Tajik cuisine
Tajik cuisine is a traditional cuisine of Tajikistan, and has much in common with Iranian, Afghan, Russian, Chinese, and Uzbek cuisines. Palov or palav, also called osh , is the national dish in Tajikistan, as in other countries in the region. Green tea is the common national drink.
Common foods and dishes
Palav or osh, generically known as plov, is a rice dish made with julienned carrot, and pieces of meat, all fried together in vegetable oil or mutton fat in a special cookware called deg over an open flame. The meat is cubed before or after being cooked, the carrots can be yellow or orange, and the rice is colored yellow or orange by the frying carrots and the oil. The dish is eaten communally from a single large plate placed at the center of the table, often in with one's hands in the traditional way.Another traditional dish that is still eaten with hands from a communal plate is qurutob, whose name describes the preparation method: qurut is dissolved in water and the liquid is poured over strips of а thin flaky flatbread. Before serving the dish is topped with onions fried in oil until golden and topped with fresh seasonal vegetables. No meat is added. Qurutob is considered as one of the national dishes, predominantly consumed in the Southern regions.
Meals are almost always served with non, flatbread found throughout Central Asia. If a Tajik has food but not non, he will say he is out of food. If non is dropped on the ground, people will put it up on a high ledge for beggars or birds. Legend holds that one is not supposed to put non upside down because this will bring bad luck. The same holds if anything is put on top of the non, unless it is another piece of non.
Breakfast usually consists of tea, kulcha or non with butter, hasib, panir, qaymoq or sarshir, murabbā, tukhmbiryān, etc. Fruits such as berries, grapes, melons, apples, peaches, and apricots are eaten too during the summer. Kompot is often drunk as well.
Traditional Tajik soups include mainly meat and vegetable soups, and meat soups with noodles. Other dishes shared regionally, either as fast food or as an appetizer, include manti, tushbera, sambusa, and belyash.
Soviet cuisine both influenced and was in turn influenced by Tajik cuisine.