Hutton’s Soviet stroganoff

4 min read13 min

“Correct distribution of nutrients and selection of dishes during the day is one of the most important requirements of rational nutrition.” It’s not quite Nigella Lawson, but then The Book of Tasty and Healthy Food isn’t quite How To Be A Domestic Goddess.

First published in 1939, The Book was the official cookbook of the Soviet Union. It was intended to help housewives (I use the word advisedly) prepare meals for their families that were, well, tasty and healthy. It was huge – my translated edition runs to 700 pages – and offered much more than recipes: there were instructions on how to plan menus, how to set the table, even how to use a knife and fork.

But it was also, like everything produced by the Soviet state, a work of propaganda. Published the same decade that government policies had seen millions perish as the result of famine, it painted a picture of a happy people enjoying the fruits of the communist state.

Alison Smith is professor of history at Toronto University, and the author of Cabbage and Caviar: A History of Food in Russia. She says Russia’s rulers had long worried that their people ate less meat than other nations, especially the British. “There’s this real concern that Russian peasants in particular ate very little other than bread, porridge and cabbage.” The Soviet era was supposed to bring abundance. In practice, that meant sausage, a relatively cheap form of meat that stored well.

The Book was produced under the supervision of Anastas Mikoyan, the people’s commissar of the Food Industry. He’d visited the USA and wanted to see food production modernised in the USSR. His recipe book was enthusiastic about tinned food and ice cream, the foodstuffs of the future. The promise of communism was that food wouldn’t just be more plentiful, says Smith, but of a higher quality. “It’s canned peas, it’s sausages, it’s champagne, it’s mayonnaise.”

The reality, of course, was a little different. Few comrades would ever have been able to enjoy the more luxurious meals that the book suggests, and the authors knew that. They put descriptions of three-course meals served with silverware next to advice on storing and reusing leftovers. And there was still a lot of porridge. My edition has 26 recipes, including the enticing “Buckwheat Porridge with Beef Lung” (boil the lung in salted water for 90 minutes, fry it with onions, add to porridge).

There were instructions on how to plan menus, how to set the table, even how to use a knife and fork

My butcher had no lungs to hand, so I’ve settled for making beef stroganoff. Fry onions, then chopped meat, then add sour cream and something called “Yuzhni sauce”. There are whole Reddit threads of people looking for western substitutes for Yuzhni sauce – “sweet, sour and a bit spicy” – but the general advice seems to be to use mustard.

According to Smith, the book had an aspirational message. “It is very much a sort of vision of a life that very few people actually have,” she says. “A dream of a world of plenty.” Communist children would flick through it as British kids did the Argos catalogue. Even refugees from communism would take their copy with them.

My stroganoff, accompanied by fried potatoes and broccoli, is both simple to cook and tasty. Whether half a pot of cream counts as “healthy” is a discussion I shall have with the first Soviet doctor I meet.

But if readers in the 1950s had felt the recipes offered them hope of what they might one day be able to enjoy, as the decades wore on, food shortages meant they may have felt they were being taunted by them. As the queues for food grow longer through the 80s, says Smith, “the ability to access those dreams becomes even more attenuated”.

After the Second World War, the book had claimed that the USSR, unlike Britain, had left rationing behind. But by the 1980s, it was increasingly clear that life, and food, was more abundant in the West.

“Maybe the distance started to feel too much. There start to be so many challenges that the that the dream just loses its ability to be there for people.” 

Energy security has returned to the top of the political agenda as geopolitical instability, fragile supply chains and sustained cost pressures expose weaknesses in the UK’s energy system. Too often, however, debate overlooks a critical pillar of resilience: the downstream oil and gas sector – the terminals, storage, logistics and distribution networks that deliver energy reliably to homes and businesses.

At a time of transition, this infrastructure should not be treated as a legacy system to be run down. It is a strategic national asset that must be protected and adapted to strengthen resilience today while enabling cleaner fuels tomorrow.

Recent developments illustrate why this matters. In 2025, the UK lost around a third of its refining capacity, driven largely by high operating costs. This reduced domestic flexibility and increased exposure to international market shocks. As refining capacity contracts, robust import, storage and logistics infrastructure – ports, terminals, storage and distribution – becomes even more important to managing risk, maintaining affordability and safeguarding security of supply.

It’s important for LPG too, a versatile energy source used for heating, hot water and cooking. Stored in tanks or cylinders, it provides a transportable energy source especially useful in off gas grid areas.

Calor is Britain’s leading supplier of this critical energy for rural households, agriculture, hospitality, industry and transport. These diverse applications are underpinned by a mature and resilient supply chain, developed over decades to manage fluctuations in demand and supply across regions and seasons.

Security of supply also depends on diversity of sourcing. The UK LPG market benefits from a balanced supply mix that combines domestic production (from UK refineries) with imports, over 93 per cent of which are sourced from European partners. This diversity reduces exposure to geopolitical risk and has helped insulate LPG consumers from the severe price volatility experienced by some users of heating oil in recently.

Targeted investment in downstream infrastructure delivers resilience benefits. Calor’s Canvey Island import terminal – the UK’s largest LPG storage terminal – demonstrates this clearly. A major investment programme has increased storage capacity and delivered extensive upgrades, strengthening reliability for UK customers.

Crucially, this same infrastructure is vital for decarbonisation. Calor is actively scaling BioLPG – a renewable, drop‑in fuel fully compatible with existing appliances, storage and distribution systems. It can deliver up to 90 per cent greenhouse gas emissions reductions compared with conventional LPG, without disruptive household retrofits or costly network upgrades. This makes them particularly suitable for off‑grid homes and businesses, where alternatives such as heat pumps may be less practical or affordable.         

Most BioLPG available in the UK is produced as a co‑product of sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) and biodiesel production. Since 2018, Calor has supplied BioLPG from facilities including Neste’s Rotterdam biorefinery and the Phillips 66 Humber refinery in the UK. As the UK’s SAF mandate scales, significant additional BioLPG volumes can be generated without increasing competition for sustainable feedstocks, though current market and policy incentives limit access to these supplies.

SHV Energy, Calor’s parent company, has demonstrated confidence in this model through its investment in a 100,000 tonne SAF facility in the Netherlands, due to commence operations in 2028. Their partnership with SkyNRG is expected to unlock 5,000–8,000 tonnes of BioLPG annually – enough to decarbonise thousands of off‑grid homes. The UK could incentivize this co-production in future UK SAF plants via the introduction of Renewable Liquid Heating Fuel Obligation, similar to the SAF mandate, but focused on the fuels rural communities need to heat their homes.

Continued investment in BioLPG depends on policy clarity and demand certainty, particularly for the UK’s four million off‑grid homes, where forthcoming EPC reform will shape the practical routes to decarbonisation. A phased Renewable Liquid Heating Fuel Obligation, alongside technology‑neutral heat policy and proper recognition of renewable liquid gases within EPC metrics, would provide a clear signal to investors while protecting consumers from disproportionate costs.

With the right framework in place, downstream oil and gas infrastructure can be part of a resilient, affordable and socially fair pathway to net zero. Far from being stranded assets, these networks are a durable foundation for the transition – linking energy security, affordability and decarbonisation into a credible strategy the UK cannot afford to ignore.

William Reynolds looks at the UK’s Defence Investment Plan and argues that the resources outlined match neither the commitments of the Strategic Defence Review nor the urgency of the challenges we face.

In February 2026, the UK Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer warned the Munich Security Conference that past leaders had “looked the other way, only re-arming when disaster is upon them”, and called for a rebuilding of “hard power…the currency of the age.” Fast forward four months, his Defence Secretary, John Healey, tendered his resignation, claiming the Prime Minister was “unable, and the Treasury unwilling, to commit the resources that the nation needs to defend the country”. The Defence Investment Plan (DIP), the Ministry of Defence’s response to the 2025 Strategic Defence Review (SDR) was not resourced to meet the agreed upon recommendations of the latter document. With the NATO conference in Ankara fast approaching, Britain risks having lectured for increased spending without producing the goods.

Drawing upon new research conducted with Prof Jamie Gaskarth and Dr Maeve Ryan, it becomes clear that this gap between rhetoric and reality undermines the UK’s credibility as a committed, ‘leading’ power to the NATO alliance.

The SDR itself suffered from a vague defence process, which led to a lack of clarity and prioritisation. The Review provided three general ‘Roles’ which defence was required to do– Role 1: defence of the UK and overseas territories; Role 2: successfully deterring and/or winning any fight which would occur in the Euro-Atlantic area; and Role 3: being able to shape the global security environment. Under the umbrella of ‘NATO First’, ensuring the UK “plans”, “thinks” and “acts” with NATO being the core priority in mind, these Roles are laid out for each military domain’s capabilities (Land, Sea, Air, Space and Cyberspace/Electromagnetic Spectrum) and focusses on the idea of ‘warfighting’ (fighting a peer enemy) and being able to deter a war from occurring in the first place. Examples are also provided for each, such as the Navy’s plan for ATLANTIC BASTION, a hybrid-fleet of crewed and uncrewed vessels protecting the Greenland-Iceland-UK maritime gap from Russian submarines; the British Army’s move towards a ‘Recce-Strike’ model for its land forces; and the Royal Air Force’s balance between crewed and uncrewed aircraft in its future.

The problem lies in a lack of clarity about what achieving these ‘Roles’ would mean in practice as a whole package. Role 2, defence of the Euro-Atlantic area, could range from a maritime-focussed defence of the ‘High North’ area to a doubling down on the British land-centric focus around the Baltic area. Both examples would fall under a ‘NATO first’ umbrella, but their geographical and political differences require significantly different capabilities and signal different priorities to different European states. The examples that were given are examples only, with no sufficient explanation as to how they fit into the wider armed forces’ force structure and priorities. Even with the late publication of the DIP, European allies remain unsure of British focus and current commitments, which stretch from Estonia to Iceland. Outside of some notable examples, no explanation of force structure, or specific numbers on formations and equipment have been provided. Contrast this with the Cold War, where the Defence Review of 1975 clearly defined British commitments around the ‘Four Pillars’ of defence, with a clear framework, outline of what the armed forces would look like going forward, and equipment numbers, from which allies could measure British efforts and focus.

This lack of clarity is compounded by the gap between government commitments and the resources allocated to achieve them. The 2025 SDR promised 2.6% of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) on defence by 2027, with an “ambition” to reach 3% in the next Parliament. No expert looking at the recommendations and the resource envelope concluded this was possible. Providing a fully-kitted Carrier Strike Group, funding for the Global Combat Air Program with Italy and Japan, the AUKUS nuclear attack submarine replacement programme and two Divisions with a Headquarters to NATO’s Strategic Reserve Corps, alongside many other recommendations, was never going to be achievable at 2.6%.

To meet these requirements, the Ministry of Defence calculated that an additional £28 billion over four years, on top of the 2.6%, would be needed, with £18bn being the absolute floor for defence without requiring a reduction in the size and capability of the armed forces. For this reason, both John Healey and Al Cairns resigned, as the offered £10-13.5bn was far below even this threadbare requirement. The final increase was £15bn, still £3bn below the minimum threshold. How then the UK is expected to reach the agreed NATO target of 3.5% of GDP by 2035, which is predicted to require an extra £30bn a year, seems unclear. Indeed, the British Chief of Defence Staff noted recently that even more (3.5%) was necessary to “deliver the vision” set out in the SDR and agreed upon by the Prime Minister.

In 2021, the SDR’s predecessor, the Integrated Review, called for the UK to use its “convening power” to bring together partners to meet shared challenges. Britain has long played on its role as the leader of defence within Europe, but this is no longer the case. Germany, Poland, Norway and many others have significantly pushed their defence spending above and beyond 3% of GDP.

There is growing “frustration” with the UK’s rhetoric on defence. Despite regularly referring to itself as a leading European nation of NATO, the atrophy of the armed forces no longer reflects this. European defence firms and allies have noted the slowness of Britain’s translation of promises to reality. Whilst both NATO and the European Union have called for its members to be ready to deter or fight Russia by 2030, reportedly the UK currently sits at 31 of 32 on a NATO league table of rearmament. The spending gap will only deepen the issue.

Yet , despite the significant overstretch, successive governments has continued to reach for the armed forces as a preferred response to crises, setting commitments like de-mining in the Middle East, a possible Coalition of the Willing in Ukraine, alongside the vagueness of the SDR, without the commensurate resources to facilitate it. Indeed, the Prime Minister “disagrees” that said resources are required. The consequences are a stretched to breaking-point armed forces, unfulfilled promises and resulting loss of confidence from European partners in British defence capability. It is time political rhetoric matched reality. Either the UK accepts a reduced defence role in Europe, or it puts its money where its mouth is.

By Dr William Reynolds, Advanced Education Pathway (AEP) Lecturer in Defence Studies, Defence Studies Department, King’s College London.

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