MEALTIME CUSTOMS.

Hospitality is an important part of Kazakh culture. Our people welcome their guests to try their food and to enjoy our generosity. It is common in our traditions to invite guests to our houses, to treat them to our best cuisine and, generally, to treat each other with genuine respect and appreciation. The host will be quite offended if the guest does not have some refreshment offered him or at least a cup of traditional tea. Refreshments might include dried and fresh fruits (grapes or melon), nuts, cakes, or baursaks (a type of bread). They also may be offered some fermented kymyz (milk from a horse) to drink. Tea and kymyz are served in a piala (an Asian teacup) or a wooden bowl. A guest is usually offered a place of honor at the table. Diners wash their hands before a meal. A prayer is said and a guest is served first. Eating is usually done with the right hand, or a knife and fork. Tea is usually served after dinner. Once adults have eaten, children eat the leftovers.

A unique custom in Kazakhstan is the dastarkhan, a feast for visiting guests and special occasions that includes meat dishes and dairy products. Appetizers (закуска) may be smoked or boiled meat, zhuta (pasta stuffed with pumpkin or carrot), and flat cakes. Vegetables, sorpa (rich broth (бульон), and shubat (a milk drink) may be offered next. For the feast, an entire animal, usually a sheep is slaughtered (резать) and the oldest member of the family carves (нарезать) the head and serves the family. This is considered an honor in Kazakhstan. Besbarmak is the animal's meat, boiled, and served on a platter (большое плоское блюдо) with dough that has been boiled in broth. Different parts of the animal symbolize traits desired by those eating them. For example, children are often served the ears as a symbol to listen better. The person who receives the eye should seek wisdom, and a tongue means that a person should be more expressive.

HISTORY AND FOOD.

The assortment of food groceries was changed slightly. During its long history Kazakhstan people gathered a huge experience in cooking dishes from meat and milk. And modern times filled it with a large range of vegetables, fruit, fish, sea stuff, baked, flour dishes and confectionery.

But still the most popular Kazakhstan national foodstuff is meat. From olden times Kazakh cookery was special due to its original technology. Some features of Kazakh people living left a mark on Kazakh style of food cooking. The traditional national Kazakhstan cookery is based on boiling. Exactly boiling helps to cook meat with a lot of delicate tastes, gives it softness and aroma.

Kazakh people placed high emphasis on long-term storage of foodstuff. A huge part of meat was prepared for future use being salted, dried. Delicatessen was cooked mainly from horse meat - kazi, shuzhuk, zhal, zhaya, karta and others. Milk and milk products were widely spread. The preference was for the sour milk products because it was easier to save it during nomadic life. Bread was usually made like cookies. The most popular baked dish is baursaki.

The ancient plates and dishes were made from leather, wood, and ceramics. Every family had cast-iron cauldron (kazan) for cooking. The tea was boiled in cast-iron jugs, later in samovars.

Date: 2015-01-12; view: 1072