The Fabled Flatbreads of Uzbekistan (2015)

My wife and I started something during Covid where we'd pick a random city in the world (there are websites that do this for you), look at the region's popular/common dishes and pick one to cook for the weekend. Most recent was Mirza Ghasemi: A smoked eggplant dish cooked with garlic, tomatoes, and eggs, from the Caspian Sea area.

We would also sometimes make flatbreads from the area but man is it messy to do in your own place with flour flying around everywhere. We do make the flatbreads sometimes but it's usually easier to just buy frozen paratha from the Indian store.

Biggest surprise - everything's stew.

My wife and I own a restaurant. It's a tough business.

I feel like there must be more interest among native-born Americans in foreign food these days, based on the fact there's 3 Uzbek restaurants within a couple of neighboring cities (which are maybe 200k people total). There's apparently only ~2000 Uzbek-Americans in all of northern IL! And mostly concentrated over an hour's drive away from where these restaurants are.

That said, my wife and I were very interested to try the Tashkent bread. I think this article calls it out - it's better very fresh. It was really good, but not as amazing as we expected (maybe lunch is the time to dine at the Uzbek place closest to us).

I still find it amazing that even (probably) family-run restaurants for such a niche cuisine can make a go of it. I take it as a good sign about American dining preferences.

It makes sense and is also a surprise to see that Aramco has a lifestyle publishing arm.

That aside, this was a great article. There are some great videos on yt as well showing the baking process. But what those videos don’t show that this article points to is the these Uzbek bakers use natural sour dough leavening. I wish this article also included a recipe for the dough.

Another thing this article does that I like is that it describes how to eat these loaves, because it’s hard to guess just by looking at them. Hoping I get a chance to try one of these loaves someday.

Uzbek food is very popular with all people from the former USSR. So there will be a lot more demand than just Uzbek-Americans.

2700 bc.. the world was already old in the olden times.. i wish we had a "heroes" journey book- where every text is a link to its inspirations, going all the way back..

I went to an Uzbek restaurant in SF a couple weeks ago called Sofiya. Highly recommend. Food was so good that I want to visit the country now and probably will within the next year.

Yay, an article about my country is on the HN frontpage!

its pretty rare to see Uzbekistan on global news and even HN frontpage.. i have been there in May, its pretty wonderful. Although English isn't spoken in many places, I had a great impression of the food. I actually went there for the Soviet architecture at first, but the local atmosphere of daily life was also unforgettable. I randomly picked restaurants a few times, and both the meat and the bread (non/naan) were delicious

its very safe and the prices are cheap. The only downside is that public toilets are scarce and they all charge a fee, which is really hard to deal with as a Chinese person. I was shocked that the price of using a restroom often exceeded the price of a loaf of naan

also this reminds me to refresh my personal blog domain and keep writing blogs.. because i have no where to post travel blogs like this for now.

Article gave me an idea that Indus Valley seals were baker's stamps - that's why the imprinted goods were never found (eaten!).

I could probably spend a whole month eating fresh bread there every day and enjoy it more than a Michelin starred restaurant.

This has some resemblance to albeit the much simpler bread found in Pompei.

https://www.thevintagenews.com/2018/07/07/ancient-bread/

Okay, how can I get a sampler pack of all those breads delivered here in the States?

Surely "naan" would have been a way better transliteration choice than "non", right?

I immediately googled “Uzbek population centers in United States”

I spent about a year of my life in Uzbekistan. Food there is pure heaven

In the 1990s I travelled through Xinjiang and Gansu in China's northwest. At the time most of the people in rural areas were Uighur, Hui, Tibetan, or other minorities.

At one of the Uighur bazaars they were cooking all kinds of breads and skewered meat. I remember asking one of the younger guys about one that looked like a toasted puff pastry and he called it 烤包子 in Mandarin, i.e. "roasted dumpling." It had lamb inside, and it was fantastic, like a lighter version of a Cornish pasty.

Seems they've got an IP block on Israel.

There are lots of excellent Youtube videos on the legendary breads of Uzbekistan - https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=uzbekistan+brea...

Some of the Tandir/Tandoor ovens are large enough to be a walk-in!

Great article,