Happy Holidays Times Ten!

I have been in Balkhash for almost two months and working hard! Well, hard except for about the month plus of holidays. Kazakhstan likes it holidays. Since I’ve been in Balkhash, I’ve celebrated Id (a Muslim holiday), Republic’s Day, Independence Day, Catholic Christmas, New Year, Orthodox Christmas, and Old New Year. So while you back in the States get one holiday each for Christmas, New Years, and Independence, we here in Kazakhstan get two. With all this time off, I’ve had plenty of opportunities to experience how Kazakhstanis celebrate.

Whether the holiday is religious, national, or other, it is celebrated the same way—a dinner with tons of people, heaping portions of the same foods, and plenty of vodka. These holiday “dinners” are marathons with all of the ones I’ve been to lasting at least five hours and at most eight! The central act during these dinners is the toast. Each person is given a rumka, or shot glass, which must always be filled. As soon as everyone is seated and the rumkis are full, someone makes a toast and the shots are downed. No mixed drinks here; only straight up vodka. Every five to fifteen minutes, another person makes a toast and we go around the table toasting and drinking for the whole epic dinner. As you can imagine, the amount of vodka consumed is phenomenal and would put fraternities across America to shame. But whereas in American college parties you can abstain from drinking or get completely wasted and still be respected the next day, in Kazakhstan you must drink like a fish and be able to walk a straight line afterwards. Abstinence, or even moderation, is offensive. Refusing alcohol invites taunts such as “Kto ne pyut, ne Ruski” [He who doesn’t drink, isn’t Russian.]—an amusing comment considering that many of the people who give into this taunt aren’t Russian. To minimize damage, one option is to take half shots, although you are warned that “if you sip vodka, it goes to your head; but if you down it, it goes to your stomach and you won’t be tipsy.” But the better strategy is to eat huge servings of fatty foods after every shot. So despite the health effects of consuming a mountain of fat cubes and mayo salad with a bottle of vodka, I’ve only embarrassed myself with my poor Russian. In fact, several times I’ve received compliments from my host for not being drunk. Strange that they were expecting it since they forced me to drink…

Another fun part of these parties is the local food. Kazakhstani cuisine is eclectic, combining Kazakh (and other Turkic), Russian, and Korean influences. In fact, I feel that in a lot of ways these people have the ideal attitude, i.e. mine, towards food: meat and potatoes are plentiful, vegetables are rare and unavailable during the winter, and spinach is actually considered a weed! Let me give a quick culinary tour of Kazakhstan:

Beshbarmak: Means ‘five fingers’ in Kazakh because you are supposed to eat it with your hands, this dish consists of hulking size pieces of cow or horse that has been boiled on top of flat square noodles. Some of these meat cuts are pretty impressive and at weddings, you can see the whole top of a horse femur bone. And speaking of this delicious meat, the first time I tasted horse was the day I fell off one…kind of fitting, right?
Kurdak: This is a hit or miss dish. It is basically heavily fried meat and potatoes. When the meat is normal muscle, it is phenomenal. But on special occasions they substitute muscle for cut up tongue, kidney, heart, and liver. Unfortunately for me, every time I eat with people who want to impress me, I end up having to dine on unappetizing foods. For example, guests are always given an enormous bone (sometimes several ribs still connected to a chain of vertebrae) with generous layers of fat. I am looking forward to the day when I am fully integrated in my family and I can go for the delicious fat free and juicy tenderloin pieces of beef in the communal plate that everyone else ignores.
Plov: This is an Uzbek dish and all Kazakhs who have cooked it for me made that very clear. It is a basically a fried rice dish with meat and carrots. It is different from the Chinese/American dish in that the rice is much shorter in length and stickier.
Monte: These are Kazakh-style dumplings stuffed with meat, potatoes and sometimes pumpkin. This is one of my favorite dishes, which means there is nothing wrong with it and hence no interesting stories.
Lagman: This is simply beef noodle soup with the added benefit that the long noodles are freshly made and are somewhat chewy.
Baursak and Leposhki: Fried bread—always delicious
Salads: Every table always has a few “salads,” but these are basically small dishes with shredded meat, finely diced potatoes and carrots, and two-thirds mayo. For so many salad dishes in this country, I have yet to see lettuce. In the States, I was vehemently against mayo, but here it is essential as a good counterweight to vodka.
Jams: The homemade jam here has totally redeemed jam for me as a whole. Unlike in the States, the jam isn’t overly sweet and it basically tastes like cheery, raspberry, or strawberry syrup or puree. You can eat it right out of the bowl with your spoon…and people do. As a result, I avoided jam for the first several months because I thought it was a cesspool of bacteria, which it probably is here. But my family in Balkhash makes such amazing jam that I happily risk some debilitating illness.

Kazakhstanis are very generous, especially with food. Tables are always covered with dozens of dishes and bread is spread over the whole table. You are expected to put much on your plate, eat much, and waste much. I think part of the reason for this generosity is that at the end of the Soviet Union and during the first ten years of independence, food was scarce. Stores were basically empty and it was a time when people didn’t know if they would even be able to eat. Now that things are going so well, it is almost as if they are celebrating the end of scarcity with a cornucopia of food.

One of the most memorable dinner parties I had was for Id. My family and I went over to the home of some Uzbeks. The wife was one of the more “free-spirited” and fun women I have met in Kazakhstan and reminded me of my host mom in Uzunagach. She improvised a bunch of crazy dance moves and invited me to Uzbekistan. When we decided to leave, it was snowing heavily. The Uzbeks walked us to the car and then the wife ran back upstairs and came back with a handful of shot glasses, a bottle of vodka, and a plate of sausage and cheese. As the snow fell, we took shots on the hood of the car, sang songs, and danced; Ithese people know how to live!