Tasty?

12:30 18 August 2008

I was eating lunch today and was reminded of several things that I wanted to address in my third sensory article. So here goes it:

Taste

Kyrgyz food is certainly not bad. The summer produce here is better and fresher than most of the stuff in America and the prepared dishes definitely hold their charm. I feel that a Kyrgyz restaurant could do all right in the States. Having said that, food is probably the number one thing I miss about America. Primarily, I miss the diversity of dishes in America. Even ignoring eating out, American home cooked cuisine draws from all sorts of influences and includes all sorts of foods from burritos to pasta to ramen. My experience in Kyrgyzstan has been, so far, that most dishes are variations on a theme and that most Kyrgyz (or in my case Russian/Kyrgyz) food can be fairly confidently stereotyped. The food is nearly always greasy (they put oil on everything included vegetables) and salt is the primary/only seasoning. In terms of types of dishes, soup is an omnipresent staple, potatoes and onions are in nearly everything, and much like the tea, everything is always steaming hot regardless of the weather.

An interesting cultural phenomenon in Kyrgyzstan is an almost endemic phobia of all things cold. Perhaps it comes from fear from the bitter winters, but there are widely held myths about the negative powers of cold things. Therefore, there is never anything remotely cold at most dinners even in the summer. These myths mean that girls are told never to sit on the floor without a mat lest their ovaries freeze and I was told not to drink kompote (nectar drink) that had been in the freezer and had chunks of ice in it because they thought it would give me a sore throat. So far, I have found condolence only in the ice-cream here, which, by the way, is quite good, even though it’s not American-cold.

Before I elaborate further on my personal opinions of the food here, let me discuss what many of my meals comprise of. The main component of most meals is some kind of soup, I have had innumerable servings of borsht (beet soup), lagman (noodle soup), barley soup, potato soup, onion and potato soup, and glupkie (dumpling soup and my favorite kind). If not soup, the main course is usually plov (the national dish which is a variant of rice pilaf), this fried potatoes and onions dish (kind of like homefries without the seasoning), a noodle dish, a vegetable stew (yummy especially when it has eggplant), or some kind of meat (invariably the meat is extremely fatty, lean meat here is an alien concept for both practical and taste preferences). In addition to the main course, every meal has bread, some kind of salad, often includes a side meat such as cold sausage or occasionally some type of oil-soaked perogie or pancake. The bread is always a white loaf that is either bought or baked in the house and is always accompanied with butter; I like the bread a lot but miss wheat. Salad is an all-inclusive term but is by no means an American salad (oh my goodness, I would love a blue-cheese salad right now, this entry is making me so hungry for food from home). Usually, salad is vegetables picked from the garden (most frequently tomatoes and cucumbers) and doused with salt and oil or mayonnaise- I’d prefer the vegetables alone, but this is the Kyrgyz way. As you can probably see, basically everything that they eat here is drenched in some kind of oil, butter, or fat.

As many of you know, I was a vegetarian for about twelve years in the States. When I found out that I was headed to Kyrgyzstan and read about the cuisine there, I decided to suspend my vegetarianism for my service. In order to prepare myself, I started eating meat slowly a few weeks before I left. I realized that while I did miss being a vegetarian, it was true that meat could indeed taste really good. Despite it being my major impetus for abandoning my lifestyle, Kyrgyz meat has under whelmed me. Like I said before, Kyrgyz food is as a rule extremely greasy, and the meat that is prepared here is no exception. Pieces of meat tend to have very little “meat” on them, and I have gotten used to accidentally chomping down on a piece of fat or cartilage. I’ve learned to just close my eyes and swallow. It’s interesting because my I have told my family that I was a vegetarian for so long in the states and they were impressed, confused, and shocked (they said it wasn’t healthy and that I would be taller if I had eaten it, to which I replied that I was glad that I stopped eating it then). Since I told them that, and they noticed that while I will indeed try everything, I really do prefer dishes with less or no meat in them, they have served me less.

As I said before, I really don’t mind Kyrgyz food much. I’m not a terribly picky eater, and I will enjoy the produce in the summer. Mostly, I will just be tired of the food, and I am worried about the even more decreased diversity in eating during winter time. While I doubt Americans will be making pilgrimages for the plov of Kyrgyzstan any time soon, I highly doubt I will be starving in this country for lack of want.