The Honey Thief (30 page)

But when you are an Afghan, you want your land to flourish and instead you are faced with arrangements, as I say, designed to break your heart. I am about to speak of the food of Afghanistan, and since food comes from the land, let me first speak about land. Few Afghans own any land, or few as a proportion of the total. Most farmers are what we call
gharib kar
, or sharecroppers, who are permitted to cultivate a few
jeribs
that are owned by another, keeping one fifth of what they produce. Another type of sharecropper, a
baz kar
, may be allowed to keep one quarter of his crop by a more generous
Bai
, or landlord. A tenant farmer of another sort, a
khistmand
, keeps fifty per cent of his crop but has to provide the seed, the oxen, the plough and, of course, all of the labour. Many landowners in Afghanistan have never laid eyes on the soil they own. The land came to them as gifts from powerful people or as rewards for deeds done. Their land is handled by an agent, while the owners sometimes live far away.

*   *   *

Oh, the oxen and the plough. Afghanistan is a country in which the most up-to-date weapons have been employed over the past thirty years by the Soviet Union and by the United States; weapons worth billions of dollars. Aerial bombardment in some provinces has created huge craters in the soil. But in 1990 in Faryab Province – to single out just one region – the soil of the fields was turned by the oxen and the plough, and by one tractor. One tractor in the entire province. The cost of a single two thousand kilogram bomb of the type dropped on Herat and its outskirts in 1984 – and hundreds of such bombs were dropped on Herat – would have paid for nine tractors, while the total cost of aerial bombardment over the period of the war against the Soviets could have provided eight hundred tractors for every province in Afghanistan. Do you see what I mean about heartbreak? No nation on earth knows more about modern munitions than Afghanistan. And hardly any nation knows less about modern farming practices.

I am a man who hates waste in all its forms: the waste of soil that is turned not by ploughs but by bombs, the waste of clean water polluted by dead bodies, the waste of energy in murderous bickering. The most frustrating thing of all for me is knowing what plenty the soil of Afghanistan can produce when it is given the chance. Our fruits are amongst the finest grown anywhere on earth, our grains are full of sunshine, our vegetables grow plump to the point of bursting. The seven per cent of land in which things can grow in Afghanistan could feed the population many times over, and still leave surplus to sell overseas. And is that not the first task of any nation’s people – to grow the food that feeds them?

Eating

The food of Afghanistan, including the dishes mentioned in these stories, was first the food of Persia. And the food of Persia is a version of the food of India. Before India, who can say? Afghanistan has never known peace and security such as the Persians experienced under their emperors, when people with an interest in food had the leisure to explore and experiment. In Afghanistan, especially for the Hazara, eating is what keeps you alive, not something you write poems about. And so the dishes we prepare are versions of those first prepared to the east, in Isfahan and Shiraz, in Mashad, Tabriz, Kerman, Yazd, Rafsanjan.

More than any other people in Afghanistan, the Hazara have kept what they eat very simple. My ancestors carried the meat of goats and sheep under the saddles of their horses on long journeys to battlefields – a trick that kept meat tender and lent the dish made from it a pleasant flavour of horse sweat. Nobody ever accused the Hazara of fussiness when it came to food.

However, it is the eggplant that the Hazara praise; that all Afghans praise; or the tomato, the potato, the pomegranate, not so much the dishes that employ them. If a woman of a village in the Hazarajat is able to prepare delicious
badenjan
, she will be congratulated, of course, but the eggplant that forms the basis of
badenjan
will be considered to have made the greater contribution to the success of the dish. When I eat
badenjan
, I do not pay my wife the sorts of compliments you hear on television cooking programs, speaking of a delicate aftertaste, or the way in which the potato slices have ‘adopted’ some of the flavour of the baked tomato. Instead, I congratulate her on a successful visit to the market, and on having a good eye for eggplant. Okay, for her cooking too, but in few words, heartfelt words.

Let me explain. In the West, cooking is spoken of as an art, and art itself is considered something borrowed from God. But it is different amongst the people of my faith. For us, art is something men do – men and women. It has nothing to do with God, Who may watch and applaud, but does not whisper suggestions into the ear of the artist. God made the eggplant, God made the capsicum, God made the plump ear of corn. What act of creation by a man can compare with the creation of the eggplant? Look at the world. The eggplant in its beauty is but one of a billion of God’s creations. This is a world of such beauty and such diversity that God can well leave to us what we call art, including the art of cooking.

It is the eggplant we praise, as I say. If Afghans of my faith are asked to talk about food, we will think of individual items of food, of the places within Afghanistan that are famous for that item of food, and of God Who gave us hunger and the foods to satisfy our appetites. We think of the pistachios of Badghis in the west close to Turkmenistan; the wheat, barley and red beans of Samangan in the north; the oranges and olives of Nangarhar on the Pakistan border; the grapes of Charikar; the potatoes of Balkh; the pomegranates and mangos and apples of Kandahar; the almonds of Oruzgan; the mulberries and tomatoes of Sheberghan; the sesame oil and the Karakul mutton of Aqcha. And think of this: in Helmand, where most of the opium for the world is grown, we also grow peanuts, and wonderful peanuts they are. We have very little soil left to us in Afghanistan, but that which we have is blessed by God.

I have said that Afghans of my faith think of God when food is placed before them, but it is not only the marvel of the eggplant that moves us to think of Heaven. In the scriptures of Islam, many verses remind us that greed of every sort is ruin; a blight on the soul that settles like mould on grapes that receive too much sun and water. The Holy Book has nothing good to say of those who pile wealth upon wealth and adorn their palaces and mansions with ornaments of gold. Islam is a faith of those who would flourish without great indulgence. The Prophet Himself has said this: ‘Man fills no vessel worse than his stomach. It is sufficient for the son of Adam to have a few mouthfuls to give him the strength he needs.’ People of my faith would be embarrassed to spend their lives talking of food. In our world, many people go hungry for every person who can eat his fill each day. God is closer to the hungry man than the man who satisfies his appetite at will.

*   *   *

But having said all this, I must tell you that the recipes we have inherited from India and Persia reach perfection in Afghanistan. Small changes have been made; certain herbs added, certain spices. The changes are important, particularly in dishes that include meat. For my taste, Indian dishes go a little too far with spices. You could be eating crocodile, including the skin and the teeth, and all you would taste is spice. The Persians, for their part, developed the art of preparing rice and great honour is due to them for this accomplishment. Afghans have taken the preparation of rice a little further. I have said that the Hazara are not fussy eaters, but when it comes to the preparation of rice we are very fussy indeed. And so are all Afghans. On top of the small changes, the ingredients we provide are superior to those the Indians or the Persians employ. I am not boasting; what I say is simply a fact. I will soon give you the recipe for a
qorma
that makes use of a shoulder of Karakul lamb from Aqcha. Unless you have tasted Karakul lamb in a
qorma
, your experience of good food is incomplete.

Halal and Haram

Before I speak of Afghan dishes, I must explain what is meant by
halal
and by
haram
, since these two terms are very important to all people of my faith in the preparation of food. To people of other faiths, except for Jews and Hindus, the idea of some foods being lawful (
halal
) and some being unlawful, or forbidden (
haram
), must seem strange. Even to Muslims, the idea of certain foods being forbidden is puzzling, if we think about it. But mostly, we don’t think about it.

This is what is written in the Holy Book:

God only prohibits for you the eating of animals that die of themselves, blood, the meat of pigs, and animals dedicated to other than God. If one is forced to eat that which is prohibited, without being malicious or deliberate, he incurs no sin. God is the Forgiver, Most Merciful.

So people of my faith do not eat any animal that is found dead. The animal may have died of natural causes, it may have choked, it may have fallen off a precipice. Okay, that creature is
haram
. Or think of this: a creature is held sacred by the people of some other religion, maybe by a religion of snake-worshippers. If the snake is dedicated to their God, people of my faith leave it alone. Except for cows, which are held sacred by the Hindus. We still eat cows. Creatures that bleed – except for fish, which are
halal
even when you catch them – become
halal
in the killing process. Animals cannot be killed by means of electric shock, they cannot be killed by boiling, but must be slaughtered in the old-fashioned way, which is to say, with a knife. The person who slaughters the beast must speak the name of God.

Once the beast is slaughtered, it must be bled until all running blood has been drained. People of my faith are not permitted to consume blood in its fluid form at all. Of course, a certain quantity of blood remains in the flesh of the slaughtered animal, but this is not considered
haram
. The slaughtering must be carried out by one of our faith, or at least by one of the People of the Book, meaning those mentioned in the Holy Book: all Muslims and all Jews, and those of certain faiths that have disappeared from the world. A Muslim may eat any food that Jews consider ‘kosher’, or ‘clean’. Neither Jews nor Muslims may eat the flesh of the pig. A pig cannot be made
halal
. Why the pig should be singled out in this way is a mystery to both Muslims and Jews. Maybe some story from many ages past, some story now lost could explain why pigs are
haram
. It’s no great loss.

The Preparation of Rice

Rice is not exciting, held in the palm of our hand. But it deserves respect. It has its own special beauty. For Afghans, rice is best eaten with each grain separated. When it is placed in a mound after cooking, the grains should tumble down the sides like pebbles. I have seen rice sticking to a wooden spoon like the glue that carpenters heat in a pot and use in their craft. Cooking rice in that way does it no honour. As for the grain itself, we choose long grain Basmati rice from Pakistan. It is a shocking thing to say, but Afghans who have brought the preparation of rice to its highest stage of development do not themselves grow the very best grains. Such a shame! Nevertheless, the Pakistanis are happy to sell us their rice and we are happy to eat it. Pakistani Basmati grains – and Indian Basmati, too – are the royalty of rice.

The Basmati must be soaked in clean, cold water for thirty minutes before cooking. The rice is not added to the bowl of water, but instead the water is poured onto the rice. Each ten minutes, the rice is moved gently in the water with a spoon. After thirty minutes, the rice is drained in a
chalow saffi
, the utensil known as a colander in English. In fresh cold water the rice is boiled in a pot, allowing the level of the water to exceed the depth of the rice, but not too greatly. Once the water boils, the rice remains submerged for five minutes only, and must be stirred briefly twice in the space of those five minutes. The rice is again drained in the
chalow saffi
, and once drained, it is rinsed and allowed to stand in the
chalow saffi
for a short time. At this stage, if the Basmati has been treated without abuse, each grain will stand separate. In a dish or bowl suitable for use in an oven, and better that the dish should be pottery, a small amount of oil and butter is heated. The Basmati is poured onto the melted oil and butter and turned with a spoon while salt is added. The quantity of salt should not destroy the taste of the rice. The Basmati is baked at a temperature that is judged not to be excessive for a period of twenty minutes.

*   *   *

There is a tale of the Woman of Naishapur that I will use to end this story of Basmati and its preparation.

Many ages past, in the time before our faith came to Afghanistan, Kabul and the lands around were ruled by people of the north. The town in those days was called Kabul-Shahan and belonged to Hindus who worshipped many gods. The Prince of Kabul-Shahan was called Shahiya, a man of luxury, and cruel. For the sake of his vanity this Prince took it upon himself to discover the best rice in the world so that he might boast: ‘My intestines have digested the choicest grain granted us by Heaven.’ Many nervous cooks passed through the Prince’s kitchens for it was his habit to fling those whose rice disappointed him into the river with their hands tied to their feet. With the passing of time the Prince came to hear of a woman of Naishapur, where our faith had blossomed, and this woman’s rice was considered a wonder. The Prince sent his soldiers on a great journey into Persia to capture the woman and bring her to his palace. The soldiers were successful; the woman stood before the Prince in chains. The Prince asked the woman of Naishapur if her rice was the wonder of Persia and she said, ‘It is.’ The Prince commanded her to prepare rice for him and the woman said, ‘Leave me in your kitchens for a day and night.’ Busy sounds could be heard in the kitchens when the woman went to work. Saucepans clashed against saucepans, cutlery rattled, and the kitchen cat mewed loudly. Reports were brought to the Prince of all this activity, so that his appetite was roused more and more with every hour that passed. In the morning, the kitchen doors were thrown open and the woman came forth with a golden bowl under a golden cover. She placed the bowl before Shahiya with the words ‘It is done.’ The Prince lifted the cover and saw a single grain of rice in the bowl. He said, ‘Do you mock me?’ The woman replied, ‘In the Holy Book it is written that we must not waste by excess, for God loveth not the wasters. Prince, more than one grain of rice would be a waste on one such as you.’ So shocked was the Prince, so shocked were his guards that the woman walked from the palace without a hand being raised to stop her.