Culture and cuisine in Central Asia
Stephen Scourfield finds diversity and freshness in the food of a region still steeped in manual agriculture.
Plov, shashlik and samsa. Potatoes just pulled from the ground. Tomatoes and watermelons ripened by the sun and brought straight from the fields. And for meal after meal, the entree is a big, fresh salad, the bowl often with a whole handful of dill.
Food throughout Central Asia tends to be close to its source.
A big mix of rice with shredded turnip or carrot and pieces of meat, fried in a cauldron, plov (also called osh) is the national dish of Tajikistan and many Tajiks eat it every day.
Samsas are pockets of meat and vegetables — or perhaps just spinach — wrapped in flaky pastry or bread, similar to Indian samosas.
Sashlik is cooked over coals — arrow-sized skewers, usually of meat to go with salads, sometimes with onions and vegetables too. This style of cooking was developed by the armies roaming the country here. They’d carry meat in a pocket, dig a hole, soak an arrow and cook in a fire in the ground to avoid being seen.
And, indeed, it is thought by some that Alexander the Great (356-323BC) had his Asian cooks devise plov as a meal his troops could eat once and be full all day. “Poluv” translates to “diverse mixture” in ancient Greek.
But many Tajiks believe 10th century Persian scholar Ibn Sina invented plov — “palov osh”, an acronym compiled from its main ingredients of rice, carrots, meat, onions, oil, salt and water as written in Uzbek.
Breakfast at Ashu guest house in Bystrovka, Kygyzstan. Picture: Stephen Scourfield
Along the roadsides there are little stalls with buckets of apples. Often it is young men and their small children who sit a little way from them, just down the car-less drive, hoping someone will stop.
In their orchard gardens are peach and cherry and apricot trees. At every meal jam is served — not jam that has been boiled but a conserve of fruit, perhaps just mixed with half its weight in sugar and left to turn into a thick, but pure, syrup.
First course at meals is most usually homemade bread that’s crusty on the outside, soft and nutty in the middle. Bread is particularly important, and considered blessed in Kyrgyz culture. A good host always offers bread to a guest.
There are flat-breads and dark, sturdy Russian breads.
And for first course, too, big salads. Tomatoes that are soft, truly ripe and bursting with flavour. Big handfuls of parsley, served like we might use lettuce. Handfuls of dill, dark green and soft as lace.
At breakfast there are fluffy savoury pancakes and, one morning, cottage cheese that’s light as candy floss, another morning a sweet-and-salty sheep cheese, another a smoked cheese that is soft and aromatic.
Kyrgyzstan, in Central Asia, benefits from being close to its food sources. It is steeped in manual agriculture — a donkey pulling a plough, Soviet-era combine harvesters still operating.
For older people here, the hard years as part of the Soviet Union are almost obscured by the terrible years that followed the Soviet collapse in 1991. They were left immediately alone, with the job of setting up and running a country.
Kyrgyzstan is geographically in the heart of Central Asia, and still one of the poorest countries in the region. About 65 per cent of the workforce is employed in agriculture. It is estimated that three-quarters of the country’s poor live in rural areas.
One of its problems is simply topography. More than 90 per cent of the country is more than 1000m above sea level — 40 per cent is above 3000m. So animal herding is the major source of livelihood for much of the rural population, which represents two-thirds of the overall population.
But on the lowlands, wheat, barley, maize, potatoes, vegetables and fruits are grown. Such fruits.
And here, on the visitors’ table, is this extraordinary food, from sources nearby.
On Travel Directors’ Five Stans tour, in the town of Karakol in Kyrgyzstan, there’s dinner in a local restaurant, in a converted traditional wooden Russian house. It has gold swirly wallpaper, three framed Russian portraits, maroon net curtains, and among a local group in the next room, a man is singing.
He comes through to sing to us, several times, as we dine on a Russian mushroom salad and vegetable soup laden with dill.
And the next night, dinner at a real local home — welcomed by Halbubu Turdieva and her family into first their courtyard to watch local dancers, and then their home for a specially prepared dinner, from local soup to samsas.
Food and culture, intertwined, and offered on a plate to the visitor in Central Asia.
FACT FILE
Stephen Scourfield spent time in Central Asia as part of the Five Stans tour by Travel Directors. The Five Stans visits Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan. The next departure is from May 3-30, 2015, and the 28-day tour costs from $13,950 twin share. This includes all flights, accommodation, most of meals, highlights and surprises, Travel Directors tour leader, local guides, visas and gratuities. traveldirectors.com.au, 137 Cambridge Street, Leederville, 1300 856 661 and 9242 4200.
China Southern Airways flies direct between Perth and Guangzhou and connects with 190 destinations in 40 countries, offering full-service flying at low-cost prices. Visit csair.com.au or during business hours phone 1300 889 628. Its office is open at Suite 4, Level 2, 3 De Vlamingh Avenue (off Adelaide Terrace), East Perth, from 9am-5pm, Monday to Friday, or ask travel agents.
