How to cook Parmantier soup? What is beignet-o-pomme? How are sour cabbage soup different from lazy cabbage soup? Who first cooked Marengo chickens? Why is porridge called Guryev's? The reader will find answers to these and dozens of similar questions in the book of Elena Mushkina. - The basis of the story is lectures at the First Practical School of Cookery, in which Zinaida Ivanovna Mushkina, the author's grandmother, studied.