On May 27, the exhibition “Kust tuli kaste ja kuhu kadus liha? / Where did the sauce come from and where did the meat go?” will open in Ülenurme, Tartu County, which tells the story of the so-called canteen culture in Soviet Estonia from 1950 to 1985.
The exhibition “Where did the sauce come from and where did the meat go?”, which will be opened at the MUHK / Estonian Agricultural Museum in Ülenurme, is a real “nostalgic hit” for those who lived during the Soviet era. It is also a learning opportunity for those young people who know nothing about the catering program of the 1980s, why Thursday was fish day, or that there were times when you had to stand in line for hours to get to a restaurant.
The years 1950-1985 were a time when the necessity of building socialism was emphasized. People did WORK, toiled in factories or in the fields. Therefore, workers’ canteens were also opened in larger workplaces so that lunch would be faster and employees would not leave their workplaces. That’s how most companies had canteens at that time. Only a quarter were public eating places.
“In the exhibition, we first give a broader context to that time – how food was produced, how much of it actually reached our dining tables, and what Soviet-era food propaganda was like,” explained the exhibition’s curator-designer Laura Vähi. “In the second part of the exhibition, we talk about the canteen, café, and restaurant culture, and also about the fact that, for example, the borscht served in the canteen tasted completely different from the borscht served in a restaurant,” added Vähi.
A juicy mediator of this period is Linda Petti (1918-2000), a top chef of the time, food technologist, healthy food advocate, and cookbook author. Over the course of a year, more than 50 of Linda Petti’s food recipes were tested at the museum’s cooking school. Petti’s notes, which contained very critical information about the time, were also helpful in creating the exhibition. The exhibition opens at the Technical Building of the Estonian Agricultural Museum on May 27 at 4 pm and will remain open until the end of 2027.
Additional information: Kadri Valner, co-curator of the exhibition, member of the board of the Eesti Maaelumuuseumid Foundation, Tel. +372 52 88 104