Project 40
First Course - Tanya Zommer
Curated by Tsering Frykman-Glen
November 8th - December 14th, opening on Friday November 8th from 19h. Closing performance on Saturday the 14th of December.
In conjunction with Loop Video Art Festival.
In First Course, Tanya Zommer draws inspiration from the iconic soup borscht. However, beneath the surface of this seemingly culinary exploration lies a poignant reflection on identity and the subtle nuances of behaviour, speech, cultural coding and expression.
For the first time, Tanya will exhibit key elements from this ongoing body of work - including a video work in two chapters, a singular photographic print (selected from a larger series of prints and will close the exhibition with a performance on Saturday December 14th
These works stem from a text Tanya wrote in early 2021. Over time, this series has developed into a multi-faceted exploration of cultural signals and personal awareness. Blending humour with resigned acceptance, First Course offers us snapshots of life colliding with coded languages, moments of nostalgia, a kind of coming-of-age awareness, all with the backdrop of personal and cultural upheaval.
First Course - Tanya Zommer
A few years ago, I found myself wandering the streets of Barcelona. It was a quiet Sunday morning, with the streets nearly empty and very serene. While strolling, I overheard a woman speaking Russian on the phone. It was evident that she was feeling a bit emotional. She had recently moved to Barcelona and was struggling to adapt—different people, weather, and food. "But then," she said, "I went to a shop and bought a nice piece of meat, some beetroot, carrots, onions, and cooked myself a borscht. And you know what? Everything is fine now; I feel much better."
Her words struck me and I realised that I am exactly the same. I, too, needed my comfort food to feel more at home in a foreign country. And sitting at the top of my list of all-time favourites is borscht.
In Soviet canteen tradition, a proper lunch consisted of three courses. The first course, usually a soup, was served to warm up before the main dish. Even if appetisers like salads were served, soup remained the designated "first course." The second course usually featured meat or fish with a side of vegetables or grains. And, the third was something sweet, such as a fruit compote. Although the latter two courses were important, it was the soup that was considered equivalent to a healthy, home-cooked meal, even when served in a canteen.
According to the Short Encyclopedia of Housekeeping (Moscow, 1959), soup plays an essential role in the diet due to the presence of extractive substances, which stimulate the activity of the digestive organs and enhance appetite. This, in turn, facilitates the assimilation of nutrients from food. Various Russian-language sources attribute numerous health benefits to soup, including aiding weight loss and preventing ulcers and other serious diseases. In other words, a healthy life without a first course is practically unthinkable.
Every Russian mother would assert that soup is indispensable. There is even a negative term in Russian—sukhomyatka—for the predominance of dry food, which is believed to cause stomach problems. To this day, I can still hear my mother’s accusatory tone: “Are you eating properly? Do you cook soup? Remember, sukhomyatka won’t do you any good.” So, when I first travelled abroad and saw that people rarely ate soup, I was shocked. How, I wondered, did they stay healthy?
Among my Russian friends, soup—especially borscht—is not only a necessity but the ultimate comfort food. It’s easy to prepare, instantly warming, and incredibly satisfying—a quick remedy for a wounded soul. Russian cuisine offers a wide variety of traditional soups, from split-pea soup to chicken soup with noodles, rassolnik (pickle and barley soup), ukha (fish soup), and shchi (cabbage soup). But borscht stands apart from the rest.
This hearty soup is not just an appetiser; it's a full-fledged main dish, boasting a harmonious blend of salty, sweet, and sour flavours. A common belief is that borscht is only authentic if a spoon can stand upright in it, a sign of its thick consistency. Sour cream, the traditional garnish, adds a creamy softness to this beloved dish. While there are vegetarian versions, borscht is traditionally prepared with meat. As my mother, vaguely familiar with the concept of vegetarianism, would say, “Of course, it’s vegetarian—it’s made of vegetables! Just don’t put the meat in your bowl if you don’t want it.” Nonetheless, beetroot remains the defining ingredient of borscht.
The importance of borscht extended past the mere health benefits. My self-made, independent, divorced mother would often say, “You cannot hold your future husband with your beauty, you must learn to cook borscht. Men love the first course.” I wanted to hold my future husband, so when I was about 12 years old, I decided to start my own cookbook. I still have it somewhere in my Moscow apartment, collecting dust. Apparently, it didn’t go well because there are only six recipes in it: three elaborate cakes, an onion quiche, a basic cheese sandwich, and a simple tomato-cucumber salad, but not a trace of borscht.
So, how do you cook a proper borscht? Like all traditional dishes, there is no such thing as one "right" recipe. As I remember it, my mother taught me to cook borscht without following any recipe at all. Everything was done by eye, by taste—cutting, grating, adding a handful of this, a pinch of that. Although my mother never provided me with the recipe, she somehow instilled absolute confidence in me in the kitchen. “Can you cook borscht?” “Yes, of course, what is there to cook?”
Years later, the memories of my mother working by the stove, skillfully handling beets and carrots, gives me a soothing feeling. I always remembered the taste of her borscht and continually tried to recreate it, seeking that long-remembered comfort.
However, I recently realised that we cook completely different soups. My mother’s borscht is a rich, velvety stew simmered for hours. Mine is more hastily prepared, with the vegetables only half-cooked, each one distinguishable in the bowl. Sometimes, I wonder: "Is this even borscht or just some vegetable soup?" But then I remember my mother’s words: “Of course it’s borscht—there’s beetroot in it.” Borscht or no borscht, strangely enough, I think I prefer my almost-borscht. I like to think it’s somehow healthier. Healthy comfort food, can you imagine such a thing?
Now I find myself pondering what my daughter's take on borscht will be. Raised in Barcelona, she calls it "your red soup" and eats it obediently when there is nothing more exciting to choose from. But this isn’t new. My brother and I took our mother’s cooking for granted too. A single mother working long hours as a junior researcher, she would hurry out the door by 7:45 am, only to return at 7 pm looking like a Christmas tree, with all the grocery bags hanging off her like festive decorations. Then she would start to cook dinner. Every day, there was something new on the table – meat, fish, veggies (though chicken was strictly reserved for special occasions, stashed away in the freezer).
Our lunches were handled differently. Every weekend, my mother would fix a massive 10-litre pot of soup, ensuring we had enough to last the whole week. Borscht, of course, was a unanimous favourite among us. All we had to do each day was heat it up, add some sour cream, slice up some “Nareznoy” bread, and our lunch was ready.
Borscht’s origins have long been debated. Is it Ukrainian, Russian, or Slavic? Growing up in the 80s, I didn’t associate borscht with any particular national identity. My family didn't have the opportunity to travel around the country during those years and, as a result, we were influenced by what was portrayed in the mass media. Fueled by the Soviet state's suppression of individual national identities, I naively and mistakenly believed that borscht wasn't tied to any specific culture. However, books such as The Encyclopedia of Housekeeping (1959) and The Book of Tasty and Healthy Food (1955), distinguish Ukrainian borscht as a separate recipe, although with minimal differences. It was widely known that the best borscht with pampushky (garlic buns) could be found in Kiev.
I suspect that this loss of identity, along with the fading connection to traditional dishes, was not accidental. It was likely part of the Soviet Union’s plan to transition people from their own kitchens to communal canteens. On one hand, the goal was to liberate women from household chores and bring them into the workforce. On the other, it aimed to draw people out of the seclusion of their homes and into public spaces, where they could no longer discuss rebellious matters or express disloyalty to the regime, where their interaction could be monitored. Personal identity was replaced by the collective, and standardised canteen menus were devised to cater to everyone, yet satisfied no one completely.
In the mid-2000s, I visited an ex-Soviet institution. Before leaving, I decided to stop by the canteen, which seemed like a relic from the Soviet era, frozen in time—a living homage to the 1980s. Every detail, from the furniture to the smell, reeked of the past. Even the barmaids, with their perpetually annoyed expressions, looked as if they had just stepped out of a vintage photograph. As I perused the menu, I was amazed by the variety of forgotten but strangely familiar dishes. Yet, as always, I gravitated towards the timeless classic: borscht. Its flavour transported me back to my school days, stirring up a mix of emotions from pure joy to utter disgust. It was then that I realised I was experiencing true nostalgia, a sensation that surpassed even the memories and comfort of my mother's perfect borscht.
Tanya Zommer (b. 1974, Russia) is a visual artist and photographer currently based in Barcelona. She specialises in conceptual photography and has exhibited internationally. Tanya won the prestigious FreshFaced+WildEyed competition at the Photographer’s Gallery in London in 2015. She holds an MA in Photography from Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design, London, where she graduated in 2014.
Her work has been displayed in numerous exhibitions across Europe, including Feminam Aspectum at IESA Gallery, Paris (2022), and Rodny Sklon at the National Centre of Contemporary Arts, Minsk (2019). Other notable exhibitions include On The Waves at the Gallery of Zurab Tsereteli during the Fashion and Style in Photography Festival, Moscow (2011).
In addition to her artistic work, Tanya worked as a lifestyle and fashion photographer for Moscow-based magazines from 2004 to 2012.
Notes on Borscht:
From "Book of Tasty and Healthy Food"
Replacing homemade food products with factory-made ones and deploying a network of public catering enterprises does not imply the elimination of homemade dishes and family meals.
The preparation of homemade lunch, dinner, and breakfast, as well as traditional festive tables, is greatly facilitated by the availability of semi-finished products, canned goods, a rich assortment of ready-made culinary products, and ready-to-eat food items.
In particular, our "Book of Tasty and Healthy Food" was created at the initiative of housewives to teach them how to cook tasty and healthy meals at home. The necessity for comprehensive development in food production is also dictated by the need to fully liberate women from heavy household work.
"The real liberation of women," wrote V. I. Lenin, "and real communism will begin only where and when there is mass struggle (led by the proletariat wielding state power) against this petty domestic economy, or rather, mass restructuring of it into a large socialist economy." This restructuring began during our pre-war five-year plans and is successfully continuing at present.
Urban women workers and labourers in our socialist fields do not want to spend their time on long hours at the kitchen stove or oven. Therefore, an increasing role, not only in cities but also in rural areas, should be taken up by factory-made food products and public catering enterprises - cafeterias, tea rooms, snack bars, and mobile buffets.
When we discuss the tasks of liberating the Soviet woman from unproductive household work, we mean complete liberation of her time and energy from the burdens of housework, providing her with broader opportunities to participate in public labor on par with men, while also recognizing that childcare is one of the most important forms of public labor. The Soviet state highly values the importance of childcare, as evidenced by the well-known decision of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR to establish the honorary title "Mother-Heroine".
It is advisable to have lunch some time after finishing work when the body has had a chance to rest and a good appetite has emerged. Lunch can consist of three courses: first, a meat, vegetable, or fish soup; second, a meat, fish, or vegetable dish, either stewed or fried; and third, a sweet option such as compote, jelly, pastry, or fruit.
Some quotes from Russian internet:
It would seem that borscht is just soup.
The borscht often represents everyday cooking.
I don't need any husbands at my house
Borscht and Washing make my appearance much worse
A bathtub full of champagne is not a symbol of love, a bathtub full of borscht yes, it is.
Now I have to live a simple life,
as the marriage is broken off
Bye-bye borscht,
Hello instant soup
The longer sex, the thicker borscht
Borscht is an asymmetrical response of Slavic women to the Indian Kama Sutra.
I love you and I want to have borscht from you
I cannot say
That borscht was awful
But it definitely didn't worth
the wedding rings
“I love you”, “you are the only one”, “you are my life”, “marry me”... It's all bullshit comparing to
“you cook borscht better than my mom”. Only after those words you can believe that he is your
man.
If you choose an artist as a wife
Don't frown,
if she doesn't kiss you
or doesn't cook borscht
Bachelor's borscht, the recipe
Take a woman, preferably not fat. Then it depends on your taste. If you prefer oversalted food,
simply fall in love. If you support healthy lifestyle take a stranger woman. The cooking stove could
be gas or electric. You can buy groceries by yourself or just give her necessary money. As an
alternative, you can just grant her access to your fridge. In one hour your borscht is ready.
If he doesn't love you, he will leave you anyway. Despite the marriage certificate, your children, or
borscht at home.
A man who doesn't like borscht is practically unavailable to women.
(about men)
That's because they are mommy's boys, sissies. They got used to that daddy is “an astronaut”,
always missing. But mommy would bring their borscht and wash their underwear with her bare
hands. And now they are being so smart here eating mommy's meatballs.
You have decide, ladies. Either borscht with a normal man or feminism, working in shifts and a
gigolo at home.
Close your mouth and go to the kitchen to cook borscht!
I'm married for one year, the relationship is good
This week I cooked borscht using my own recipe
The husband didn't criticize me but today suggested to go to his mom so she could show me how to
cook borscht. He said something about “family recipe”
How would you react?
Borscht is a brand, a concept. It's an index of culinary and household skills of a woman. That is why
you should be able to cook not only borscht, but also solyanka, kharcho, shurpah, cheese soup etc.
Yes, you should to know how to cook borscht.
And the husband should provide a good piece of meat.
Lamb for plov, beef for everything else.