jar of that in our fridge growing up—my mom would use it instead of adjika because it wasn't always something that you could get your hands on.

Na glaz: Cooking by eye

Kenji: In your book you were talking about this concept of cooking by eye. Can you tell me the term for that?

Polina: I wrote an essay called “na glaz” which means “by eye” or “by feel.” All of the recipes in the book come from my mom and aunts. If you ask them, “How do you make something?” They're like, “Oh, well, you just cook it by eye.” While writing this book, I was living in Seattle and my mom was living in Rhode Island, so we spent hours on the phone. She would be teaching me how to make a cake, for example, and she’s like, “You know that orange mug I have with the red flowers? Two mugs-worth of flour.” And I’m like, Mom, not everyone has an orange mug with red flowers in their kitchen. That’s not gonna work for a written recipe. 

Kenji: We were chatting before about how people think of a recipe as a thing that's set in stone and if you stray from it, you’re doing something different.

Polina: Which they shouldn’t because recipes are a blueprint. Once you know the basic process, it's endlessly repeatable. 

Kenji: Right, and especially with a cuisine like this where it's a food of necessity, where you’re not always going to be able to say, “I need exactly 500 grams of minced pork.” You’re working with what you got. 

Preserving your family recipes—and sharing them with the world

Kenji: How do you take something so fluid with a significant cultural and family meaning to you and transcribe it onto paper. Do you feel like you lose something when you actually write down the recipes?

Polina: No, I think recipes and cookbooks are beautiful snapshots or time capsules. For me, it's a way to preserve these recipes for myself when my mom and my aunts won't be around, and also as a way to pass it down to my children. There were so many times I was testing recipes and I would start cooking na glaz because it was like all those years in the kitchen with my mother, I was learning through osmosis. So for me, it was a way to preserve the recipes and also give voice to a community that has been historically underrepresented.

Kenji: Especially when you immigrate or are displaced, you can’t bring home with you. So what do you bring? Food. 

Polina: Right, food is sustenance but it’s also a way to connect us to stories and memories and family members that we have said goodbye to. That's what I try to capture with the book and these recipes: these belong to my family [but also] the larger community and here are the stories that tell our lived experience.

Kenji: How did your mom feel about this idea of canonizing these recipes in print?

Polina: She was joking like, “Oh no, you're spilling all of our family secrets! What are you doing?” But actually, she thought it was really cool.

Thanks, Polina, for joining me in the kitchen! You can grab a copy of “Chesnok: Cooking from My Corner of the Diaspora” for yourself here.