If Azerbaijani's home is a full cup, he always receives many guests with great pleasure putting many meals on the table. However, if the last meal helping remained in the poor family, you may be sure that they will offer it sincerely to the friend or relative who suddenly visited them. Hospitability springs from the feature specific to the completely Azeri nation and the national kitchen is compared to the culture and religious traditions. Azeri cuisine traces its roots back to the antiquity of centuries and its dishes are multifarious and original. Here are only two samples that prove it. English navigator of XVI century Anthony Jenckson who visited Shamakhi describes his dinner at Abdullah-khan's: "table-cloths were laid on the floor and various dishes Were brought. They were put in special rows according the types of meals; they were 140 by my calculation. When they were taken away with the tablecloths, they brought other ones with 150 dishes with the fruits and other convivial dishes. So, nearly 290 dishes were served in two intervals". A. Dumas (father), author of historical novels, as well as culinary expert, visited Azerbaijan and wrote after it: "Oh! It is a pity that when I am writing these lines in Poti, there isn't very delicious jiz-biz, Which was cooked at butcher in Nukha..." (jiz-biz is a meat fried with the fat tail).
Meal cult is in the rank of diplomacy, it is category of the style of life of the millions. Cookery art depends a lot on the high morality in the issues of gluttony and centurial respect to the holy product - bread. Azeri cuisine cannot be characterized only with a few traditional dishes. There is not special product in the nation related to the category of persons living in various regions. Difference between the taste and specification of the watery course eating way of serving of the first or second course and the manner, even time of the day related to the meat, fish, sweets or salts eating is big enough. Mutton has always been considered meat number one and it is the most expensive in the markets and meat counters, sold at the price of 2.5-3 dollars a kilo. Hot soups kufta-bozbash, parcha-bozbash, piti in earthenware jug, shorba and other meals with the addition of big peas and various species, greens, vegetables are made from the soft mutton.
There are over 30 nomenclatures of the first courses in Azeri cuisine. Distinguishing feature of Azeri cuisine is that some national courses are replaced with the first courses, as well as second courses. For example, piti, kufta-bozbash etc. Fresh tomatoes in summer and dried cherry-plums (to make sauerkraut taste) are added into the seasoning of the first courses, as well as spicery with coloring matters (saffron, sari-kok). There are various farinaceous first courses - sulu-khingal, khamrashy, gurza, dushbara etc. are in Azeri cuisine.
Beef trotters and muttonheads are used to boil amber-colored bouillon - khash, which starts to be cooked in the evening and eaten at daybreak. A lot of time is required for cooking of the favorite pilaw, the main consistence of which is rice cooked with butter. However, second helping to the pilaw are different: chicken, beef, fat-tail, eggs, fish, goose-flesh, as well as onion, flour, dried fruits, saffron, spicery, sweet chestnuts and lots of spicy greens are used in addition to the mutton. Pilaw is cooked in the large metallic cauldrons for special celebrations, eminent event. It is serviced in the wedding ceremonies, funeral repasts. Generally speaking, rice is privileged product in Azeri kitchen. Gruels, soups are made with it; it is also added in dolma (stuffed cabbages made from the grape leaves). Very popular soup is cooked from the rice, greenery and katik (sort of clabber) - dovga. It might be tasteless and sauerkraut, it can be eaten cold and steaming. It is the first course, quite filling and often used in the diets. Any mistress may cook the dishes with the eggplants, tomatoes, green pies, pepper or cabbage if you want to taste the dish without meat. Vegetable roots, pumpkin, potatoes are widely used and the latter is divided by the degree of value according to the regions, where it is cultivated. Coriander, fennel, mint, parsley, estragon, large onion and garlic, spicery are always used, practically in every dish. First of all, they put magnificent spectrum of aroma and tastes to the dish; secondly, they have a lot of nutrients, vitamins, phytonsids, and components neutralizing fat excesses.
Wealth of lakes, rivers near the Caspian Sea presented variety of the fishing courses in Azeri cuisine. Kebab from the sturgeon, Azeri kutum, kuku from kutum, balig-chikhirtma, balig-lavangi, balig-pilaw, balig-mutanjam are widespread fish courses in Azerbaijan. Lavangi is very delicious course (stuffed fish) in Jalilabad; fish baked in earthenware crockery - in Lankaran; fired fish - in Tovuz.
Second courses cooked from the meat, fish, vegetables and flour run to over 100 dishes. Kebabs should be specified among the second courses: kebab-bastirma, kebab from fillet, lula-kebab, tava-kebab, and sham-kebab.
Kebabs from the meat, fish, and bird are privilege of the men. It is very "tasty" type of active rest in nature. Tomatoes, eggplants larded with the slices of fat are stringed into the skewers, they are covered with the minced meat or potato fried over the coal and so the famous lula-kebab is cooked.
Any filing fat course usually finishes with hot and strong tea in the figured thin glasses "armudi". History says that chaykhanas in XVI century were usual case in Azerbaijan. Tea is usually made with the wild herbal greens. The Azerbaijanis drink tea before eating the main course, mostly black baikh. There is an old tradition in Azerbaijan: when the guests come, they give them tea. Tea in Azerbaijan is a symbol of the hospitability. Quince, fig, water-melon peel, apricot, cherry, sweet cherry, peach, plum, cornel, walnut, strawberry, black berry, grapes, mulberry and other sorts of jams are served with the tea. When the tea is made, sometimes dried thyme, carnation, cardamom leaves and other herbs are added to give some special aroma to the tea.
Khashil, khingal with meat, gutabs (with meat, pumpkin, green), chudu, umach, suzma-khingal, arishta, dushbara etc. are widespread among the second courses of Azeri cuisine. Khingal is noted in the Old Turkic monument "Oguzname". In the literature monument of XIII century Dastani-Ahmad Kharami you may ready about the dish of arishta. Thin like a paper lavash and tendir-chorek, yukha, sangah, kulfa aPpak, jad and other sorts of bread take honorable place on the table nowadays. Bread baked in ashes (komba, kozdama) is also very tasty.
One of the features of Azeri cuisine is its rationality for its region. Herbal cuisine of Azerbaijan is very interesting from this point of view. The dishes of umach, arishta ave been used for the treatment of the respiratory track, alimentary canal, and Binary bladder since olden days. The dish of kallapacha (khash) is used at the voice ╟Ss' rough cough and other deceases.
Have you ever tried Sheki honey pakhlava or small kufta, Lankaran stuffed kutum, Satala pilaw with chicken, Ganja sharbat and creamy gaymag? Have you heard about potatoes and apples stuffed with the lamb? Have you been treated to the sturgeon with tomatoes and olives with "Absheron" sauce? It means that you have never crossed the borders of hospitable Azerbaijan Republic.
It is impossible to retell about lots of sweets and desserts in a few words. It is a subject of separate articles. These are legends in one science, coryphoe of which tries to become each Azeri woman. As to tradition, meal should be completed with the sweets. Due to such traditions, the dinner in Azerbaijan completes with sharbat or sweets. Flour sweets are as follows: shaker-bura, pakhlava, shaker-chorek, Baku kurabye, Azeri nun, Ordubad roll, Garabag kata, Guba tikhma, Lankaran kulcha, Shamakhi mutaki, Nakhchivan pakhlava etc. There are special courses in each region. Shakar-bura, Baku pakhlava, shaker-chorek are made in Baku since the old ages. He special place are given to Sheki sweets. These are Sheki pakhlava, peshvang, girmabadam etc, in the course of cooking of which rice flour, sugar, nut nucleus, butter, white of eggs and spicery are used. Among non-floured sweets of Azerbaian shaker-pendir, parvarda, kozinaki from the nuts, coriander nogul, goz khalva, rahat-lukum (with different second helpings), nogul-bitmish, jellied fig, sharbat, fesh-mek etc. are cooked in Azerbaijan.
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