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.