This is from my first evening in Bandi Amir and I think I was walking over to see the lakes at night. On the way over to the lakes we passed a “Kabob shack” (not sure if that was its official title but they were making kabobs there) and behind the shack were a bunch of fresh pelts lying in a pile so I had to take a picture (more about pelts in the next pelts picture which came a few days later).
I love to snack, it’s a curse of sorts (hey, we all have our vices) but as soon as I got to Afghanistan I began my search for the “proverbial sunflower seed” (In the US I have taken to eating unshelled Chinese sunflower seeds [I got started on them while in Beijing, stopped for awhile and then found that some Chinese Asian markets, not Japanese, Korean, or southern Asian carry them] because they are cheap, tasty, healthy and take a bit of effort to eat so it keeps my mouth busier than my stomach, a good thing), something that was yummy, cheap, and not too many calories.
Well I found they have pistachios here and due to my poor math and converting Afs to USD I misunderstood their cost (they are about $4/lb here, not exactly cheap) so I bought a bag of them. Apparently the Iranians are not as picky about the “crackability” of their nuts so many of the nuts are a bit difficult to open, good for me I guess. The one thing that struck me was the way they salted their nuts, I believe in the US the process normally involves soaking the nuts in salt water then roasting them (not sure about that though) but the Iranian version they have what looks like hard cake icing but is salt flavored and they dribble it over the nuts, shell and all. I don’t think this is a particularly effective way to do it since I find myself sucking on the shells to I don’t feel like I am eating unsalted nuts. Anyway, I am quite curious about the composition of the salt icing (perhaps corn starch, salt, and some liquid?) and will continue to probe my Afghan colleagues.
Ok, so I *think* they are made from milk curd but I am not sure; I have had difficulty getting a clear description of how they are made. I have had similar looking and similar tasting sweets in Indian restaurants in the US so I thought I would try the Afghan versions. These are pretty good too, but perhaps a wee bit less sweet than the Indian ones (which I believe are sweetened with honey). They are cheap, common, and tasty an unfortunate combination since they add kilograms (to my waist) per ball and they are milk (I am mildly allergic to milk and suffer a bit every time I eat them, but the milk-factor does help my [admittedly weak] will power).
I am not sure if the vegetation collected here is weeds to be used for fire or fodder for animals (I took this about a month ago [yes I am falling behind] and because my camera is less than stellar and we are moving the picture isn’t totally clear) but I am guessing for fire since it doesn’t look uniform in composition and this seems to be one of the more arid areas where trees aren’t as available (so they tend to default to dried manure or bundles of weeds).
In driving to/from the provinces one sees lots of donkey’s loaded down with everything from rocks to dirt to grass to telephone poles (not joking, I wish I had gotten a picture of that poor animal) but despite this being a common site I never seem to get a good picture… grrrr.
Since I have gotten to Afghanistan I have been interested (somewhat) in rural construction materials, namely mud and straw. I noticed early on that many places (even in Kabul) use a mud stucco with some sort of plant fiber mixed in but I had initially thought they just throw in a bunch of dried grass, but I was wrong.
Making stucco seems to be somewhat of an art (debatable I know). I have also discovered that Afghans are flatbread fanatics (not necessarily connoisseurs but Nans [afghan flatbread] are apparently an essential part of every afghan meal so wheat is grown all over the country but I never thought about what they were doing with all the remaining straw (plowing it back in would be nice but probably a pipedream). Well turns out they have machines here that are built specifically for grinding straw. Once the straw is ground they stuff it into bags like these and either use it or sell it. More on the machines they use later.
Nope; Im not joking these nuts are soaked in lemon juice then roasted then covered with some salt icing like stuff (will post more about that later). I am usually a sucker for new foods and I love pistachios so I thought what the hell (and while they are expensive [about $4/lb] they are cheaper than peanuts believe it or not). After having gone through a kilogram of these lemon flavored pistachios I gotta admit they are pretty good but I have since found Iranian sunflower seeds that are $1.50/lb so due to financial constraints I have made the switch, though if I find a place that has the Chinese sunflower seeds I will certainly go broke because I *love* those.
I just finished reading a mouth watering article on the NPR website about pickling foods and it made me think that I should take a picture of the pickled mangos that I bought here (should might be incorrect, perhaps I was just that bored).
I had never heard of pickled mangos before I met Faysal, a Bangladeshi microfinance advisor (he works for my organization and lives in the same compound I do) who is almost as frustrated with the food situation in my organization as I am the difference is he can speak some Dari and can get around in Kabul much easier than I. He introduced me to these “pickled vegetables” (mainly mangos) as something that would help along the oil N’ okra concoction that we are fed here on a regular basis (and no, to my southern brethren oil N okra does not mean breaded and fried okra that I love so dearly but literally okra diced, and cooked with an inordinate amount of oil) and he was right it is Pakistani which is very similar to Indian which is by definition spicy… and the acidic spiciness does indeed make the okra concoction more palatable.
Whats interesting to me is that I never would have guessed that it was mango, apparently the pickling process turns the mango into an avocado like consistency (I thought I was eating avocado at first), not only that, they apparently just dice the mango up whole, skin, seed and all so you have to spit out chunks of mango seeds (for those who don’t know Mango sees are large, imagine a golf ball flattened into a semi-oblong shape) which doesn’t thrill me but its much less trouble than say watermelon (which they have here in spades).
An interesting side note, when I was given the pickled mangos I asked if they needed to be refrigerated and was told no, not at all, but that I should be sure to keep them in the sun... reminded me of the Simpson’s episode where grandpa Simpson was working in a fast food shop, ran out of the shop's "special sauce", told his pimply teenaged boss and the kid said "oh, quick! go put some mayonnaise in the sun"… different cultures, different customs.
Ok, maybe not true love but this stuff has saved me (from insanity) on occasion. Where I am now I have a less than stellar cook and my many attempts to cook on my own have been thwarted by various things (such as a very cramped kitchen, frequent power outages [which has resulted in about $60 of food being lost], and a funky sense of sanitation [I found a dead scorpion that one of the staff dumped in the kitchen sink]) so I just dont get the kind of variety I like (Afghan food is ok, but having the same thing on a weekly basis aint cutn it so I occasionally indulge in dipping cookies some nutella. This cookie may look like its just a few grams but I swear that when I dip them in nutella that adds a few kilos (or that is what my waist is telling me).
This is a yoghurt and cucumber drink that was served to us. I see yogurt all over the place here but I have yet to try much for two reasons, one the sanitation of dairy products here (especially in the rural areas) is questionable, but the reason I tell everyone is my allergy to milk which is kinda true, I am allergic somewhat and figure that I should hold off on somethings so I can enjoy other things.
After having been stuffed with food they brought out a round of Mulberries. At this point I had just gotten over being really sick the week before from eating unwashed vegetables (or that is what the doctor thought, hell if I know whether they had been washed or not) so I was leery at best when they served the basket of fruit. When they noticed I wasnt eating they asked why and I mentioned my delicate stomach and how I wasnt sure the fruit had been washed so one of the Afghans hopped up, took the basket, dunked it in the river (where people wash their clothes, swim, bath, etc), and swished the fruit around... that pretty much helped me make up my mind as to whether or not I would partake of the (now) forbidden fruit.
After awhile our hosts started brining out waves of food like rice, nan (the flat bread looking thing), lamb, yoghurt drinks, scallions, and cucumbers. This is one of the more varied meals I have seen here. Afghan meals are very meat oriented so a scallion or a cucumber is usually the most vegetable you get (unless you count potatoes in which case I get 200% of the US RDA). Since I am a fan of lamb, goat, and beef I have made out like a (“dietarily imbalanced”) champ though I do buy some vegetables on the side.
Yeah, a less than droll topic but #1 having grown up with a father who had (has) a love affair with fireplaces and #2 having a family that grows saw timber I am often interested in lumber.
While it didn’t occur to me at the time I have since noticed that fire fuel here is hard to come by, people burn dried manure, bundles of grass, roots, and occasionally gas and regular wood so when I saw "regular firewood" for sale I thought I'd snap off a picture.
Here is some firewood for sale in one of the villages we passed through on our way back from the Panjshir province. Wood is usually bought by weight which is funny to me but I am sure there is a direct correlation between weight and burning time/intensity (think about burning pine logs vs. burning oak logs) and come to think of it, it could be the same in the US (I can't recall our family ever having bought firewood, my brother and I were taught [willingly at first] the ways of the chainsaw early on and harvested firewood from our property ever since).
While I can't tell here I swear some of the wood they sell are roots, they are so scraggly that they have to be (I haven’t seen trees that look that scraggly) which is kind of unsettling since that is tantamount to raping the (already poor) soil.
Coming in behind the livestock and harvesting what they don’t eat that’s the name of the game here.
Since this area has almost no trees the only remaining fuel is either dried cow patties or bundles of grass and here they prefer grass bundles. If you look in an over grazed pasture with most “grass eaters” (cows, horses, goats, etc) you will see that the grass is eaten down to a nub and there are perfect weeds left standing. Livestock are going to eat the plants they prefer first and if they can help it avoid the plants they don’t like (and they are pretty good at this). The point is, people here quite often come in behind where their livestock have grazed and "harvest" the weeds their livestock have avoided and stack them in small piles to bundle up later and use as fuel for fire.
