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From time immemorial, the vast deserted expanses of Turkmenistan were inhabited by nomadic cattle-breeding tribes. Farmers, instead, settled down in rare oases in the flood-lands of the Amu-Darya, Murgab and Tejen Rivers; whereas those living on the Caspian Sea coast engaged themselves in fishery. Such a variety of natural conditions as well as unlikeness of habits and traditions of tribes populating the country, have defined the peculiarity of Turkmenian national cuisine, which significantly differs from the culinary traditions of other Central Asian nations.
Turkmenian dishes are mostly meat dishes. In different regions of the republic meat of different animals such as sheep, camel, mountain goat, quail and pheasant is used. Beef is not a traditional meat that Turkmenian people eat. Cooking practices are also diverse: meat can be fried in its own juice or being skewered it can be roasted over the red-hot coals; sometimes it is baked in tandyr - clay oven. Turkoman people (the locals living in the east of Turkmenistan) used to preserve meat in an unusual way, garin. Small slices of meat or fat are laid tightly into a sheep's or goat's stomach rubbed with salt and capsicum. The stomach then is dug into hot sand for a day. Late in the evening it is dug out from the sand and tied up to a high stick so as a night wind could blow it from all sides. The procedure is repeated several times. Meat, dried this way, has a special taste and can be kept for a long time.
Turkmenian soup, gaynatma, is cooked from young camel meat. To give it more piquancy, garlic, saffron, mint, capsicum are added alongside with onion and pot-herbs. The same recipe is used in cooking of dograma soup, but instead of camel meat mutton is used and berries of sour plum are added into the dish during cooking. The soup is served with the dry-bread, patyr, crumbled into it.
Pilav, favorite dish in all Central Asian countries, has its own peculiarities in Turkmenistan. For Turkmenian ash, as pilav is named here, the meat of game birds, for instance pheasant, is used instead of traditional in Central Asia mutton or lamb. Turkmenian ash is made of green rice; carrots are partially or completely substituted for apricot, whereas sheep's fat is substituted for sesame oil. The dish is served with sauce made of sour plum tkemali, and pomegranate juice. Only in the pre-Caspian areas ash is cooked from mutton or lamb, and rice is boiled separately before being mixed with the meat.
Camels, the 'ships of the desert', are closest friends of nomads. Bactrian camels, strong and sturdy, used to carry cargo along the paths of the Great Silk Road from Merv to Iran, and from Khorezm to the coast of the Caspian Sea. Camel's wool warmed people during cold winter nights, camel's milk appeased thirst and hunger, whereas the meat of a young camel was considered to be the delicatessen in old times.
And today a guest in the yurt of the Turkmenian cattle-breeder will be treated to black tea, brewed in fresh milk of a camel, and thin round flat bread chapad, which is baked in tandyr, or round flat bread ekmek fried in a very hot vegetable oil.
In the midday heat the traveler will undoubtedly be offered a cup of chal, probably the most exotic Turkmenian drink. To make chal, a hostess mixes warm fresh camel's milk with a special ferment and leaves it for forty eight hours in the shadow, from time to time stirring it and skimming fatty foam, agar, off. This sourish, slightly aerated drink can perfectly slake your thirst.
Turkmenian cuisine is noted for a variety of dished made from milk. Camel's milk, which tastes sweet and is rich in vitamin C, is used for making yogurt, butter and melted butter. Soft refreshing drink, airan, is made of whey, left after churning butter.
Sheep's milk is used for making teleme - curds and sakman - soft salt - free cheese.
Though sounds incredible, the national Turkmenian cuisine is famous for its fish-dishes. Traditionally, fish holds central place in the cuisine of the peoples living on the Caspian Sea coast. They use fresh newly fished sturgeon, grey mullet, cat-fish and zander. Sturgeon is often used for making shish-kebab and balyk kaurdak - fish fried in its own fat in a cauldron.
Fish is oddly combined with the products not characteristic to the European cuisine: rice, raisins, apricot, pomegranate juice and sesame. However, well thought-out ratio and neatly selected combination of fish, spices, fat, oil, and sour-sweet seasoning impart unexpected piquancy to the dishes.
In order to cook such dishes as gaplama, chome or fish-pilav, fish is first cured by drying, and then it is fried, boiled or stewed in its own juice.
There is a catch-phrase about distinction as to culinary traditions and preferences of the Caspian Sea Turkmen population and the locals from the eastern regions. It goes as follows: "When an eastern Turkmen is treated to sturgeon dish, he, wishing to delight his host, says, 'It tastes like lamb meat'. When a dweller of the Caspian Sea region is regaled with lamb dish, he praises it with the words, 'It really tastes like sturgeon!'
Copyright 2009 Ahal Syyahat. All rights reserved.