Ethnic groups

Language

Religious non-leteracy in a literate culture

Folklore and folk music

Folk music and instruments

Settlement patterns

Life Cycle in Afghanistan
Birth and Childhood
Marriage
Death and Inheritance
Sports and Games
Diet
Dress and ornaments

The inward looking society

The Afghan may not live on bread (nan) alone but he comes mighty close to it. At least eleven terms for bread exist in Pashto. Throughout much of Afghanistan, the term nan refers to food in general. Hot nan, as most experienced gourmets agree, is one of the world's great foods. The specifics of diet vary from region to region according to local resources, but almost anything which can be ground by a watermill or in a mortar is used to make unleavened or lightly leavened bread: wheat (abi-irrigated and lalmi-highland, non-irrigated), barley, maize, millet (particularly in Nuristan), even dried mulberries and peas. Distinctive shapes and types of bread characterize various parts of the country. The more common bread, oblong in shape, somewhat resembles a racetrack. The bread of the north tends to be more oval.

Special types of bread, such as bolani (bread with leeks or potatoes baked in the center), occur throughout Afghanistan.

Bread ovens also are distinctive. The most common, the pottery tandur, is buried in the ground with coals at the bottom. The bakers slap the flattened dough against the inner wall for baking. A team smoothly delivers the bread from dough to customer. Some nomads use a portable, curved, circular iron plate, placed in one of two positions.

Nomads on the move and shepherds in the hills sometimes cook nan-i-kak, prepared by covering a heated stone with kneaded flour-and water dough. The stone and dough are placed near hot coals and turned occasionally as the bread browns. When done, the bread is easily broken from the stone for eating.

In Kabul, a distinctive custom developed, particularly among the seasonal workers (such as the Hazara). Every morning the workers and other urban poor make the rounds of the hotel (which means restaurant, not hotel) to sell or trade gandanah (leeks) for nan left over from the previous evening's pilau. Such juice-soaked nan is called sabuz. The people joke with one another and ask what type of pilau they are eating, from the residual tastes left on the nan.

Many types of pilau (rice, usually served with meat and/or vegetables) exist. Several varieties of rice grow in the wetter areas of Afghanistan: Jalalabad, Laghman in the east; Kunduz in the north (Ferdinand, 1959a). The Afghans cook most of these dishes in roghani-dunibah or roghan-i-zard. They often refer to roghan-i-zard (a clarified butter) as ghi, a Hindi term which many believe to be English. Roghani-dumbah is a lard rendered from the tail of the fat-tailed sheep. Recently, however, the use of vegetable shortening (called roghan-inawati) has increased with major exports from Pakistan, India, Iran, and Western Europe. Two local factories, at Bost and -Kunduz, also provide part of Afghanistan's vegeiable oil needs.

All pilaus have some sort of boiled meat buried in the center of the rice. Side dishes of vegetables (qorniah), with or without meat but often with a tomato (bonjan-i-rumi) base, supplement the pilau to give added flavor and body. Some curries are used in• areas near Pakistan. The vegetables include spinach (sabzi or palak), potatoes (kachalu), peas (mashong), eggplant (ban jan-i-sia), carrots (zardak), turnips (shalgham), and squash (kadu).. Yogurt (mast) also is served as a side dish and at times mixed with the rice. Sometimes an eggplant with sour cream (qruti) dish called burani is eaten with the chilaw or pilau. Of the many types of pilau, these are, perhaps, the most common:

Chilaw: plain rice with a large hunk of mutton or a chicken buried in the center.

Qabli (not "Kabuli," as commonly believed by many foreigners) pilau: with raisins, shredded carrots, almonds and pistachio nuts. To serve a guest qabli indicates great respect.

Sabzi (or zamarud) pilau: with spinach. Mashong pilau: with small green peas.

Yakhni pilau: with mutton (different from clzilaw in that the mutton is steamed with the rice).

Reshta pilau: with eggs.

Bonjan-i-sia pilau: with eggplant. Morgh pilau: with chicken.

Naranj pilau: a sweetish pilau with dried orange peels.

Kala-pacheh pilau: with the head (including eyeballs, usually served to the honored guest) and feet of a sheep.

Landi pilau: with dried meat prepared like jerky; a favorite winter dish.

A mixture of pickled vegetables (baby eggplant, carrots, beans, chilis) called torshi is normally served with pilau. In Jalalabad and Kabul, a special hot chili sauce, chutney-inorch, is highly prized, especially by the upper classes. Often, sour oranges (naranj) from Jalalabad are squeezed on any pilau for added flavor. From the Peshawar Valley of Pakistan come the highly-prized, tarty-sweet, blood-red malta orange, eaten after the meal.

Afghans often use the term "pilau" to mean "food" in general, because of the importance of the dishes in the culture, and wager one, two, three, or more pilaus when arguments occur. In bargaining with workmen, archaeologists sometimes have to agree to a pilau (or its monetary equivalent) as part of a day's wages.

Pilau and other foods are eaten with the right hand. Sauce from the qormah dishes helps hold the individual grains of steamed rice together. The fingers curve the mass into a ball and the thumb shoves the ball into the mouth. The left hand is reserved for less palatable natural functions (e.g., washing after relieving oneself), and what problems these culturally determined eating habits have caused genetically left-handed children forced from early childhood to conform remains to be studied.

Several thick, gummy rice (kichri) dishes are popular (called shuleh in general), particularly for con valescents and as desserts. Usually, a hole is dug in the center of the kiclmri and mixtures of ground meat and qruti or ghi poured Into the well. Another thick rice dish, berenj''(word for rice) i-lak is made by mixing rice with nakhod, a type of chick pea, also roasted in hot sand and seasame oil and eaten like popcorn (palah or jowari, Dari, ninah, Pashto), another popular dish.

A thick dessert paste, fuludah, also served to the ill, is prepared by mixing milk and wheat flour in a porous bag and then bailing for ten to twelve hours. The Afghans place boiled rice-spaghetti syrup (mirwayi) in the middle of the Jaludah.

Au American-type white rice (batah) which requires more water for cooking is growing in popularity. Stuffing ground meat mixed with rice into eggplant, squash, and green peppers has become common in most urban centers.

Dam pok, rice boiled in water and oil (which are not drained off after cooking), is a well-known and well-liked dish in both rural and urban areas.

Another important item in Afghan diets (particularly in urban centers) are kabab types, usually alternately skewered lean mutton cubes and small pieces of fat broiled over charcoal and served on the sikh (skewer). The results are called sikh- or parchah- (cubed) or tikah(cubed) kabab. At times onions and small tomatoes divide the meat. Normally, a salad of chopped fresh onions and tomatoes are served as a complementary dish. For added flavor the Afghan dips most kabab in crushed grape seeds, paprika, and black pepper. Kuftah-kabab (meat balls with onions ground with the meat, cooked either in a pan or on skewers over charcoal) is often cooked as qormah and served as a side dish with pilau. Shami-kabab, possibly of Kashmiri origin, resembles kuftah-kabab, but has raw eggs and ground boiled potatoes mixed with the meat. Shami are prepared on sikh, but removed before serving. The sikh hole remains visible. A highly-spiced, hamburger-like patty, chapli-kabab, found mainly in the Jalalabad area but spreading, has obvious connections with the hotter dishes of Pakistan.

Other types of kabab, include lolah or qimah (oblong, skewered meatballs served on the sikh); karayi (mutton meatballs or cubes mixed with onion, tomato and a dropped egg, cooked and served in a round metal pan called karayi); pashti (skewered meat with bone fragments from any part of the sheep still attached); dashi (pan-browned mutton with humerus and femur bone fragments still attached); qabr-ghayi (skewered mutton with rib or backbone fragments still attached); naychayhi (small mutton cubes on bamboo slivers).

Afghans eat hot soups, shorwa, especially in winter. At times, they use communal wooden spoons to eat the soup, as well as for a favorite summer dish, sour milk and cucumbers (badrang). Most sours use mutton. stock, however. The Afghans tear up nan, toss it into the shorwa to soak, and eat the soggy mass by hand. The Uzbak of the north prepare a hearty cattle-blood soup, mixed with tomatoes, after a cattle slaying; they also eat a horsemeat sausage called qazi.

A pasta complex spreads from the Far East to Italy, and on to West. em Europe and America, having its origin somewhere along the Silk Route. Sinologists are unsure of the area of the origin of pasta, but in north Afghanistan and in southern cities, a type of minestrone (noodle-vegetable soup) called ash exists, as do several types of ravioli (ashak) with either cheese (panir), meat (gusht), or leek (gandanah) fillers. The Afghans eat both ash and ashak with chakah (drained yogurt) or qruti (sour cream). A second type of ash, popular among the Uzbak and Turkoman of the north, is made by mixing qruti with the already cooked pasta, and then eaten with meat and vegetable sauces (qormah).

A steamed meat-dumpling called mantu, probably of Tibetan origin, also occurs in north Afghanistan. The Tibetans use the same term for a similar dish.

Du-payazah ("two onions"), a mixture of cooked and raw onions poured like soup over chunks of nun, is popular.

Dairy products from cows, sheep, and goats play a major role in the diet of both villagers and nomads. Everything from fresh milk to all sorts of-boiled milk and regional cheeses are eaten. Major milk products include panir-pakhtah (a crudely pasteurized cheese), panir-chakah (unpasteurized, a cottage cheese type), dugh (sour milk), mast (yogurt), qrut (hard, dehydrated curd-balls). Qrutt, a favorite winter dish, is made by melting qrut in boiling roghan-i-dumbah or zard, and then soaking hunks of nan in the soupy, greasy mixture. The Afghans also top many dishes with qruti made by softening the dehydrated curd in water.

Chicken and eggs are widespread and widely eaten. Other domesticated fowl include guinea hens, ducks, and turkey. Afghans prefer their boiled eggs either tepid or practically raw. When eating boiled eggs, they tap the small end off the egg, put salt and pepper in the top and drink down the egg in one gulp. Scrambled eggs with tomatoes and/or onions are cooked in roghan.

More and more Afghans eat fish, and they have always prized game, particularly gazelle, ibex, markham, duck, quail, pigeon, and partridge. In some areas the people net an ihteresting small bird, qazalaq, about the size of sparrow (which are also eaten). Defeathered, degutted, cooked in roghan, the birds are eaten with their delicate skulls still attached. The head is bitten off first. In the northern part of the country, where crows grow fat eating maize, the Afghans hunt and literally eat crow.

Tea (chay), a staple with meals, serves as the in-between meal hospitality drink of Afghanistan. Among the urban classes in Kabul and larger towns, soda (including Coca-Cola from Pcshawar and a new Coke plant now operating in Kabul) grows in popularity with each passing summer. Specialty shops manufacture the soda in heavy, marble-capped bottles, using large cylinders of compressed CO. Venders cool the. soda with snow, which villagers cut into blocks and bury underground in winter, transporting it for sale to the nearby bazaars in skins to minimize melting. Various flavored sharbat are also made from snow.

Two types of tea, black (chay-sia, popular south of the Hindu Kush) and green (chay-sabz, popular north of the Hindu Kush), are available at all teahouses (chaykhanah or samovar), and consumed throughout the country. Often, the Afghans prepare green tea with cardamon. A prestige tea, qaimak-chay, includes lumps of boiled curds, and has a distinctive salty flavor. Qaimak can also be eaten separately in small pottery jars, and is particularly popular at breakfast time. Those who can afford sugar serve it in tea, but in the samovar a customer must ask for sugar, for it costs extra. Seldom does one find tea drunk with milk, the popular drink in most of South Asia.

Many Afghans simply soak sugar cubes (qand) in tea, and then eat the qand or hold it in the mouth as they drink. Also taken the same way are locally made hard candies and sugar-coated nuts and other foods: noql-nakhod (chick peas); noql-pistah (pistachio nuts); noqlbadam (almonds); noql-khashtah (peach pits).

Traditionally three cups of hospitality tea should be drunk. A guest commonly will have his handleless cup filled at least halfway with sugar, an indicator of welcome and hospitality. The first cup assuages thirst, the second pledges friendship, the third is simply ostentatious. Formalized Afghan hospitality demands conspicuous consumption, and guests eat prodigiously to indicate their appreciation to the host. A few loud belches at the end of a meal are considered polite and please the host. Except in the more Western-oriented homes, Afghans eat sitting on the floor, clustered around sever-al dishes of food.

Sweets, excellent quick-energy foods, are widespread, and include raw sugarcane and sugar beets, jelabi (deep-fried, pretzle-shaped wheat and sugar twists soaked in syrup, and traditionally eaten with fried fish), gur (unrefined molasses lumps), and shur-nakhod, a mixture of beans, raisins, and sweet-sour syrup (serah). Puddings, especially caramel, are popular in urban centers, as well as flrni, a rice pudding with almonds and cardamom and a silver foil topping. Thin, crisp jush-i-fil (elephant ears) are a favorite Afghan pastry, as are kolcha, locally made cookies.

Fresh and dried fruits (many varieties of melons, grapes, apples, apricots, plums, cherries, mulberries, etc.) and nuts (walnuts, almonds, pistachio, pine nuts, etc.) form a major part of the Afghan diet and are exported in large quantities. Travelers often carry dried fruit-nut combinations as quick-energy snacks tied in the end of their urban cloths, including chakidah (walnuts and dried mulberries), talkhun (mulberry cakes), and a mixture of nuts, raisins, and dried mulberries. Growing more popular is corn roasted over charcoal, which can be purchased from hawkers in the bazaar, along with fried shir-mahi (milk fish).

On special occasions such as weddings (already discussed) Afghans prepare distinctive foods. On ~nawruz, for example, two special dishes are samanak, a mushy dessert made of wheat and sugar which takes two and a half days to prepare, and haft-mewah (seven fruits, to symbolize spring), a compote of walnuts, almonds, pistachio nuts, red raisins, green raisins, dried apricots, and a local fruit known as sanjet (jube jube).

Nuristan continues to be culturally aberrant. Many women do not know how to boil rice, for the people live mainly on dairy products and corn and millet breads. Tbey prepare a special cheese fondue in butter (also a medium of exchange), and soak it up with bread. Before conversion to Islam in the 1 890s, Kafirs made wines extensively. Some Nuristanis continue to make wine today.

Few non-literates in Afghanistan drink alcohol, but the Western-educated (as well as those, educated in the U.S.S.R.) Afghans (though not all) make up for everyone else in the country. Most Afghans smoke, and tobacco is widely grown for local consumption in the chelem (water pipe). Urban Afghans smoke imported American, German, Russian, British, Pakistani, or Iranian cigarettes. Often, when an Afghan first begins to smoke cigarettes, he holds the cigarette between the index and middle fingers and puffs through his fist, so that his 11ps do not touch the tobacco.

The smoking of chars (marihuana) is widespread, but I have met few habitual users in my years of residence and research in Afghanistan. Usually habitual users are old men approaching senidty who have passed their biological and economic usefulness as mature adults and no longer enjoy political power as rish-i-safzd. Most Afghans who smoke the resinous substance from Canabis do so at the end of a hard day's work in the fields or with the flocks, so the few puffs actually represent the equivalent of several suburban martinis after a day's tensions in Western cities. A few communal puffs of the chelem at the local meeting-ground with kinsmen and friends ended, the men go home to the evening meal, prayers, sex, and sleep. Seldom does the smoking of chars interfere with the daily socio-economic activities of an individual.

Teryak (opium), smoked and grown mainly in the northeast, usually becomes detrimental only in the same situation as chars. I have met several addicts in Kabul, older men who moved to the city to live with their sons or other close relatives. Under the new urban situation they had lost their influence and active participation in family affairs. Disoriented, they turned 'to the solace of teryak.

More sophisticated Afghans prefer mufarah, a tasty concoction of the essence of teryak, resin of chars, plus ginger and other spices, blended like halwah or baklawah. The Afghans claim mufarah makes an individual laugh for hours, but it also disrupts time-motion senses and causes a floating sensation.

Pork (gusht-i-khuk) is the object of the major dietary prohibition followed by most Afghans. Abstinence from pork in early Islamic Arabia, where trichinosis was rampant, made good dietary sense, but not so in high, dry Afghanistan. However, some Western-trained Afghans will not eat pork, although they drink alcohol.

Urban eating habits, particularly in Kabul, have been drastically changed in the past fifteen years With the great influence of foreigners and the return of Western-educated Afghans. The Khyber Restaurant, for example, a cafeteria and restaurant, offers -solid American construction-camp food. The manager of the Khyber Restaurant had been trained by American engineer construction camp cooks in the late 1 940s and early 195 Os. Other Afghans, trained in Germany, have opened rotisseries.

Several newer hotels offer other cuisines-the Spinzar, Central European; the Faiz, American; Intercontinental, luxury, with New York cut steaks and snails flown in periodically.

In many urban centers, men shop for food in the bazaar, and often claim to be better cooks than their wives.

In rural Afghanistan people eat two meals a day, breakfast and dinner, with many in-between snacks (dried nuts, fruits, bread). Dinner sometimes includes rice, with meat only occasionally, but tea and hot bread come with most meals. Leftovers often serve as breakfasts.

Whenever a large animal (cow, oxen) is killed, for whatever reason, the Afghans practice a custom called khyrat. Everyone in the village or camp gets an equal share of the meat, no matter who owns the beast. In times of stress (e.g., a cholera epidemic) the wealthier families contribute animals and other food for a feast in attempts to oppose and drive away the evil spirits. All in the village receive an equal share of all the food prepared, an obvious group attempt to protect itself through in-group interactions.

Gastro-intestinal diseases (especially forms of diarrhea, generically called pych) are common because of lack of sanitation, the continued use of contaminated water supplies, and improperly prepared food.