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- Hacker News
- Surely "naan" would have been a way better transliteration choice than "non", right?by littlekey
- Probbly a deliberate choice to distinguish it from its Indian sibling?by shrx
- I got a job at the local Uzbek restaurant, but before I could learn all the recipes and secret ingredients, I had to sign a naan disclosure agreement.by walrus01
- No, in Uzbek it is actually "non" and not "naan", "palov" and not "pilav", "somsa" and not "samosa", "tandir" and not "tandoor".by iLemming
- It seems like a non issue to me.by debo_
- 1. English transliteration has its own cultural inertia. It's not just about what's most phonetically sensible (that too only for some particular English region: how an American phonetizes non would be different from how a Brit or Aussie would).
2. Don't assume the Uzbeks say this word the same way as the Indians do. It may very well sound closer to "non" in Uzbekistan.
by roncesvalles - No, Uzbeks themselves use “non” when using Latin alphabet. Fun fact: in the past Uzbek language has been written in arabic, cyrillic, and, since ~2018, in latin.
Source: grew up there
by alex000kim - 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.
by yanhangyhy - 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!
by rramadass - I could probably spend a whole month eating fresh bread there every day and enjoy it more than a Michelin starred restaurant.by julianeon
- I spent about a year of my life in Uzbekistan. Food there is pure heavenby FpUser
- Uzbek cuisine is a fascinating phenomenon because its traditions were shaped by interesting geography, climate and history. It is a double-land-locked country, therefore the lack of seafood and saltwater plants forced them to get inventive. Luckily, the agricultural heaven, which the region was in until the Soviet state's imbecilic decisions killed the Aral Sea, provided enormous variety. Imagine, the nature there even not too long ago was nothing short of amazing. There were species of tigers that went extinct in the 1970s (!) and freshwater fish that had existed nowhere else.
The geopolitical placement of the region made it a desirable target for invasions, and indeed that happened many times - Persians, Greeks/Macedonians, Seleucids, Greco-Bactrians, Scythians, Xiongnu, Huns, Arabs, Mongols, Chinese, Russians, etc. And every invader brought their cultural norms, and food traditions. Forced deportation of Koreans (by Stalin) added more to the pile. Fun fact: "traditional" Korean dishes of Central Asia have no equivalents in actual Korean cuisine, because people couldn't grow or find the ingredients endemic to the Korean peninsula, so they had to make their own, unique recipes.
Uzbeks take enormous pride in their cuisine and it is ingrained in their DNA - they can easily justify prepping a dish for weeks, then cooking it for over twenty hours, absolutely intending it to be devoured in less than fifteen minutes. That is the [uzbek] way.
by iLemming - I know someone who spent ~ a year in rural Kyrgyzstan, and found the food to be very meat-based, with little variety. Maybe different in the cities, since they enjoyed the trips to Bishkek, and possibly Tashkent, somewhat more.by hydrogen7800
- Yes. It is.
And instead of trying to replicate that - it's a learning experience, you learn the world trying that - some advocate for hideous inductive panels. If I were somewhat religious I would say that this is a blasphemy. An unforgivable sin.
by lstodd - Article gave me an idea that Indus Valley seals were baker's stamps - that's why the imprinted goods were never found (eaten!).by d_silin
- Yay, an article about my country is on the HN frontpage!by Maksadbek
- Uzbekistan has a very rich history. Samarkand (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samarkand) is a highly fascinating city added by UNESCO to its "World Heritage List" as Crossroad of Cultures - https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/603/
Justin Marozzi's book Tamerlane: Sword of Islam, Conqueror of the World is a great read on Timur who i believe is considered almost a god in your country (like Genghis Khan in Mongolia) - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timur
There was also a classic russian movie titled "Nepobedimyy"(1983) (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0261099/) aka "The Invincible" on one of the founders of the russian martial art of Sambo (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sambo_(martial_art)) which was shot in Uzbekistan and features their styles of wrestling. It was almost like a documentary and i loved it for how real and earthy it was both for the martial arts and the locations.
Watch on Youtube - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3GLvE5cCFY0 or https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gssvFq0aRas
by rramadass - 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.by qurren
- Thanks, will try!by e40
- Thanks for the pointer, my (Ukrainian) family is going to love this. Plov!by epistasis
- Uzbek food is very popular with all people from the former USSR. So there will be a lot more demand than just Uzbek-Americans.by dron57
- Totally. I take my family to the kosher Uzbek places here in NYC for just that reason.by xyzelement
- 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.
by gtg239a - I've spent a lot of time chasing Uzbek bread and plov on YouTube, so I was very very surprised to see an oil company publishing such a beautiful article. I jsut hope it's not a sign of oil exploitation in Uzbekistan...by epistasis
- 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.
by comrade1234 - I wonder how close that dish is to the Indian one Baingan Bharta (it lacks eggs).by zer00eyz
- > from the Caspian Sea area
That's a funny way of saying Gilan, Iran. The dish was invented by (and is named after) Mohammad Ghasem Khan Vali, the governer of Gilan province.
by yubblegum - > Mirza Ghasemi: A smoked eggplant dish cooked with garlic, tomatoes, and eggs, from the Caspian Sea area.
That sounds good. Makes me think of hunkar begendi.
by chucksmash - > Mirza Ghasemi: A smoked eggplant dish cooked with garlic, tomatoes, and eggs, from the Caspian Sea area.
Eggplant is one of those incredible veggies that seemingly not a lot of people know what to do with. You can bake it on a grill or your cooktop stove to give it that amazing smokey taste. I often eat it as-is without adding anything else but pairing with eggs takes it to the next level. There is another dish from that same general region called Ajapsandali which is probably one of the tastiest breakfast meals you'll ever eat if you like eggplant.
by sakopov - 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.
by RajT88