This
co-authored book provides the description of the recipes of a longlist of dishes
prepared in the Pamir Mountains of Afghanistan and Tajikistan. It also gives
details of the various days of celebrations in this region. I found many
interesting points in this book.
A
day without Shirchoy in the Pamirs is
impossible to imagine. Shirchoy isn’t
from these valleys and tea cannot even be grown here. Shirchoy has become more Pamiri than most Pamiri dishes.
In
the book the authors inform the reader that farmers in Tajik Rushan tell how,
during the Civil War (1992-1997), foreign aid agencies promoted a high-yielding
wheat variety to help prevent famine. Later they realized that they made a bad
choice as the new variety rotted when placed in the field to dry and the taste
was also poor. According to some people the best tasting mixed floor comes from
Ghund valley in Shugnan.
One
of the apple species found in the area is the ancestor of all cultivated apples
in the world. Malus sieversii belongs
to the Pamirs and the Tien Shan Mountains in Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan further
to the north. Other fruit trees in the region includes Walnut. The oldest
Walnut tree in the Pamirs is a 700-year-old tree in the Tajik valley of
Yazguliam. A group of Cuban scientists did the measurements.
Talking
about the factor of dependency one farmer from Chidz says: “We became lazy
because we received everything”. “We became dependent on Soviet fuel and we are
still dependent today. Afghans aren’t. The war has given them an instinct for
survival. They are always ready to work. They are ready for everything. When we
have a problem, we go and look for a development agency and ask for help. When
Afghans have a problem, they look for a development agency and ask for help.
When Afghans have a problem, they look for a solution. We feel powerless,
because we have become linked to a global system which is entirely out of our
control. If oil prices go up, we suffer. If Moscow hits a recession, we feel it
here.”
In
the book there is also mention of the Haji Rehman Qul. Russian soldiers came to
Haji Rahman Qul’s tent at night. He and his father were given the option of
getting shot or drink poison. They preferred poison. As soon as the soldiers
left the khan fetched a large bowl of yoghurt and drank from it. They vomited
it up and rid their bodies of the noxious fluid.
The
Amu Darya is a very fast flowing river; only the Mississippi and the Indus move
more quickly. As far as irrigation is concerned many villages were quite
autonomous in the way they maintained and used their water supply, but as
governments, and their thirst for water, changed, so did the freedom
communities had over their water. During the Soviet collectivization of land in
Tajikistan, first under Lenin then under Stalin, water managements continued to
be collective, but its control was taken out of the hands of the people and
transferred directly to the central state. Today very few Tajik Pamiri villages
have a proper system of water management at all.
This
heavy book has a lot of pictures and I doubt if anyone has more encyclopedic information
on the subject of food in the Pamir region of Afghanistan and Tajikistan.
