Food, Revisited

A while ago I pissed and moaned about the food here. It's true that Kazakh cuisine is pretty simple and lacks much of an imagination. However, my biggest problem has become clear to me over time. As much as I hate to say it (which actually isn't that much), my PST host mother was just a remarkably awful cook. I've had all the same dishes that she cooked since I've left Issyk and suddenly they are all decent. I think I'll write short posts about individual dishes at some point because some of them are pretty different, if nothing else.

I also received the Peace Corps Kazakhstan Cookbook in the mail. It provided a good view into food & vegetable availability too. This varies based on location in the country and city size, but it's a good rough guide. There's a decent variety in the summer, but the only reliably year-round items are apples, cabbage, potatoes, carrots, onions, and beets. I think other perishables can be found in Zhezkazgan in the winter, but they come a long way in non-refridgerated trucks so they are expensive and often not very good quality.

The PC cookbook is a pretty great resource to have, albeit one that I probably won't use for a while. It's pretty hard for any male PCV to defeat the notion that no matter what he says, there's absolutely no way he could possibly know the slightest thing about cooking. Members of my family sometimes work odd hours so it's not too rare that I eat by myself. In that case, my host mother becomes direly concerned that I will starve to death and goes to great lengths to show me how to turn on the electric stove top. Come on. But at this point it's become a joke although they never can quite let go of their instincts.

While my family is fantastic in every way, the only thing I've never really adjusted to is also related to the female Kazakh belief that all males are completely worthless in any sort of domestic sense (however, Kazakh males do not go to great lengths to dispel this theory). I can't so much as wander into the kitchen without my host mother or host sister getting up, following me in and asking if I am hungry. Only once or twice have I managed to sneak off to wash a dish myself and the few times I've even managed to come close to pouring myself a cup of tea, I've been received with utter bewilderment.

This obviously isn't a big problem, but it's interesting to see how neither side has acquiesced to the other culture's gender roles. Gender roles here are definitely more clearly defined than in America, but there's still a fair amount of wiggle room should a woman choose something off the beaten path. I'll keep on fighting because I don't think I'll ever feel that comfortable being waited on hand and foot, but I'm not sure I can win.