The Legendary Recipe: How American Ice Cream Became a Staple in Soviet Union

The legendary recipe was borrowed from the Americans

“Soviet ice cream is one of the most nostalgic objects of memories of people who lived in the union and tried this frozen milk dessert. But in fact this ice cream was not Soviet. In 1936, the people’s commissar of the food industry of the USSR Anastas Mikoyan went to the study the experience of the Americans. It was from the United States that they brought equipment and technology for the industrial production of ice cream, as well as several of its most popular recipes,” the video explains.

Anastas Mikoyan personally selected the most delicious varieties of American ice cream for production in the USSR. They were: cream and milk ice cream, popsicle, creme brulee, vanilla and fruit ice cream.

“Mikoyan borrowed absolutely the entire cycle from the Americans, including the sale of ice cream on the streets from special refrigerators,” the video emphasizes.

Ice cream in the USSR was produced according to American technology (screenshot)

Long lines for ice cream

In Kyiv in those days, a glass of creamy ice cream cost 22 kopecks. For another 3 you could take a filler – jam or grated chocolate. Eskimo cost 24 kopecks, but they were sold only at one point and rarely.

The queues for ice cream in what was then Kyiv were long. According to eyewitnesses, the people of Kiev scolded people who came for ice cream from the villages. They filled three-liter jars with them, delaying the queue for a long time.

People’s Commissar Mikoyan believed that a Soviet citizen should eat at least 5 kg of cold dessert a year.

However, if you now ask an ordinary lover of the Soviet past, he is unlikely to know that his favorite ice cream since childhood was not Soviet, but hated American. This once again demonstrates how the Soviets skillfully appropriated what was not theirs and passed it off as their own.