Pot O' Yoghurt

Pot O' Yoghurt
Originally uploaded by gaikokujinkyofusho.

There was no real restaurant in Band-e Amir but there was a little hut type place right by the late and I suspect the same people that "ran" that hut were supplying us with food. One of our organization's field managers arranged that we have a large tent set aside for us so we were served various foods like kabob, nans (bread), and yoghurt, lots of yoghurt. The photo here is a big ole pot of yoghurt and it was doled out in typical Afghan fashion (that is, little worry about spillage or microbes).

I haven't yet taken a good picture of a normal afghan meal but I have been amused that the normal meal involves rolling out a piece of pleather or plastic on the floor and then putting all the food on the rolled out material. Afghans traditionally eat with their hands (sometimes using shared bowls) and things tend to get a bit messy so the rolled out plastic works quite nicely in that they just take away the dishes and roll up the mat and all the spilled yoghurt, crumbs, and bits of sheep and I guess shake it out outside.

Yoghurt itself seems to be almost as important as nans in the typical afghan meal. Normally yoghurt is eaten plain, by the spoonful, and from a bowl. I have never been particularly fond of plain yoghurt and in Moldova, the few times I was served yoghurt, I would doctor it with some of the great Moldovan jams. One of the problems I ran into in Moldova is that yoghurt, cheese, etc all contain microbes and in developing countries they tend to contain "extra" bugs many of which can make you sick. So, the combination of having a sensitive stomach and being mildly allergic to dairy products has been enough incentive to keep me away from most homemade afghan dairy products.