If you are ever in Azerbaijan and you are a food lover like myself, than make sure you come back home well-fed and slightly fatter. The food is delicious. You will especially enjoy it if you are a fan of Middle Eastern cuisine and have a big appetite.
Traditional Azerbaijani food is generally made up of bread, thick soups and pancakes; Pilaff is a popular food and can be savoury or sweet. The savoury version is cooked with rice and meat, or fish with vegetables and spices. Sweet Pilaff is often prepared with dried apricots and raisins, sometimes also used to flavour meat dishes.
Well seasoned mutton, lamb and beef feature a great deal in much of what Azerbaijanis eat. Kebabs, grilled skewers, mince and pressed meats are also popular every day food. Savoury pastries filled with vegetables are sold everywhere as daily fillers and lot of the dishes are eaten with dairy based products such as yogurt and kurut, which is a dried form of cottage cheese.
In terms of what we in the west would term as desserts, cakes and sweets such as baklava and halva can be bought in every city, town and village. Two popular types of drinks are very sweet black tea and sherbet drinks.
Much of what the people eat in Azerbaijan evidently has strong Middle Eastern influences and that is the first thing you will notice in any of the hotels in Baku you stay in. The locals of the country believe that cooked food captures the spirit of the person who has prepared it somehow. In order to prepare a delicious dish, the cook should be full of smiles and have a pleasant in nature. In fact, as one waiter told me in Baku Hotel; you will often find Azerbaijanis singing while they cook. They prepare they food armed with huge quantities of patience and humour, and enjoy the results of their labour for hours afterwards – like all other oriental food lovers. Their meals are generally healthy. It is often very fresh, full of vegetables and fruits, and low in salt. Even their meat dishes such as kebab are prepared unsalted.
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