The ghost of Christmas past perfect continuous

Having been treated to several of the best breakfasts in Uzbekistan, I was prepared to eat relatively less well after I left Samarkand, but I wasn’t expecting to struggle on Christmas Day to find a decent meal at all in the land of plenty.

I’d had an unsatisfying lunch of chicken keema shashlik which I’d deemed too suspicious to finish, fearing a bout of the Southern Purge; an affliction common to travellers in Central Asia. Haunted by friends’ photos on social media and the ghost of Christmas past perfect continuous, I had been thinking about pigs-in-blankets and chestnutty sprouts all afternoon, and I was hungry. 

As I was travelling out of season, there were only two evening restaurants open in town. For my Christmas dinner I chose the one I hadn’t already visited. Like on many other nights I was the only guest. I was shown to a table and pointed through the menu; many dishes were unavailable but there were the usual suspects, including fish, which was accompanied by a pleasing photo of what looked like a delicious crispy grilled trout with a fresh, bright salad. Having been enjoying a meat-heavy Uzbek diet, I ordered this, with bread and green tea. 

But as I waited, horror slowly dawned. I remembered seeing a murky tank round the side of the restaurant earlier in the day, with some melancholic carp floating about listlessly. At the same time I recalled from my adventures in the Mekong Delta how much I disliked this fish, with its unreasonable bone structure and unpleasantly muddy flavour. Still, at least I had made a seasonal choice: a Polish tradition is to buy a carp and then keep it alive in the bathtub until Christmas Eve. I’m not sure if the water is fresh or used, but greywater probably wouldn’t make much of a difference to the taste. (Later, over dinner with the security officer of the German Embassy of Tashkent, I learned that Uzbek carp is a not-to-be-missed speciality, and quite delicious if one likes one’s fish with a warming layer of fat. Spoiler: I do not.)

There came a frightful banging from upstairs, which sounded much like a depressed fish being sectioned with a machete. This was followed by the cheerful sizzle of meat meeting oil. At least it would be fresh, I thought optimistically, and I’d have a nice salad. 

My waitress reappeared, bearing a large plate of fried chunks, face and all, with some cursory vegetation alongside. My heart sank. I hadn’t expected the whole fish. Apparently no one upstairs had thought that one monstrous carp and no accompaniments might not be an ideal meal choice for a single small person, but then it was my shortcoming for not speaking enough Uzbek to discuss the intricacies of the menu. At least I wasn’t suffering through the Catholic Feast of the Seven Fishes. 

Carp holidays

The carp and I eyed each other mournfully, and I started to wonder which of us was worse off. To add to my travails I had been provided only with fork and spoon. Cursing myself for having thought it a good idea to order fish in the middle of a desert, I lifted my tools and began to separate edible from endoskeleton. It wasn’t exactly all skin and bone; there was indeed a healthy layer of blubber. As I feared, the meagre flesh I extracted tasted much like the brownish bottom of a river.

My waitress stopped by to see how I was getting on. “You eat it with your hands!” she gestured, laughing, seeing me fighting a fish with a spoon. Not knowing how to explain that I wasn’t about to put bony chunks of bottom feeder in my mouth without performing surgery on it first, I asked her desperately in Russian, “Please can I have a salad?” She returned upstairs and I heard the welcome sound of vegetables being butchered.

The salad was a delight; I have never felt more pleased to see a gentle mix of tomato, cucumber, onion and dill. Muttering a guilty apology to my discarded friend, I devoured the greenery. 

The salad was a delight


My waitress sat down opposite me. “Do you want to take this home?” she gestured to the carcass. “Absolutely not”, I thought, chilled at the idea of cold carp on Boxing Day. I indicated aloud how well I had eaten and that I couldn’t possibly manage any more either tomorrow or ever. “Would you like to finish it?” I generously offered, since she had joined me à table. She declined.

As I left the restaurant I gave the tank a wide berth. My remaining friends were probably not much better off in one piece, I consoled myself, but hopefully someone else would at least enjoy them. I returned to my guesthouse to eat gummy bears and watch Downton Abbey in bed. A Christmas like no other. Hopefully.

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Photos of the beautiful Tashkent Metro

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