Arse fat from mutton buttocks
It is my wont when travelling to forgo the touristic in favor of the real, to persuade my kind hosts, whoever they may be, that an evening in the local, imbibing pints of whatever the natives use as intoxicants, would be more interesting than another espresso in another place called Cafe Opera. Chiefest among my interests is the Favorite Dish: the plate, cup, or bowl of whatever stuff my hosts consider most representative of the regions virtues. As I live in Kabul, this dish was of course arse fat.
(snd f/x: organ music in minor key - cresc. and out.)
The Afghans are remarkably single-minded in their attachment to the stuff. Every one of them would launch themselves into a hydrophobic frenzy of praise on the mere mention of the word. These panegyrics were as varied as they were fulsome, and were single minded in their testimonial to the recondite deliciousness of fist-size lumps of mutton arse fat shoved onto a rusty skewer and bbq’d over what used to be a car bonnet or cow trough.
Despite my misgivings, there was nothing for it but to actually try the stuff, as it was clearly the local delicacy. A plan was hatched whereby we would break all security rules and head to local chai khana and order rounds of fat kabobs. I would order something tame like Kabuli Pilau, and my hosts would order arse fat. The portions at this particular establishment were large, they assured me, and when I discovered for myself how scrumptious pure fat tasted, I could have an adequate amount from each of their plates to satiate my taste for this new-found treat.
Ah, but the best laid plans...
My host, clearly feeling in a holiday mood proceeded to order arse fat all round.
"But I was going to order Kabu..."
"Nonononono," he said, "you must have your own arse fat. It would be rude to bring you to Afghanistan and not give you your own lump of fat."
My mumbled suggestion that I had never been one to stand on formality went unnoticed, and moments later, somewhere in the farmyard that also doubled for a kitchen, there was a sheep being slaughtered for my sake.
The waiter, having conveyed this order to the cook, returned with a bottle of pepsi and three glasses and spent some time interrogating my host. He shook his head and politely grimaced a smile as he left, and I asked what he said.
"Oh he asked 'Is the foreigner going to pour whiskey into the pepsi?' and when I told him you weren’t, he said that he has a bottle out back if you want some."
"Like all good Muslims?" I replied.
"Of course." replied my host.
In the meantime, my host was busily decanting pepsi into the glasses and passing it my way. Soon after, another, already-opened can of pepsi was delivered to my table that did not smell at all like pepsi, but more like nuclear-strength home brew. It was just as well because a meal of arse fat needs alcohol not only induce you actually put the fork in your mouth, but to cut through the greasy rivets of fat that were soon to line my insides.
I soon appreciated the relationship between home brewed whiskey and arse fat and can share the experience with you. Here's an experiment you can do at home. In addition to whiskey, you will need a slice of lemon, a cracker, a dishtowel, ketchup, a piece of lettuce, some caviar, and a Kit-Kat candy bar.
1. Take a shot of whiskey.
2. Take two. (They're small.)
3. Put a bit of caviar on a bit of lettuce.
4. Put the lettuce on a cracker.
5. Squeeze some lemon juice on the caviar.
6. Pour some ketchup on the Kit-Kat bar.
7. Tie the dishtowel around your eyes.
If you can taste the difference between caviar on a cracker and ketchup on a Kit-Kat while blindfolded, you have not had enough whiskey to be ready for arse fat. Return to step one.
Soon our plates arrived, each containing the arse fat itself, fried potatoes, and a dish of oily okra from which all the color had been expertly tortured through three hours of boiling in vegetable oil. There was also a garnish of a slice of cucumber, a wedge of lemon, and a sliver of red pepper.
It was waiting for me to dig in. There being no time like the present, I tore a forkful away from the lump of pure fat, poked on a chip, doused it in tobasco sauce and lifted it to my mouth.
"Wait," said my host, "you can't eat it like that!"
"OK," I said, "how should I eat it?"
"Take everything off your fork. You eat the fat on its own," he said, forcing my hand from my mouth and crashing my fork back onto the plate.
I began to scrape the tobasco off the lump of fat. "No, not like that, like this" he said, forking into one of the four gargantuan pieces of arse fat and slicing into it with his blunt, dirty butter knife. The fat is grisly and doesn’t want to give way, resisting the dulled blade and wriggling out from under the knife like a child about to get a spanking. Finally, with some extra elbow grease, he comes away with a portion the size of a golf ball on the (very dirty) fork. White, jellied, wobbling and oh so not tempting.
"Now can I eat it?"
The moment every traveller lives for is the native dinner where, throwing caution to the wind and plunging into a local delicacy which ought by rights to be disgusting, one discovers that it is not only delicious but that it also contradicts a previously held prejudice about food, that it expands ones culinary horizons to include surprising new smells, tastes, and textures.
Arse fat is not such a dish.
Arse fat is instead pretty much what you'd expect of mutton arse fat – taken from the derrieres of sheep that have been feeding on street sewage their whole lives and storing up blubber mounds the size of footballs on each buttock; it is a foul glob, whose gelatinous texture and rancid oily taste are locked in spirited competition to see which can be the more responsible for rendering the whole completely inedible.
How to describe that first bite? It’s a bit like describing passing a kidneystone to the uninitiated. If you are talking to someone else who has lived through the experience, a nod will suffice to acknowledge your shared pain, but to explain it to the person who has not been there, mere words seem inadequate to the task. So it is with arse fat. One could bandy about the time honored phrases like "nauseating sordid gunk", "unimaginably horrific", "lasting psychological damage", but these seem hollow when applied to the task at hand.
The waiter, returning to clear our plates, surveyed the barely touched globs I had left.
He nodded conspiratorially at me, said something to my host, and left.
"What'd he say?” I asked.
"’Next time, I have real Russian vodka for her. It might help.'"
(snd f/x: organ music in minor key - cresc. and out.)
The Afghans are remarkably single-minded in their attachment to the stuff. Every one of them would launch themselves into a hydrophobic frenzy of praise on the mere mention of the word. These panegyrics were as varied as they were fulsome, and were single minded in their testimonial to the recondite deliciousness of fist-size lumps of mutton arse fat shoved onto a rusty skewer and bbq’d over what used to be a car bonnet or cow trough.
Despite my misgivings, there was nothing for it but to actually try the stuff, as it was clearly the local delicacy. A plan was hatched whereby we would break all security rules and head to local chai khana and order rounds of fat kabobs. I would order something tame like Kabuli Pilau, and my hosts would order arse fat. The portions at this particular establishment were large, they assured me, and when I discovered for myself how scrumptious pure fat tasted, I could have an adequate amount from each of their plates to satiate my taste for this new-found treat.
Ah, but the best laid plans...
My host, clearly feeling in a holiday mood proceeded to order arse fat all round.
"But I was going to order Kabu..."
"Nonononono," he said, "you must have your own arse fat. It would be rude to bring you to Afghanistan and not give you your own lump of fat."
My mumbled suggestion that I had never been one to stand on formality went unnoticed, and moments later, somewhere in the farmyard that also doubled for a kitchen, there was a sheep being slaughtered for my sake.
The waiter, having conveyed this order to the cook, returned with a bottle of pepsi and three glasses and spent some time interrogating my host. He shook his head and politely grimaced a smile as he left, and I asked what he said.
"Oh he asked 'Is the foreigner going to pour whiskey into the pepsi?' and when I told him you weren’t, he said that he has a bottle out back if you want some."
"Like all good Muslims?" I replied.
"Of course." replied my host.
In the meantime, my host was busily decanting pepsi into the glasses and passing it my way. Soon after, another, already-opened can of pepsi was delivered to my table that did not smell at all like pepsi, but more like nuclear-strength home brew. It was just as well because a meal of arse fat needs alcohol not only induce you actually put the fork in your mouth, but to cut through the greasy rivets of fat that were soon to line my insides.
I soon appreciated the relationship between home brewed whiskey and arse fat and can share the experience with you. Here's an experiment you can do at home. In addition to whiskey, you will need a slice of lemon, a cracker, a dishtowel, ketchup, a piece of lettuce, some caviar, and a Kit-Kat candy bar.
1. Take a shot of whiskey.
2. Take two. (They're small.)
3. Put a bit of caviar on a bit of lettuce.
4. Put the lettuce on a cracker.
5. Squeeze some lemon juice on the caviar.
6. Pour some ketchup on the Kit-Kat bar.
7. Tie the dishtowel around your eyes.
If you can taste the difference between caviar on a cracker and ketchup on a Kit-Kat while blindfolded, you have not had enough whiskey to be ready for arse fat. Return to step one.
Soon our plates arrived, each containing the arse fat itself, fried potatoes, and a dish of oily okra from which all the color had been expertly tortured through three hours of boiling in vegetable oil. There was also a garnish of a slice of cucumber, a wedge of lemon, and a sliver of red pepper.
It was waiting for me to dig in. There being no time like the present, I tore a forkful away from the lump of pure fat, poked on a chip, doused it in tobasco sauce and lifted it to my mouth.
"Wait," said my host, "you can't eat it like that!"
"OK," I said, "how should I eat it?"
"Take everything off your fork. You eat the fat on its own," he said, forcing my hand from my mouth and crashing my fork back onto the plate.
I began to scrape the tobasco off the lump of fat. "No, not like that, like this" he said, forking into one of the four gargantuan pieces of arse fat and slicing into it with his blunt, dirty butter knife. The fat is grisly and doesn’t want to give way, resisting the dulled blade and wriggling out from under the knife like a child about to get a spanking. Finally, with some extra elbow grease, he comes away with a portion the size of a golf ball on the (very dirty) fork. White, jellied, wobbling and oh so not tempting.
"Now can I eat it?"
The moment every traveller lives for is the native dinner where, throwing caution to the wind and plunging into a local delicacy which ought by rights to be disgusting, one discovers that it is not only delicious but that it also contradicts a previously held prejudice about food, that it expands ones culinary horizons to include surprising new smells, tastes, and textures.
Arse fat is not such a dish.
Arse fat is instead pretty much what you'd expect of mutton arse fat – taken from the derrieres of sheep that have been feeding on street sewage their whole lives and storing up blubber mounds the size of footballs on each buttock; it is a foul glob, whose gelatinous texture and rancid oily taste are locked in spirited competition to see which can be the more responsible for rendering the whole completely inedible.
How to describe that first bite? It’s a bit like describing passing a kidneystone to the uninitiated. If you are talking to someone else who has lived through the experience, a nod will suffice to acknowledge your shared pain, but to explain it to the person who has not been there, mere words seem inadequate to the task. So it is with arse fat. One could bandy about the time honored phrases like "nauseating sordid gunk", "unimaginably horrific", "lasting psychological damage", but these seem hollow when applied to the task at hand.
The waiter, returning to clear our plates, surveyed the barely touched globs I had left.
He nodded conspiratorially at me, said something to my host, and left.
"What'd he say?” I asked.
"’Next time, I have real Russian vodka for her. It might help.'"
posted by Emira Shafiqa at 2:32 pm
3 Comments:
I love the stuff myself - but you need a good glass of really hot tea to melt the fat that cleaves to the top of the palette.
Shall I add you to the list of "been in Kabul too long"? There is no excuse to like arse fat. It is horrific.
you two have met...
well...
i'm going back to bed
Post a Comment
<< Home