Talk:Beef Stroganoff

Date of 'invention'
The article says that the dish was inevnted in the 1890s by a chef working for Count Stroganov, but Stroganov's wikipedia page says he died in 1817. Could it have been a different Count Stroganov that the inventor was working for? --AsaRoast 10:55, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

Again, I suggest the dish was accidentally conceived by the pesants of Russia butchering cattle in the wake of the Army of France, under Napoleon. They apparently tried to hurridly preserve the meat by putting it into casks of whatever distilled alcoholic beverage they had. Later, they reconstituted the meat in a pot with whatever vegitation was available.

These events began during the time of Count Stroganov in 1812, well within his lifetime. I cannot, however, find any evidence that the Count had anything to do with the dish named in his sake.

Is it possible Much of the history of this dish is indeed lost?

Xotl 04:21, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

Appropriateness of recipe
Is the recipe really appropriate? Wouldn't it be better suited to Wikibooks Cookbook? I think the article has other redeeming features, so I don't want to tag it with, but something should be done. LW izard @ 03:12, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

If I am correct, this dish is Historic, and therefore should remain in the Standard Wikipedia.

Xotl 04:23, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

Plagerism?
The text is quite similar to (ie probably copied and pasted from) the "cooking for engineers" article linked. The copyright on that article is 2005-07-26, wheras the most recent version of the article here with similar text is 2005-10-10. It might be a good idea to re-write the article, if we didn't get permission to copy, and if the other article isn't actually a copy of wikipedia.

Folk tale?
The Food Timeline cites a few articles that indicate that the story about Count Stroganov's cook may not be true. As someone else pointed out here, Stroganov died in 1817. These quotations say that the recipe appeared first in a cookbook in 1871. Any ideas on how to proceed? JordeeBec 23:31, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure how to contribute here, and this might be lore, so here I go. (If I'm doing something out of protocol, e-mail me)

I was told the dish "Beef Stroganoff" (English spelling) originated from the wholsale butcher of livestock by the Russian population during the attempt to preserve what they could in the wake of Napolean Bonaparte's invasion of their country after 1812, by trying to preserve the cut-up meat into barrels of whatever alcohol was handy.

According to this account, later they combined the pickled meat with whatever vegitation was available- hence the dish made of alcohol, marinated meat, onions, parsly (or other greens), and mushrooms.

If this is true, it would coincide with the time and life of Count Stroganov, although I find few references to him, and no reliable connection between the Count and the dish.

It seems a likely speculation that a variation of thr recepie would have eventually been published after all parties originally involved were deceased, especially if it were remotely tasty, and the ingredients were redily available (hence the 1871 publication). it is unlikely starving Russians would have attempted to copyright any such recepie before that time.

Since so very few records from the Russian population of that time exist, this cannot be documented with any certanty since many of the retreating Russian population either died or were slaughtered during the French invasion of Russia. This is also compounded by the eradication of records which took place during the same Russian retreat, and later after the Bolshevik Revolution.

I hope some Graduate Student can fully document this someday. It might make a good thesis.

William C. WoffordXotl 03:58, 28 March 2007 (UTC)


 * Xotl, thanks for your interest in the Beef Stroganoff article. There are a few difficulties in this account. First of all, I'm not quite sure what pickled meat and starving peasants have to do with Beef Stroganoff.  Secondly, the title Count Stroganoff applied to many different individuals in the 18th and 19th centuries, so it doesn't help in narrowing down the time.  For that matter, the dish wasn't necessarily named for a Count Stroganoff (there were other members of the family).  In any event, that is all neither here nor there, because Wikipedia policy requires that we find reliable sources and not include our own original research in articles.  If you can find solid references to the history of the dish (and note that cookbooks are generally not reliable as sources...), please contribute to the article. --Macrakis 13:25, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

Consistency in the spelling of Stroganoff
Is it Stroganoff or Stroganov, or are both correct? The name of Count Stroganov suggests it should be Stroganov, but the article's title has it as Stroganoff. If both are correct, perhaps a note at start should say something like Stroganoff (also spelled as Stroganov). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 142.151.171.102 (talk) 17:00, 2 March 2008 (UTC)
 * I am Russian but it's difficult to answer. Following the original Russian spelling, it should be Stroganov (Строганов), Russian last names never end in -off, -eff but -ov, -ev. The ending is pronounced with an "F", though, as "V" loses voice at the end of a word but will sound as V when any case ending is added or in the feminine form (-eva, -ova). Some Russians used the spelling -off, -eff to distantiate themselves from Russia and Russians (Smirnov -> Smirnoff) or just to show off, as if they were foreigners. The spelling also depends if a Russian person lives in Russia or overseas. The change from V to FF will only happen if a person wants to change his name (mainly males, because females will have an "-a" added to the end). Hope this helps but feel free to ask if you're not sure. --Atitarev (talk) 00:28, 30 April 2008 (UTC)


 * But shouldn't it be strogonoff? The article mentions the original recipe being called Govjadina po-strogonovski, so I would expect it to be with an 'o' instead of an 'a' there?

The actual dish
Not to be part of the article page, but I have just done the Stroganov as in the Molokhovet cookbook. I will say that following the recipe is not possible [call for 12-15 whole allspice, and then for the allspice to be sprinkled over the beef for a marination - this is not reasonable]. But it can be done, taking the printed material as a guide - and maybe the problems are with the translation to English, I used the Joyce Tomre book. But in any case, it was a delicious and very good looking meal. --Dumarest (talk) 23:27, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

History - the book by Molokhovets
I tried to check the reference to the book by Molokhovets. I was not able to find govyadina po-stroganovski or any other similar recipe in the 1st edition (1861). Here is a Russian source: http://bookzz.org/book/367961/e1a4ab for this edition. Molokhovets worked on this book continuously for many decades. She included more and more recipes with each edition. I also found a German translation published in 1877: http://digital.slub-dresden.de/werkansicht/dlf/8237/1/. Also there I didn't find anything like this dish. In the 1901 edition, the recipe is really available. Here is the respective section (in Russian): http://www.molohovetc.ru/otdel_vii/798_govjadina_po-stroganovski_s_gorchitseju/. It is thus unclear, when the recipe was published for the first time. Therefore it is also not clear, whether it was really published before the competition of 1890. --Off-shell (talk) 21:08, 24 August 2014 (UTC)


 * Very interesting! I wonder if you can narrow down the date of the first edition in which Molokhovets included it.... --Macrakis (talk) 21:55, 24 August 2014 (UTC)


 * That's the point. I didn't find further editions. If anyone has access to some intermediate editions, that would be great. --Off-shell (talk) 22:07, 24 August 2014 (UTC)


 * The issue is resolved finally. 1st recipe was published in the 1871 edition of Molokhovets. I updated the article. --Off-shell (talk) 06:19, 2 October 2015 (UTC)

Mushroom stroganoff
At the care home where I live, I have eaten a dish called mushroom stroganoff. This sounds like a vegetarian version of the dish. Vorbee (talk) 20:24, 21 February 2020 (UTC)

The photo
Just a suggestion. But the current article's picture more looks like dry roast chicken on rice. It's supposed to look both much more saucy and ideally with lots of mushrooms. Like this. I think the page could use a far better photo than the one it currently has, as I am not even that certain that the picture is of Stroganoff and doesn't do the article justice.49.195.54.48 (talk) 07:11, 28 January 2023 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 1 June 2023
Add link to "korv Stroganoff", remove the weird "sv" link Arc2 wiki (talk) 12:34, 1 June 2023 (UTC)
 * ✅ Linked "korv Stroganoff" as MOS:INTERLINK, the "sv" will remains as " [sv] " given that the article doesn't exists here on English Wikipedia  — Paper9oll  (🔔 • 📝)  13:29, 1 June 2023 (UTC)