Ramadan

Its the month of Ramadan when devout Muslims are supposed to fast during the daylight hours; refraining from both food and drink. In some countries this can be taken very seriously, forcing all restaurants & teahouses to close and anyone seen in public violating the fast can be get in trouble though the Koran officially exempts non-Muslims & travellers(ie Haji, tourists, people who are traveling to another city, etc).

Azerbaijan generally isn't very orthodox in it's interpretation of most Islamic strictures. Vodka is common & plentiful(Thanx Russia!), pork is sometimes available, and so on. Ramadan also isn't so strictly observed, atleast up here in the northern Quba-Qusar-Xachmaz area known as the First Finger. Resteraunts and teahouses are open and people are eating icecream & drinking tea in public.

Maybe its just indicative of the people I know but nobody I've talked to observes the fast at all. Indeed, the only possible indication I've seen of the Ramadan season is the removal of the alchohol aisle from our local supermarket, MeqaMarket. Though this occured 2weeks before Ramadan started and alchohol is still sold in the refrigerated aisle.....and rumor mill says it has more to do with the company being squeezed for more "taxes" and the supermarkets imminent shut-down.

Until I got on the internet this morning & read an article about worries that this years very early Ramadan could cause health & dehydration problems for some of the observant I had entirely forgotten it was Ramadan. On the first day of Ramadan I joined in a business lunch with some local entreprenuers & technical assistance experts wich included a bottle of vodka celebrating an agreement to launch a new project and yesterday around 14:00I was pulled into a resteraunt by some aquaintances who were having a kebab & vodka party who insisted I join them. Sadly I couldn't because of a prior agreement but it all goes to show that a number of folk up here a fairly liberal about the tenents Ramadan.

For a random example of how Ramadan can be in other PC countries try this or this blog entry.

"Bacon - A Universal Pleasure" a Mystery aka Food 3

"The story you are about to hear is true. Only the names have been changed to protect the innocent." - Dragnet

Once upon a time an American was staying with some Azerbaijani people. It was an American holiday and the reminiscing American wanted to eat something that reminded him of home. Liver & Onions fried up with big slabs of bacon and potatoes & gravy on the side he thought, mouth watering. All of the ingredients were readily available; beef liver, potatoes, onions, all widely available in the bazaar. Bacon was slightly more difficult to find in this Muslim country but fortunately it was found at a little shop down the way.

"Do you mind if you cook my food in your kitchen?" the polite American asked the daughter of an imam lady-of-the-house. "Its fine" she said, not wanting any herself but not so disgusted by the whole idea. While cooking the man-of-the-house returned. "Your cooking? What is it?" he inquired, half concerned about the machismo of a male cooking. The American answered honestly and asked "Have you ever eaten pork?". "Oh sure, back in the Soviet army they made the Muslims & Jews eat that all the time! Its good but my wife won't cook it." he said, somewhat wistfully. "Gravy, huh. That sure does taste good. I've never seen it before." he admitted before returning to his work.

Meal fully prepared the American sat down to a heapin-mess o' good food and enjoyed the wonders that can be had from such simple pleasures when the daughter-of-the-house arrived. "Oh, you made liver! I love liver. Can I have a taste?" she asked, greedily. "Certainly." the American answered, generously. "Whats that?" she asked peering hungrily at a chunk of bacon. "That is a meat which we call 'bacon'." he answered truthfully. "Give me some." she demanded hungrily.

The American uncertain about the appropriateness glanced over at the lady-of-the-house whom simply smirked and looked away, slyly. "Here you are." said the American, handing over a fork-full of bacon. She ate the meat and her eyes shined "Oh! Its really good! This is delicious!" she exclaimed. At this the American smiled inquisitively and the lady-of-the-house barked a laugh of good humour. A shadow daowned over the face of the daughter-of-the-house, "This is pork, isn't it?" she exclaimed with some horror. "Yes it is. Good isn't it?" the American asked. "Oh no, horrible, disgusting, yuck, no it's bad." she said, unconvincingly. "But you just said it was very good, delicious you said." said the American, accurately. "No I did not." she lied, leaving the American to enjoy his meal and the lady-of-the-house to giggle to herself.

The American could not finish all which he had cooked and so left a pan of left-overs in the frindge for tomorrows enjoyment. The next day when he opened his pan of left-overs he discovered to his shock that all of the bacon had been picked out of his meal! Where could it have gone?

Was it; the-man-of-the-house, his hunger for bacon unquenched in all these many years? Was it; the-lady-of-the-house, her disgust piqued or perhaps her curiousity aroused? Or was it; the-daughter-of-the house, her irrational first reaction of disgust overwhelmed by the memory of that one bite of glorious flavor?

We shall never know.

PC Engineering aka Food 2

This was the first time we used the grill I found in my yard last spring. We got some frozen chicken legs at the shop next door(each leg=half a days pay), sprinkled with some Lawrey's Season Salt that I brought from the states and starteg grilling em up. Also got some new potatoes and some onions, threw them on şaşlıklar(shashliklar=skewers{plural}) rubbed them down with salt & chicken fat and put it all on the barbie.
10minutes & a liter of beer later we discoverd that the chicken & potatoes where not only cooking at different rates but the chicken was too close to the coals and causing grease fires....problem.
Solution? Some ersatz-engineering that raised the chicken and let the grease drip down onto the potatoes and everything cooking at the perfect rate thus creating one of the best meals had in this country.

Food

I was taken out for dinner by some development & technical assistance experts from Baku that were up here in Quba to do some work with one of the project I work on. We ordered "???"(Ive forgotten the word, will figue it out later), which was bloody delicious. Juicy grilled steaks, peppers, tomatoes & badımcan(badimjan=eggplant) with fried potato wedges fried & kept warm on a wok with some burning embers underneath. Damn good stuff.

I recommend trying it if you can make it to the Çinar(chinar) Kafe in Quba.

Things that make you go "Huh".

I thought this article was interesting. Another interesting event in recent news is the recent blogger case in Baku.

Azeri witchhunt over Eurovision votes

By Shaun Walker in Moscow

Wednesday, 19 August 2009

AFP/GETTY IMAGES

AySel & Arash perform Azerbaijan's Eurovision entry in Moscow

Security forces in Azerbaijan have launched a campaign against dozens of citizens for voting for the wrong entry in this year's Eurovision Song Contest. Authorities in the oil-rich country are apparently tracking down people who voted for Azerbaijan's bitter enemy Armenia in the competition held in May.

The two countries fought a vicious war in the 1990s over the region of Nagorno-Karabakh, which is now under the control of ethnic Armenians but is claimed by Azerbaijan. All borders between the two countries remain closed and tensions remain high, even over such a seemingly insignificant event as Eurovision.

Rovshan Nasirli, a resident of Azerbaijan's capital Baku, was one of 43 people in the country to vote for Armenia's entry "Jan-Jan", sung by the duo Inga and Anush. He told Radio Liberty that he had been summoned to the country's national security ministry last week to explain himself.

"They wanted an explanation for why I voted for Armenia. They said it was a matter of national security," said Mr Nasirli, who voted by text message. "They were trying to put psychological pressure on me, saying things like, 'You have no sense of ethnic pride. How come you voted for Armenia?' They made me write out an explanation, and then they let me go."

This year's contest, which was held in Moscow and won by Norway, was already the most politicised in the history of Eurovision. Georgia, which fought a war with Russia last summer, refused to take part in the contest after it was told to change the lyrics of its entry. The song, entitled "Don't Want to Put in", was widely seen as a pun on the surname of Russia's Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and thus broke contest rules that songs cannot be political.

Luckily for Mr Nasirli, he had a cast-iron excuse for voting for Inga and Anush. He didn't like the Azerbaijani entry, which featured an Iranian singer based in Sweden, and voted for Armenia because the song actually sounded "more Azeri".