Disappearing Foods of Karabakh.
Even though there is a tendency towards traditional foods, many Azerbaijani dishes are disappearing. Part of this has to do with the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. Approximately 20 percent of Azerbaijan’s territory is now under control by Armenian forces. Those lands were famous for their agricultural output and represented at least one-third of our national production.
Between 1988-1990 approximately 200,000 Azerbaijanis fled Armenia. Then an additional 800,000 had to flee regions within Azerbaijan itself, such as Nagorno-Karabakh and the surrounding territory. The trauma that results is not limited to the effects brought on by psychological, economic and geographical displacement. It means that people are being cut off from their cultural roots as well, including their traditional food practices. For example, there’s a type of stuffed cabbage or grape-leaf dish known as “kor dolma” or “yalanchi dolma”. It means “false dolma” because the stuffing contains greens and grains without meat.
Kor dolma exists in other regions, but the version made by the Azerbaijanis who lived in Armenia had its own unique characteristics. Refugees are also forgetting their unique regional cuisine from the Karabakh regions. It’s been nearly 10 years since many of them were forced to flee – often with little more than the clothes on their backs. Today, living in refugee camps, they don’t access to the necessary ingredients to prepare the foods that they used to eat on a daily basis. These days, sometimes they can barely find bread to eat. In summer, many of them are living only on tomatoes and bread.
So how can refugees from the Karabakh region prepare “girkhbughun pilaf”? This regional dish calls for special wild greens that are indigenous to the region. How can refugees prepare it if they don’t have access to these plants? They’ll soon forget how to do it.
And then there are the refugee grandmothers who are passing away, unable to survive the harsh conditions of refugee life. Much of their knowledge about these foods is not documented. If these patterns continue, the next generation will not even know what their own native cuisine tasted like.
Tahir Amiraslanov is General Director of the Azerbaijan National Cookery Center, a Member of the International Judging Board, and Vice President of the Russian Cookery Experts Association.
About 2000 dishes are known in Azerbaijan cuisine. As witnessed Antony Jacson -English voyager, 150 varieties of dishes were on the table when he was invited to dinner by Abdulla khan in Shamakhi and 140 varieties presented after the table cleared.
For the richness of our cuisine we shall be grateful to housewives and specialists, as well as division of labour.
Turkish voyager Evliya Chelebi reminded that thousands of people worked at 12 aspazkhana (cook-house) relating with the names of 12 imams. They were baker, yukha maker, shatir, ash cooker, pity cookers, kebab makers, tea makers, halva makers, confectioner, syrup maker and others. Today specialists work at public-service centers under the names of the same groups of dishes and products. Such kind of division of labour and its development caused growth of similarly named dishes, for example 200 varieties of plov, 20 varieties of dolma and 20 of lula kebab are already known.
The Azerbaijani food of Karabakh is somewhat like a bridge between the cuisines of North and South Azerbaijan. The two regions share a common culinary tradition with a similar richness in variety, however with some different variants. We can witness this richness in its soups, meat dishes, vegetable dishes, fried foods, sweets, salads, various wild greens, dried fruits and nuts, drinks and pickles.
Soups of Karabakh
Dovğa: This is a type of yogurt soup, containing mint, spinach, green onions, rice, eggs, chickpeas and sometimes tiny meatballs.
Evelik Çorbası: Made with meat broth, small dumplings, sautéed onion, black pepper, salt, pepper paste and chopped evelik (fresh mung beans).
Umaç: Made with flour, water, eggs, salt and turmeric, this soup is prepared in the same way as evelik çorbası but without the mung beans.
Erişte Shorbası (Homemade Noodle Soup): Made with meat broth, this soup is prepared by boiling pinto beans and adding homemade noodles and sautéed onion.
Toyuq Shorbası: Chicken soup; this is no different than the chicken soup made in Turkey with chicken broth, meat and thin vermicelli.
Hoş: This is the same as the lamb foot soup (paça) made in Turkey, both in terms of its ingredients and method of preparation.
Bozbaş Shorbası: To make bozbaş soup: soak chickpeas overnight. Boil fatty meat with the bone in or a neck to make a broth. Add the chickpeas to the meat. Chop two large onions and add. Remove the foam frequently. Add an equal number of egg-sized potatoes and pieces of meat. Add salt, black pepper and turmeric, then sour dried plums. The plums should be the same in number as the pieces of meat. Serve with dry mint and sumac. The proper name for this dish is Karabakh bozbaş or Turkish bozbaş, and there is a special type of casserole for making it. The entire mixture is placed into this casserole and the lid is sealed with dough. It is cooked for four to five hours, until the meat is extremely tender. A few pieces of sheep tail (not tail fat) are added to the dish.
The dolma (stuffed vegetables/fruits) culture of the Karabakh Turks is also very rich:
Biber Dolması, Pomidor Dolması: Stuffed peppers and tomatoes. Run lamb through a meat grinder, as well as onion, and sauté together with the meat. To this mixture, add the scooped-out inside of the tomatoes, then salt, pepper and turmeric, as well as chopped parsley and cilantro. Fill the vegetables. Arrange in a pot, place a plate over the top, add water just to cover, and simmer till done, around 25 minutes. In Karabakh, the filling for stuffed tomatoes and peppers does not contain rice.
Badimjan Dolması: Stuffed eggplant. The filling for stuffed eggplant is exactly the same as above, minus the tomato. Slit the eggplants longwise, and salt the interior, then wait 20 minutes for the dark liquid to drain out. Then boil the eggplants. (They are not fried as they are in Turkey.) When they have softened, squeeze out the extra water and stuff with the filling as above. This dish is accompanied by a light sauce made with egg and garlic. Stuffed vine leaves and cabbage are made exactly as they are in Turkey.
Alma Dolması: Stuffed apples. Carefully clean and hollow out firm tart apples. Prepare the filling exactly as for stuffed eggplant and fill the apples with the mixture. Just as for other stuffed vegetables, weigh the apples down with a plate or something similar to keep them in place while cooking. Add half a cup of water, and let cook on a low flame. These are generally served together with other stuffed vegetables, with one stuffed apple to each plate.
Heyva dolması: Stuffed quinces. These are prepared in exactly the same way as stuffed apples.
The Turkish cuisine of Karabakh also features a rich variety of vegetable dishes.
Kükü: This dish is made from spinach and cilantro, with the addition of a bit of dill for aroma. It also contains some scallions but the main ingredients are the spinach and cilantro. Saute these in oil with the scallions till half-cooked. In a separate bowl, beat two eggs with a bit of flour, and pour half of this over the herb mixture. Flip, and sprinkle the rest of the batter over the top. Flip once again to cook, and cut into diamond shapes with the edge of a wooden spoon. It is important to use a wooden spoon in order not to destroy the vitamins. In Anatolia and greater Turkistan, wooden spoons are still identified with abundance, and several dishes are never touched with metal implements; cutting with metal knives for example, is avoided.
Bozartma: Cut lamb meat with the bone, or a lamb neck, into large pieces. It can also be made with ribs. First the meat is rubbed with a mixture of spices and onion, as well as thyme in order to reduce the smell of the meat. This mixture is mixed with a wooden spoon in a deep copper kettle and left to brown; then just enough water to cover is added. The pot is covered tightly and the meat is allowed to form a broth.
Tea in Karabakh traditional cuisine is quite a production. Among the pastries served with tea are kurabiye (various cookies), kete, rulet (rolled-up cookies), feseli (an oily bread) and others. Various nuts and dried fruits are also served.
Puzzle featuring a Pomegranate
