FOOD IN TURKMENISTAN

Turkmen food is more similar to food found in Turkey, the Middle East, China and Muslim countries than food found in Russia. Because Turkmenistan is a Muslim country pork is hard to find but mutton and other sheep products and pultry are common. All parts of the sheep, including the eyeballs, brains, head and tail, are eaten. Mutton itself is often fatty. Beef, camel meat and goat meat are served in some places. Fish and caviar from the Caspian Sea are available.

Turkmen have traditionally eaten great discs of whole-wheat bread cooked fresh everyday. A typical dinner consists of pilaf and bread and vegetables. Pots of mutton are cooked above mud-walled stoves were prepared for special meals. A popular snack is dried melon, which looks like twisted cinnamon bread. Melons are popular as they are throughout Central Asia. Turkmenistan has even dedicated a special holiday - known simply as Melon Day - to celebrate the fruit's delights.

Paul Theroux wrote in The New Yorker: “I spent... my time in Ashgabat doing what Turkmen like doing most: sitting on a lovely carpet, eating my way down a spit of lamb kebab or through a mound of rice plov. Always there was hard bread, sometimes dumplings; usually there was tea, sometimes wine.

The most popular dish in Turkmenistan is pilav, better known as pilaf, or in Russian, plov. It is cooked from lamb, carrots, rice and onions. Shurpa is another common dish. It is a soup made with mutton broth with potatoes and tomatoes. The most widespread meat dishes are: chorba, gainatma, dograma, govurma, govurdak, shashlick (kebap). Besides mutton game meat is very popular: partridges, hares, goitered gazelles. Turkmenistan melons are known for their honey-like. They were exported even during pre-Islamic times.

The world's first pears, apples and apricots evolved from wild plants found in Central Asia. Melons are very popular in Central Asia. They are sweet and delicious and are full of water and act as natural canteens. Melons are often served as a dessert or snack with tea. Markets are often filled with huge piles of them. Melons are often given as a gift and a gesture of welcome and farewell.

Niyazov renamed some foods.


Turkmen Cuisine

Turkmenistan has develop under the influence of its unique history and geography. The traditional Turkmen nomadic lifestyle and the severe conditions of living in the desert have both shaped the culinary traditions of the Turkmen. Among the main features of Turkmen cuisine are its simplicity and low cost both in terms of ingredients and cooking methods.

Turkmen national cuisine has a lot in common with cuisines of other Central Asian people, particularly the Uzbeks and Karakalpaks. However, it differs from them in a number of features, namely the large variety of fish dishes owing to Turkmenistan’s location on the Caspian Sea. Turkmen use different vegetables than Uzbeks and Tajiks and eat them in different ways. Radish and tomatoes are used more often. Onions are eaten raw and used as a seasoning. Pumpkins and carrots are rarely used.

Turkmen like to use mutton fat and sesame oil for frying and cooking meat, course-grain dishes sweets. The spices used in Turkmenistan are slightly different from the ones used in Uzbekistan and Tajikistan. Turkmen widely use red and black pepper, mint, wild parsley, azhgon ( a spice also known as jowan caraway, bishop's weed or carom that originated in the eastern Mediterranean, possibly Egypt,,buzhgun (galls of a pistachio tree). Instead of turmeric Turkmen use saffron and garlic.

Modern Turkmen cuisine is known for its dough-meat dishes. Ones similar to Kazakh beshbarmak are "gulak", "belke", "kurtuk". Manty are called "berek".Some people think they are unique Turkmen dishes but they are simply common Central Asian dishes with Turkmen names.


Turkmen Dishes

Turkmen Dishes include a surprising number of vegetarian dishes: cornmeal pancakes, herb-filled pastries, masishulye (mung bean porridge), pumpkin and corn meal, and kutab (pumpkin and spinach pie). The meat dishes tend to be heavy and laden with fat or grease. Among these are gouk (round bread with mutton fat), kuurma (lamb cooked in its own fat), lyulya kebab (seasoned mince lamb), shurpa (mutton, potatoes and vegetables with parsely and soul cream), kakmach (mutton with hot, spicy gravy), fat soup and camel intestine. From the Caspian Sea comes excellent caviar and delightful smoked sturgeon.

Turkmen like camel and sheep milk. They are used as the basis for fermented dairy products such as "agaran", "chal", "kara gurt", "telemeh", "sykman", "sargan". Cow milk is used for making creamy and melted butter, sour milk ("gatyk"), a special kind of sour milk called "suzmeh" and a hard cheese called "gurt" (curd). "Peinir" cheese is made from goat's and sheep's milk. Camel milk is used for making Turkman favorite beverage "chala".

Most dairy products are served with soups and main courses. To make suitli ash (dairy mash): put salt and sugar and washed rice in boiling water to make mash. In 20 minutes pour in hot milk and continue cooking on small fire for another 30 to 40 minutes. Serve with butter.


Turkmen Bread and Dough Dishes

Traditional Turkmen bread is called chorek. Among the most popular breads are various flatbreads made from sour dough (katlama) and yagly çörek (literally "oily bread"), a flaky, layered type of flat bread made with butter. Turkmen bread is prepared differently from other breads in the region in thick, round disc-shaped loaves baked in a traditional tamdyr clay oven. Bread baked with meat inside ("etli çörek," or "meat bread") can be consumed as a meal in itself.

Turkmen have a special attitude toward bread. Cooking chorek is considered an art. The tandyr (a clay oven) where chorek is baked is considered the most sacred place in a house and chorek is always treated with respect as it were an honored guest in itself. Turkmen consider bread and salt sacred. Stepping on them, Turkmen believe, will bring misfortune.

Bread in Turkmenistan and elsewhere in Central Asia is considered sacred. It should never be cut; rather its should be broken apart with the hands. It should never be placed on the ground, thrown away or turned upside down. If you have a big piece of bread, break it into pieces and give everyone around you some pieces. After breaking a piece of bread, people cup their hands together and pass them over their faces as if washing. Thus is a Muslim gesture of thanks.

To make Turkmen bread, stiff dough is rolled out in a thin layer, greased and rolled back. The roll is cut in strips which are folded in circles. The resulted circles are slightly pressed down and rolled out. A small hole is made in the middle. Flatbreads are fried in a plenty of oil. Chorek is slapped on inside of tandyr.


Turkmen Dough Dishes

Turkmenistan is known for by various dishes made from flour. Among the most popular dough dishes are patties (gutap) with different stuffings and meat cakes (etli nan). Unleavened dough is used for cooking pel'meni (borek) and noodles (unash) seasoned with sour milk.

Etli Borek (pel'meni) is made with flour, minced mutton, onions that are chopped twice, salt, pepper and water. Unleavened dough is rolled out, cut in strips. These are used for wrapping the minced mutton mixture. The ready pel'menis are boiled in salty water. They are served with sour milk or sour cream.

Shilekli (deep fried patties) are made with dough kneaded with butter and eggs and thinly rolled out and cut in 15-by-15 -centimeters squares. A twice minced salted and peppered mixture of mutton and onions is put in the middle of the square and wrapped into triangular pouches. Then the patties are deep fried.

Gutap (patties with onions) is made with stiff unleavened dough that is rolled out to two 2 millimeter layer. Flat pieces are cut out and smeared with raw egg. A mixture made of finely chopped green onion, fennel, parsley and some butter is put in the center of the flatbreads and wrapped in the form of a half moon. The patties are fried in plenty of fat. They are served hot.