Imagine for a moment you are at a royal banquet. It is an Assyrian royal banquet in the seventh century BCE. It is a large dining hall in the palace at Nineveh draped with fabric and decorated for the celebration. Smoke and incense perfume the room. Music fills the air. Quiet pieces have harps, lyres or lutes and perhaps pipes accompanying singers or poets and … Read more
Throughout its history, Uzbekistan has been one of the world’s great commercial and cultural crossroads. Across its length ran the Northern Silk Road, the lifeline that the caravans and traders travelled exchanging gems, spices, and other rare items from the orient to the West and back again. Evidence of episodic trade in semi-precious gems (jade and lapis lazuli) between China and Afghanistan along the Silk … Read more
We had something really wonderful for dinner last night that I had to share with you: a Turkmen Savory Meat and Onion Pie. It is a dish of Tartar origin that is now eaten in different variations across Central Asia and into Southern Russia. Although Turkic in origin, it clearly has influences from mother Persia, because it can best be described as a biryani enclosed … Read more