Incredible Inedibles pt. 2

The sunrise over the Caspian, the boulders at Gobustan, and me on the aforementioned wrecked Soviet tanker, the Bolshevik NN Manov.

But wait, there's more!

One striking feature about the food scene here is the produce. It is, in a word, indescribably amazing. The best tomatoes I've ever eaten in my life have been here, and the rest of the fruits and vegetables live up to this standard of quality. During the harvest season virtually any type of fruit or vegetable can be found in the markets here, and almost all of them are super cheap. For instance, while in the States you may pay upwards of two bucks for one decent pomegranate, I can buy a kilo here for around 50 cents. Same goes with apples, pears, tomatoes, onions, and anything else. You can get 5 kilos of potatoes here for the price of a pound in the States. And, in addition to all this wonderful stuff, there are quite a few things which are quite rare in America, and some which are not available at all. Of fruits, there are things like quince, persimmons, and strange unidentifiable melons. Stranger still are things like feyxoa, small green things that look like miniature limes and have a slightly grainy texture and sour taste. I've also been served some sort of small brown fruit resembling a radish which I can't remember the name of. Whatever it was, I quickly found out that the only way to eat them was to let them overrippen, i.e. rot, so that the flesh turned brown and gooey but tasted quite sweet.

Of course, all this amazing fresh produce would be for waste if there wasn't a way to preserve it, which is why Azeris are masters of the arts of canning and pickling. I've eaten jellies, jams, preserves and conserves of every fruit imaginable here, all homemade and kept out back in a shed in old mayonnaise jars. Additionally, pickled green tomatoes, peppers, and cabbage are served at almost every meal. Fruit compotes and juices are served quite often alongside tea at the dinner table, especially if one is sick, as they are rightfully considered to be very healthy. Also, a type of preserve made of eggplant, tomatoes, and carrots called "ikra" is eaten with bread or on pasta like tomato sauce. This confused me quite a bit when I first ate it since ikra is the Russian word for caviar, but my family and teacher assured me it's just another type of "ikra", which incidentally doesn't contain fish eggs. Nevertheless, it is quite tasty.

The harvest season only lasts so long, so once winter comes around there needs to be a way to keep fruits and vegetables in ones diet. Since they don't have a southern neighbor named Mexico here, or the money or infrastructure to import fresh tomatoes and apples in January, these people have become quite skilled at preserving what they have to be used at a later time. It is goodness.

Incredible Inedibles

One of the most interesting parts of being in a new culture is the things people eat. In the US we have a vast variety of foods from all over the world available to us, as we are a nation of immigrants, and because of this we may sometimes forget that in most countries the only things to eat are whatever the ethnic populace has to offer. Here, that means Turkish food. However, owing to the fact that Azerbaijan has, at different times throughout its extremely long history, been conquered, occupied, or inhabited by Mongols, Talish, Tatars, Persians, Arabs, Armenians and Russians (to name a few), there are a variety of different foods that have been adapted from these cultures.


In Azerbaijan, unlike in the US, there are six main food groups. They are: fruits and vegetables, meat, sugar, grease, bread, and tea. All of these are sure to be found in abundance at any Azeri meal. Eggs cooked at breakfast will usually be served swimming in a pool of grease that is equal to twice as much mass as the eggs themselves. The same goes for potatoes, pasta, and anything else that can be pan fried or have butter added to it in any way. Bread is served at every meal, usually with butter and cheese. In this part of the world bread is considered sacred, and is treated as such. None of it is wasted, and if a piece of bread is found laying the street, you will usually see someone go pick it up, kiss it three times, and then place it on top of a wall or windowsill so it won't be left on the ground. Along with bread, tea is served at all hours day and night, steaming hot. Iced tea is a foreign concept here, and considered to be unhealthy as Azeris think drinking cold liquids leads to illness. And instead of putting sugar in the tea as we do, a sugar cube is placed in the mouth and then tea is sipped through it. The final mealtime staple is sweets, which Azeris consume with such fervor that it leaves me seriously wondering how the majority of the population isn't diabetic.


As far as actual dishes go, they range from the delightfully tasty to the indescribably awful. Among the best is dolma, a mixture of rice and minced meat that is wrapped in cabbage or grape leaves and then boiled in a stock. This is by far the favorite Azeri food among all the Americans here. Also quite nice is doner, a grilled meat quite similar to gyros that can be found at most Mediterranean restaurants, which is served either in bread or lavash, a ubiquitous flatbread here that is like a cross between pita and a tortilla. Lahmajun, a staple of Turkish places here, is a flatbread pizza-like tasty treat which was, even though Azeris would never admit it, adapted from Armenia (or so I've read in my giant Russian cookbook). Furthermore, a huge variety of soups of all types are served everywhere all the time. In fact, with my host family I eat some sort of soup or stew at least once every day, sometimes for every meal. All of these are delightfully delicious, excepting one: the dreaded Xash. This evil concoction is a stew made from the head and bones of a cow. All parts of the head, brains and all, are cleaned and boiled in a pot for hours on end with the leg bones and hooves. The end product is a rank, gelatinous bowl of goo filled with unidentifiable hunks of meat which, due to being boiled for hours, are left which a texture comparable to extremely sticky, steaming-hot jello. I've been served this only once so far, and I made it through about a quarter bowl before I had to give up. I've eaten some worse things in my life (sea urchin roe comes to mind), but I gotta say it's in my top ten of nastiest things I've put in my mouth. My Azeri family and friends strongly disagree, saying that Xash is a hearty breakfast food that will make you big and strong. I told them if that's the case, I'd rather remain weak and scrawny, and I'll stick to eggs, sausage and potatoes for breakfast.

It's all just a game...

More pics, including a view of the city of Baku as well as a view of the desert outside of Gobustan. The kids from my house (the twins are Aydan and Faydan, the little girl with the pointy hat is Zeynab, my "niece" who calls me Ami (uncle), and the boy is Fared, a totally undisciplined and awful demon child about which I've said innumerable nasty things that I do not see fit to repeat here). The dude standing with me is Mehemmed, my storekeep about whom I've already spoken, and the Arabic script is on an ancient gravestone that is on display in the old city in Baku.

Azeris are, like most members of post-Soviet republics, ridiculously good at chess. I've so far I've only beaten one Azeri out of all the ones I've played, and that just because he's really not a chess player and was just playing to get a chance to speak English with me. The other day I went to my store to get a soda and was carrying a chessboard with me, and Mehemmed closed down for 10 minutes to beat me without mercy in a game. It was hilarious, every move he kept saying "Excuse me Kevin, pardon me" as he steadily wiped out every piece I had on the board. Everyone from friends and host relatives to random guys at kafes and chayxanas are so ludicrously good at this game that I feel certain that, by the time I leave this place, I will be experienced enough in chess to totally whoop anyone who challenges me.

In addition to chess, there are other games which are quite popular here, all of which we have in the US but which are played with various different rules because Azeris love to do things their own way. The most popular game, considered by many to be the national game, is nard, the Azeri version of backgammon. You can see old men sitting in shops, kafes, chayxanas, on street corners and pretty much anywhere else playing this game. Since I don't know how to play backgammon in the US, I'm not sure how the rules are different, but suffice it to say that even if I hadn't been told so I would know it's not the same as in the States. For one thing, it seems to me that every move the player is required to slam their pieces down with such force as to simulate a small earthquake. Additionally, this most important of rules is applied to every other action involving pieces which can be physically slammed onto a board or table, including, but not limited to: chess, checkers, dominos, vodka shots, paying for things, supplementing conversation and getting the attention of others. I can only hope that after two years I haven't adopted this concept, or I may find myself getting kicked out of every library and restaurant I go to.