This book makes no claims to anything. It is, of course, only partly culinary: there are many recipes in it, but they are in no way systematized and united by nothing except my life and my personal tastes.
And you can’t really call it memoirs either, because everything in it is too light and subjective. So what is it then? Perhaps the most accurate definition of this genre is a look—and something with a gastronomic slant. I hope it won’t be boring for you.
The work “Children of the Galaxy, or Nonsense in Lard” is a mix of autobiography, culinary recipes, and sketches of the glorious, for many nostalgic, Soviet past. There is no particular philosophical depth here; you won’t spend a week after reading thinking through the meaning of what’s been written. However, it has undeniable artistic value due to the lightness of the style and the educational value of its contents. In addition, the book includes an abundance of culinary recipes that you can either use as a basis for carrying them out and raising your own level of culinary skill, or simply consider part of the novel’s structure.