DUBAI: Ata Baba hazelnuts, Madrasa grapes, rosehip syrup, wild honey, mountain chestnuts, Marsan tomatoes. When it comes to culinary heritage Azerbaijan, for its size, has few competitors. The dense forests and agriculturally rich valleys of the Greater Caucasus Mountains have provided local communities with a smorgasbord of natural produce over the centuries.
Armed with local knowledge handed down from generation to generation, its people have produced an array of unique dishes such as heyva rubu, or quince compote, that takes 15 hours of slow cooking to prepare, and abgora, a traditional condiment made from unripe graves harvested between 1 and 3 August that is used to treat everything from anaemia to alopecia.
Azerbaijan’s abundance of unique food products is being threatened by large-scale commercial agriculture, cheap imported foods and increased urbanisation. Quince compote and abgora are just two of 31 Azeri products that the global, grassroots organisation Slow Food has added to its Ark of Taste listing of the world’s threatened culinary heritage.
To preserve this precious resource, the Azerbaijan Tourism Board (ATB) has teamed up with Slow Food to curate a series of food-based circuits that will allow tourists a hands-on experience with farmers and producers while enjoying overnight accommodation in rural Azerbaijan farmhouses. The circuits will start in the summer of 2022.
Speaking at the Azerbaijan Pavilion at Expo 2020 Dubai, Sakina Asgarova, Slow Food Project Manager at the ATB, said the emphasis will be on activities involving local products on the brink of extinction.
“The slow food concept can increase the income of the people in the community and simultaneously promote tourism. In other words you transfer your biodiversity potential into tourism potential. This is very much in line with our national tourism strategy.”
One of Azerbaijan’s unique plant species, the Marsan tomato would have now been extinct had it not been for the efforts of 64-year-old Halima Mirzakhanova from the village of Gakh in the southern Caucasus Mountains, who has been single-handedly preserving the seeds of the variety that she remembers was popular in grandmother’s time.
Because the tomato’s skin is soft and thin, it does not travel well, which made it unpopular with farmers. But Mirzakhanova recognised the variety’s unique sweet flavour and its qualities for pickling and making sauces. With the help of Slow Food, the product is being commercialised and the number of families growing the variety is slowly increasing.
“The 21st century is about globalisation. Everything is becoming the same. That is why protecting our unique communities and their local knowledge is so important,” said Asgarova.
“When it comes to slow food tourism language is not a barrier. They [the producers] speak through their products, their culinary values, the way they dress and how they eat. Slow food tourism is merging all these elements,” she said.
Florian Sengstschmid, Chief Executive of Azerbaijan Tourism Board said: “Slow Food Travel offers territories the possibility to develop their potential as a quality gastronomic destination, respecting strict guidelines and the Slow Food philosophy, through the construction of alliances and experiences that best enhance the local gastronomic heritage.”
The Azerbaijan Pavilion plans to showcase its gastronomic heritage over the coming six months with a series of culinary events using Azeri chefs belonging to the Slow Food Cooks’ Alliance. The alliance is an international network of 400 chefs that protects biodiversity as well as supporting honest food producers.
Ten Azeri chefs already registered in Alliance including Orkhan Mukhtarov, Abulfas Habibov who presented the Ark of Taste Menu at the Azerbaijan Pavilion last week.
Slow Food is a global, grassroots organization, founded in 1989 to prevent the disappearance of local food cultures and traditions, counteract the rise of fast life and combat people’s dwindling interest in the food they eat, where it comes from and how our food choices affect the world around us.
© Press Release 2021
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