Kvazar · Food Atlas
Glossary of Uzbek food terms
Thirty words that open the Uzbek table. Each term is short on purpose: enough to read a menu, a bazaar and a conversation.
- Kazan
- A cast-iron cauldron with a rounded bottom — the kitchen's main tool; plov's flavor depends on the kazan's age and 'memory'.
- Tandyr
- A clay jar-shaped oven: flatbreads bake on its walls, samsa and tandyr kabob inside, over the coals.
- Dastarkhan
- Both the laid table and the ritual of hospitality: the cloth around which every meal is built.
- Oshpaz
- A plov master. Both profession and title: a wedding needs its oshpaz as surely as its musicians.
- Zirvak
- Plov's foundation — meat, onion and carrot fried and simmered before the rice goes in. Ruin the zirvak, ruin the plov.
- Devzira
- The russet rice of the Fergana Valley: it drinks the zirvak yet stays loose. Real devzira shows a pink dust on the grain.
- Chaikhana
- The tea house — the East's public living room: meals, arguments, deals and family matters all happen here.
- Piala
- A handleless bowl. Tea is poured a third full — a full piala hints the guest should leave.
- Lagan
- The great painted platter for plov, brought out one for the table — eating from the shared lagan is what being a guest means.
- Kurpacha
- The quilted floor mattress you sit on around the dastarkhan — in the chaikhana and at home.
- Toy
- A family celebration — wedding, birth, circumcision — with obligatory plov for hundreds of guests.
- Sumalak sayli
- The all-night communal cooking of sumalak, with songs and wishes — an event, not a recipe.
- Kok-choy
- Green tea drunk hot even in 40-degree heat: it cools better than anything iced.
- Shirmoy
- Samarkand's milk-leavened anise flatbread; slow to stale, it doubles as an edible souvenir.
- Obi-non
- The everyday water-dough tandyr flatbread — the country's daily bread.
- Chakka
- Strained soured milk, thicker than kefir; eaten with herbs, served beside plov.
- Suzma
- Thick strained cultured cheese; the base of chalop and of sauces for chuchvara.
- Kurt
- Dried balls of salted suzma — 'road cheese' that keeps for months.
- Zira
- Cumin — the defining spice of plov and shashlik; mountain zira outranks the lowland kind.
- Barberry
- Tart red berries in plov: they cut the fat with acidity and tint the zirvak.
- Chickpeas
- Soaked overnight — for plov, nohat shurpa and the Kashkadarya school.
- Dumba (fat-tail)
- Fat-tail sheep fat — the flavor base of shashlik and plov; its crisp cracklings are called jiz.
- Shurva
- The family name for broth soups; shurpa is its best-known member.
- Kaskan
- The tiered steamer for manty; its trays are greased with fat-tail so the dough never sticks.
- Jiz
- Fat-tail cracklings — and the hiss of meat hitting blazing fat, which named jiz-byz.
- Tandyr non
- Any flatbread baked on the tandyr wall; the chekich stamp at its center is the baker's signature.
- Patyr
- The rich, flaky flatbread made with fat-tail or butter — festival bread.
- Katyk
- Fermented baked milk; the mother of suzma, chakka and ayran.