Guesting is a very important Kyrgyz tradition. In a
nutshell, it’s having people over for dinner. Out of a nutshell, it’s so much
more than that. It’s a sign of hospitality and is a production within itself,
sometimes lasting 4-5 hours. Guesting usually is short notice and sometimes
very far away. We travel to distant relatives homes (we being my Ata, Apa, the
5 year old and I) and proceed to guest.
The custom came about because the Kyrgyz were originally
nomadic tribes and hospitality was greatly appreciated and sometimes (I assume)
a necessity for survival. The Kyrgyz
still hold their hospitality to the highest standard. I have been in situations
where I go to a community member’s home to ask one question, and I am no longer
allowed to leave until I чай ич (drink tea) with them. This can be anywhere from one cup of tea and
some bread to a full meal. And there is no way out of it, that much is true.
I am also pretty sure that I could feed myself very well for
my entire service by visiting my community members every day. It would be a
pretty great way to become assessable and visible, I have to say. But I
digress…
This blog post is dedicated to the king of all guesting
dishes. Beshbarmak.
Beshbarmak is a Kyrgyz national dish and its main
ingredients (by which I mean only ingredients) are ramen noodles, onions and
sheep bits. And as a palette cleanser we get the broth of the sheep to drink.
But I have experienced several variations of this dish in the times I have been
guesting. One is the dish alone. Another is the dish with a big piece of sheep
bone on top for you to lick clean only to be accompanied by a filet of fat. The
last, and most authentic, is the dish, the bone and every other piece of the
sheep presented on the table. The men at the table shave off the meat on the
head with a knife, the hooves act as a centerpiece, the organs are left in a
bowl, and the innards are filled with sheep fat, served as an appetizer.
Now I don't want to seem culturally insensitive, in the blog
or in person. Most Kyrgyz food is delicious and I want to bring it back to
America in two years. It’s just unfortunate that the one food mostly served
during guesting is the one that makes me retch.
So let’s raise a glass to Beshbarmak, I'll be seeing it a
lot in the next two years!
