I
thought I'd covered all the delights of Uzbek food but I forgot sumza!
How could I forget these vile little spheres of rancidness? HOW?!
They
keep popping up because Uzbek's seem to love them. We first tried them
when we were on our way into the mountains outside Tashkent to ride a
rickety chairlift. A row of gold toothed women sold them by the side of
the road. Maruf, my old student made us try them. The texture was like
dried poly filler and the taste like rancid yoghurt. Which is clever for
that is what sumza is. Balls of out-of-date, dried yoghurt. We heard of
people receiving them as change in shops. A cruel thing to do!
Today
however, there really was no escaping them. Not for me anyway. We
shared a taxi to the Kyrgyz border with some Uzbek women who dolled out
the dreaded snack with delight. Finn, enjoying his lashings of space in
the front, ate half of his and hid the rest in his bag (which I have now
fished out and disposed of, before it became forgotten). I however, was
very much wedged in the back seat with said ladies and therefore had to
eat the whole thing as they watched. I tried to imagine the rancid
taste was a strong vinegar. It was no good. It took me about five
minutes to eat the marble sized piece of nastiness. That's five minutes
of my life that I will never get back...
I've shared your pain/humiliation. On a train from Tashkent to Gokana earlier this year, I entertained [read: endured] a chap who insisted on sitting my my cabin and feeding me rancid cheese balls. At first, I thought it was going to be like a gobstopper. It wasn't. Instead I suffered the mouthful of dry, bitter cheesiness. In all honesty, after about the 3rd minute of chewing/waiting for the rock in my mouth to melt or do something, it started to taste like parmesan cheese (only I've never eaten 50g in one mouthful). After a few more of the balls, my tastebuds were screwed and each mouthful got easier. Maybe that's the secret!?!
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