A Gift to Young Housewives is a Russian cookbook written by Elena Ivanovna Molokhovets in 1861, immedistely following the emancipation of the serfs in Russia. She issued numerous revisions following its publication, until the book fell out of favor in 1917, following the Russian Revolution.

The original series went through 29 editions and sold 250,000 copies. The book gave instructions for elaborate dishes like suckling pig, Madeira cake, and hazel grouse. Other recipes included soups, fritters, tortes, mushrooms, aspics, mousses, and dumplings, and was targeted at the upper classes of Imperial Russia. There were also instructions on making jam, mustard, and vodka. Although the number of recipes varied by edition, there were as many as 3,218 in the 1897 edition. In addition to recipes, the book covered cooking techniques, utensils and cooking equipment, stoves and ovens, household management, relations with servants, menus for feast days, and nutrition; it also gave time- and money-saving hints.

According to Publisher's Weekly, the book has been banned in Russia since the Russian Revolution.http://www.amazon.com/Classic-Russian-Cooking-Molokhovets-Indiana-Michigan/dp/0253360269 During the Soviet era, the book, written for the middle class and aristocrats, was condemned as "bourgeois and decadent", mainly because of its aristocratic tone and obvious disparagement of the lower classes. The book, for instance, says that "fresh roach is not very tasty and barely useful; it is, therefore, best used to feed the servants."

In the post-war USSR, a time when people dealt with food shortages, long lines, and a scarcity of the necessary ingredients, cookbooks were seen as a laughable anachronism. For example, one recipe for babka called for ingredients such as 60 to 70 eggs, which few people could afford at that time. But as life was getting better the need for cookbooks and complex recipes was arising. In 1952 "The Book of Tasty and Healthy Food" was published to replace the outdated "Gift" as an everyday cookbook.

Joyce Toomre adapted and translated recipes and other content from the various editions into a 1992 book published as Classic Russian Cooking: Elena Molokhovets' a Gift to Young Housewives. The revised version was published by Indiana University Press.http://books.google.com/books?id=Z0EkAQAAIAAJ&q=A+Gift+to+Young+Housewives&dq=A+Gift+to+Young+Housewives&client=firefox-a&cd=2