Well, mostly it's about the meat. Lamb, mutton, chicken - probably some goat and horse thrown in there for good measure. Butchery isn't much of an art here, so there are no fillets, no lamb chops, and if you only like the breast of a chicken, you've come to the wrong place. Here the meat is chopped crudely with huge cleavers, and arrives on your plate complete with bone, skin and, most unappetisingly, unfathomable quantities of fat. Boy do they love their fat in Uzbekistan! It's all tasty enough, but not pretty to eat - and while the first five shish kebabs of a two-week holiday might taste deliciously exotic, upon realising that these compose the main part of the country's diet, the lack of variety soon becomes ... well, slightly dull to be truthful! But the smell of barbecuing lamb, smoky and savoury, is an intrinsic part of Uzbekistan life, and will forever take me back to Samarkand, Bukhara, Khiva and all the other beautiful places we visited on our trip.
Thankfully, it is also possible to find fruit and veg, especially in the lush and verdant Fergana Valley in the east of the country, where we spent the first three days of our trip. Produce markets abound in this fertile area, the beauty being that very little food is imported, so seasonality is everything. May is the time for luscious strawberries, juicy tomatoes, plump cherries and a baffling array of potato varieties. The traders put a huge amount of effort into displaying their produce carefully and beautifully - some of them producing real works of art - which makes wandering around these bustling markets a true pleasure.
The observant reader will have spotted that pescatarian Hippo may have struggled to find food in a double-landlocked country so clearly obsessed with animal flesh. Well, yes, that's true to a point. But by lowering expectations in terms of variety (and indulging in the occasional Snickers bar - OK, so they do import
some food) I actually managed fine by grazing on handfuls of nuts, fruits and sweet treats picked up at various markets, and by sampling the various salad options that were presented to me along the way. The most baffling of these was referred to as "fresh salad" (as opposed to old, mouldy salad?!) which in all parts of the country consists of tomato and cucumber, sometimes with onion and always with dill. Dill is omnipresent in Uzbekistan. They have a multitude of herbs to choose from - we saw basil, coriander, parsley, thyme, you name it -but dill is certainly the herb
du jour. Salad on its own might have made for a fortnight of meagre mealtimes, but happily there was always
non. Non (bread) is the staple food of Uzbekistan, and the one foodstuff that actually varies from area to area. In the east it is fluffy inside and crisp on the outside; in central Samarkand it is more chewy, like a bagel; and in western Khiva the bread is flatter and altogether crisper. In all cases, however, non is cheap, tasty, comforting and, this pescatarian can confirm, makes wonderful tomato sandwiches.
First up was what, on paper, sounds like a very simple dish: Aubergines with Onion and Tomato. But once the aubergine has been fried and the tomatoes have been bubbling with plenty of herbs and seasoning for a while, it turns into a sumptuous, almost decadent dish that's just crying out to be mopped up with plenty pide bread.
Next was Sigara Boregi, or fried cheese pastries. Not exactly the arteries' best friend but what the heck, we're on holiday.
The final savoury dish were dolmas, vine leaves stuffed with meat instead of the usual rice. Lamb is a very popular meat in Turkey - as throughout the Middle East - and seasoned with mint, parsley, dill and lemon juice, it goes well with the vine leaves' distinctive flavour.
To finish it all we made a simple Turkish rice pudding, using only milk, sugar and rice, to be served cold with a sprinkling of cinnamon at the end of our feast.
