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The Fabled Flatbreads of Uzbekistan (2015)

aramcoworld.com

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Re: The Fabled Flatbreads of Uzbekistan (2015)

#41

Post by frollogaston »

RajT88 wrote: post #12
netsharc wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess if you're a migrant, an ethnic restaurant (is that term politically correct?) is one of the most obvious businesses you can start. The Thai government used to sponsor (not sure if they still do) Thai diaspora who want to open a restaurant in a foreign country, it was their way to market the country and attract tourists.

Migrant is actually the wrong word entirely, I think. Migrants move around to follow the work. (Think more like "Nomad") Immigrants resettle in new places. I'm reading more about it, and probably these restaurants survive based on a combination of: - Family run, keeping labor low (labor always number 1 cost) - Central Asian and Muslim customers (much more than just Uzbeks) - Setting up in low-rent locations like stri…

I did notice that the Muslim Chinese restaurants have a lot of non-Chinese Muslim customers, maybe because they want halal.

Re: The Fabled Flatbreads of Uzbekistan (2015)

#42

Post by vector_spaces »

netsharc wrote: post #9
RajT88 wrote: post #3

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…

I guess if you're a migrant, an ethnic restaurant (is that term politically correct?) is one of the most obvious businesses you can start. The Thai government used to sponsor (not sure if they still do) Thai diaspora who want to open a restaurant in a foreign country, it was their way to market the country and attract tourists.

OK, I'll bite. In this particular case I personally would have said "a restaurant of your national cuisine" or even omit the adjective altogether since it's somewhat obvious from the preceding conversation what you mean.

My main qualm with this usage -- aside from being dated -- is that all cuisines are ethnic, but singling out the hypothetical migrant's as such implies that it is particularly ethnic. So in this sense it is a bit othering.

To be clear, I don't write this to call you out for your usage or accuse you -- I'm just answering your good-faith question.

RE your point, I don't agree that it's so obvious -- cooking and running a restaurant are pretty hard regardless of where you are from!

Re: The Fabled Flatbreads of Uzbekistan (2015)

#43

Post by comrade1234 »

yubblegum wrote: post #37
comrade1234 wrote: post #7

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…

> 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.

I didn't see that anywhere. Is that like general Tso's chicken being from a chinese general?

Re: The Fabled Flatbreads of Uzbekistan (2015)

#44

Post by munk-a »

netsharc wrote: post #9
RajT88 wrote: post #3

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…

I guess if you're a migrant, an ethnic restaurant (is that term politically correct?) is one of the most obvious businesses you can start. The Thai government used to sponsor (not sure if they still do) Thai diaspora who want to open a restaurant in a foreign country, it was their way to market the country and attract tourists.

Thai cuisine is remarkably interesting due to Global Thai and both the funding for restaurants as well as the standardization of curry recipes that was led by the government to help spread cultural awareness of the cuisine.

Re: The Fabled Flatbreads of Uzbekistan (2015)

#45

Post by d4ng »

sakopov wrote: post #29
comrade1234 wrote: post #7

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…

> 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 fro…

Worth bathing the decently sliced eggplant in whipped egg and then in flour, and frying in a decent amount of oil. Add herbs. Simple. This is common in the Mediterranean.

When cooking over gas, it is nice to remove the skin in cold water, chop up coarsely, and add yoghurt, garlic, olive oil, salt and herbs, with a good whizzing up following, to make a decent dip for flatbread or anything else.

Re: The Fabled Flatbreads of Uzbekistan (2015)

#46

Post by carpo »

sakopov wrote: post #29
comrade1234 wrote: post #7

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…

> 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 fro…

I never liked eggplant as a kid, but my Chinese in-laws make some amazing eggplant dishes. My favourite is one where they cut it into inch thick slices, then slice the slice about 3/4 of the way through and stuff it with a seasoned pork mince, dust it with flour and deep fry until golden.

Re: The Fabled Flatbreads of Uzbekistan (2015)

#47

Post by chadash »

alephnerd wrote: post #5
RajT88 wrote: post #3

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…

Much of the Uzbek and Central Asian community is largely located in the Bay, NYC, and DMV. There are around 3 Uzbek restaurants in SF alone.

It’s wild how NYC trumps every other city for ethnic food by miles. The number of central Asian places (mostly Uzbek and Georgian) is probably closer to 100.

Re: The Fabled Flatbreads of Uzbekistan (2015)

#48

Post by roncesvalles »

littlekey wrote: post #27

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

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.

Re: The Fabled Flatbreads of Uzbekistan (2015)

#49

Post by epistasis »

qurren wrote: post #32

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.

Thanks for the pointer, my (Ukrainian) family is going to love this. Plov!

Re: The Fabled Flatbreads of Uzbekistan (2015)

#50

Post by epistasis »

gtg239a wrote: post #4

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…

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...
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