19th-Century Apple Pie With Salted Caramel Brought Back to Life

In Chita, a chef from a local restaurant and a museum employee baked an apple pie with salted caramel using a 19th-century recipe from a cookbook preserved at the Museum of the Decembrists.

The book, nearly 200 years old, was filled with recipes handwritten by the Decembrists themselves and their wives, who copied them from an 1818 culinary collection. Some entries were likely made by the daughter of a local official, who later married one of the exiled nobles.

The chef had to convert the old-fashioned measurements into modern units—replacing futs (feet) and lomtey (slices) with grams and whole pieces.

A museum staff member noted that the book contains another curious recipe: a "sparrow pie." This was more of a playful trick for children—when the pie was cut, live birds would fly out. A video of the historic pie's preparation is available on the social media pages of the Transbaikal Regional Museum.

[How the wives' letters helped the Decembrists endure years of separation.]