A 19th-century Russian meal revolves around zakuski (small savory bites set on the table), a hot soup centerpiece (shchi, borscht), a fish or kasha dish, and above all endless tea from the samovar with black bread and jam. For a busy scholar like Mendeleev, the sequence often shrank to a quick soup and endless glasses of tea.

Two absolute markers of the Russian table of the era: black tea kept boiling hot in the samovar (Mendeleev drank prodigious amounts) and the acidity of rye — black bread, kvass, fermented cabbage — the backbone of Russian taste.