Pickled Cucumbers (Kyrgyzstan)
Pickling was a widely-used way of storing food in the USSR, and it played an important role in mitigating perennial shortages. Along with the mass production of glass jars and tin lids, the state promoted the conservation of food products through the mass publication of recipes and advice from Soviet and foreign authors. In Central Asia, this practice began to spread in the 1960s. The photo shows a three-litre jar of pickled cucumbers, prepared according to the recipe of my grandmother Dilar. She told me that during her youth in the 1960s, such a jar was of particular value. For example, it could be used as a gift when you went to visit somebody, or an asset that could be exchanged for household items, clothes, etc.
In Central Asia, the traditional way of storing food was through drying or curing it, methods which are ideal for the arid and harsh continental climate of the region. Making pickles with brine, vinegar or syrup was a completely new practice that came to the region together with Socialism and the development of the food industry. The recipes for pickled and preserved salads, vegetables and fruits were carefully treasured, rewritten and passed on as important knowledge. At the same time, the practice of pickling made it possible to create new combinations and original recipes.
The development of a pickling culture was also supported by the spread of vegetables new to the region, which could be stored for a long time both in natural form (for example, potatoes) and in preserved form (cucumbers, tomatoes, aubergines, cabbage, peppers). Marianne Kamp's work on the oral histories of the generation who underwent collectivization in Uzbekistan, shows the connection between collectivization in the 1930s, and the decision to try potatoes and tomatoes for the first time, which helped alleviate the effects of famine and overcome the food shortages caused by collectivization.
The very practice of pickling could result in local competitions between neighbours or relatives: who will seal up more jars? The tally could extend to hundreds of jars of various products. Homemade preserves and pickles could be found on the balconies of townspeople's apartments, as well as in the cellars of villagers' houses. The harvest period fell in the autumn, and called on the efforts of the whole family, since this is a laborious process that requires the careful sterilization of glassware and tin lids, washing, slicing, and rolling up of vegetables and fruits. Canning was an important social ritual that created a home-based production team where everyone was employed for the common good.
An important difference between pickled products was that they lay outside the framework of what anthropologist Aida Aaly Alymbaeva calls "national cuisine." Pickled and preserved foods brought with them a certain effect of both combination and dilution, a mingling of many different conceptions of national cuisine. The practice of preserving food helped many families cope with food shortages during the waning of the Soviet period and into the subsequent 1990s. This practice has also had a significant impact on the food culture in the region, when traditional dishes are seamlessly combined with berry jams and pickled cucumbers.
References/Литература
Aaly Alymbaeva, A. (2020). 'Nations of Plov and Beshbarmak: Central Asian Food and National Identity on the Internet'. The Muslim World, 110(1), 107-125.https://doi.org/10.1111/muwo.12321
Kamp, M. (2019). 'Hunger and Potatoes: The 1933 Famine in Uzbekistan and Changing Foodways'. Kritika: Explorations in Russian and Eurasian History, 20(2), 237-267.https://muse.jhu.edu/article/725003
Asel Murzakulova is a Research Fellow at the University of Central Asia's Mountain Societies Research Institute and co-founder of the Mongu Analytical Club (https://mongu.akipress.org). Through the EU-funded AGRUMIG Horizon 2020 project, her research focuses on rural change and migration in the Naryn, Jalal-Abad and Batken regions of Kyrgyzstan. From 2016 to 2020, she led a research project at the University of Central Asia on transboundary tensions related to water and pasture management in Central Asia. In 2008, she was a visiting fellow at Harvard University, and in 2013 at the University of California, Berkeley. Her research covers cross-border conflicts, post-socialist infrastructure, migration, natural resource management, and nationalism.