“FROM THE FOREST PASHA”: ON THE ETHNOLINGUISTIC INTERPRETATION OF THE NORTH RUSSIAN NAMES OF MUSHROOM AND BERRY DISHES

Abstract

The article discusses the dialect vocabulary associated with the traditions of food-gathering in the Russian North: specifically, the names of mushrooms and berries—reflecting the features of their preparation and culinary properties—and the names of dishes made from forest products. The article was based on dialect, folklore, and ethnographic data from the Arkhangelsk, Vologda, and Kostroma regions, including unpublished data collected by the toponymic expedition of the Ural Federal University. The article reveals the features of the categorization of forest products in the language of the North Russian peasants, local features of the plant diet, as well as the possible impact of the Finno-Ugric food culture. The ethnolinguistic approach involves taking into account the quantitative ratio of lexemes, ideographic, and areal analysis of vocabulary, identifying its semantic and motivational connections. The analysis of the material established that a significant range of linguistic units and folklore are associated with the topic of picking mushrooms and berries in the Russian North. Categories and concepts characteristic of the culture of gathering are identified: “number of mushrooms / berries collected at a time”, “forest hosts of mushrooms and berries”, “generic names of forest products” (vologa, oboshcha), and “especially valuable forest products” (tsarskie “royal” mushrooms, berries, fish). The names of mushrooms and berries indicate the methods of their preparation, nutritional properties, and composition. The names of the berry dishes reflect the influence of the Finno-Ugric culinary tradition (compare the possibly borrowed designations of flour cereals with berries—the Arkhangelsk words galagatka, kiprishikha, the Arkhangelsk and Vologda word lyas). Folklore texts and narratives preserve plots and ideas about gathering: men as typical mushroom pickers, children and girls are berry pickers, each village having its own territory for collection, the exclusion of strangers from certain locations, the local specialization of territories (e.g. Vologda-originated nicknames such as vologodskie ryzhiki, obabki, etc.), and others.