When my mother was 19 years old her father, who was a hydraulic engineer for the Bureau of Reclamation, signed on to the Helmand Valley Authority irrigation project through the Agency for International Development in order to teach the people of Afghanistan how to build and survey water systems.
At the time, my mother was attending the University of Las Vegas and hating every minute of it, so instead she dropped out and followed her parents to the city of Lashkar Gah in southern Afghanistan where she lived for almost one year or their two year stay. That was in 1968.
Lashkar Gah was 90 miles by dirt road off the only highway in Afghanistan from the large city Kandahar, according to her descriptions, and lies on the north side of two rivers, the Helmand and the Argindab.
“There was plenty of water,” she recalls, “but you'd never know it to look at the area around the town. Everything was so over-grazed and there were no proper irrigation systems to really make the area bloom.”
From the 1940s to the 1970s, the Helmand irrigation project opened up a vast section of desert for cultivation and helped build one of the largest farming areas in the southern region.
Still, during the year they were there, the city’s water was so contaminated it had to be boiled for at least 20 minutes before it could be used.
When they would venture into the local bazaar, my mother and grandparents would bring a clean, empty pillowcase to serve as their shopping bag. My mother’s favorite stop was the naan shop, a shack that was raised above street level and little more than a closet. They would tell the baker, who sat on the floor of the shop, how many loaves they wanted and to give them the naan that came directly from the oven, not the ones he had already baked.
The baker would reach into the big bowl of dough he had in front of him and weigh each portion on a scale to make sure they were even. Then on a board topped with a padded cloth he would pat the dough into a thin oval shape. Once the dough was formed he would sprinkle it with water and poke dents in the top with his fingers. Supposedly the shape of the indentations on the top of the naan indicates whether the bread was made by a man or a woman.
The baker would then reach down into the tandoori oven, which looked like a hole in the floor in front of where he was sitting, slap the bread on the side of the oven and they would wait.
A few minutes later, once the bread had turned a golden brown, he would reach into the oven with a long pair of black metal tongs, grab the loaf and drop it into their open pillowcase.
“If we didn't tell him to drop it right in the bag, he'd set it down and sprinkle more 'jewy' water on it,” says my mother. “The jewy was the big ditch that ran down the middle of the street. Some people might be washing their teacups in it, brushing their teeth in it or peeing in it. It was exceedingly contaminated.”
Still, my mother says, the bread was so good and she ate so much of it that she gained 20 pounds during her year abroad.
Man and son at the county fair in Lashkar Gah
They would also bring their pillowcase shopping bag to the outdoor market where they would buy their meat.
At the crack of dawn they would head out to the old part of town and go to the meat sellers’ section of the bazaar. If they got there early enough they would see the farmers carrying the skinned, whole sheep draped over their shoulders.
The local butchers would buy the sheep from the farmers and start to cut it up. The heads were lined up and put on the curb with their noses all pointed toward the road.
Each “shop” consisted of several long tables arraigned into a U shape. Scaffolding that looked like it would have hung a curtain separated each shop from the next. Instead of curtains, however, legs of lamb and shoulder cuts hung from the crossbeams.
Shopping in Kandahar“You’d point to the freshest one and the shop owner would take it down with a long black hook and deposit it into your pillow case,” my mother describes. “The reason you went early is so you could get a piece of meat before the flies had a chance to sit on it very long. The amount of flies was astonishing! And there was an unpleasant odor of flies, and filth, rotting vegetables and just dirt.”
Once they had purchased their meat, they would take it home, soak it and scrub it to make sure there were no fly eggs or other bugs still on it.
"Fat-tailed sheep is really excellent," says my mom, "although it always had to be thoroughly cooked. None of this medium rare stuff."
I think of this story as I enter the brightly light, temperature controlled Patel Market and pick out ingredients for our Afghani dinner. Our meat came in a plastic-wrapped package.
Below is my mother’s recipe for Kabuli Palow, which I have also seen spelled Qaubili or Qabuli Palao, Pilau or Palau. Regardless of how it’s spelled, Palow is considered the national dish of Afghanistan and consists of long grain rice topped with meat, carrots, raisins and nuts. Also included is her recipe for naan, which Adam, after misunderstanding me the first time I pronounced it, kept calling “none.”
Like most Afghan dishes, the kabuli palow was highly spiced without being hot. Personally I loved it since I remember its spices and textures from my childhood. Adam on the other hand, although he didn’t dislike the dish, had a hard time adapting to the sweet and savory flavor combinations that are not common to the American palate.
We also had a refreshing cucumber and yogurt salad with fresh mint that would be perfect on a hot summer day.
Throughout the house I grew up in were many souvenirs from my mother’s trip abroad: brass topped tables, intricately inlayed cabinets and large hand woven Persian rugs. The most commented-on piece, however, was the beautifully etched and beaded hookah, or hubbly bubbly as we called it, that sat in our living room.
Every time I had a new friend over to the house their first question would usually be, “Why is there a bong in your living room?” I would then have to explain what it was, where it had come from and that it had never even been used to smoke tobacco, let alone anything else.
With this little anecdote in mind, I suggested that after our dinner we go to the Shish Kebab House of Afghanistan in West Hartford to check out their new indoor hookah lounge.
Once we arrived we were taken through the main dinning area, down a back hallway, up two flights of stairs and down another hallway to smoking area. We felt like we were in a secret underground club.
Still, we found a cozy corner and ordered a tasty bowl of latte-flavored sheesha and ended the evening with a pleasant buzz in our heads.
Kabuli Palow
Naan
