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Recipes from Jewish Central Asian Families
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14 Recipes
Recipes from Jewish Central Asian Families
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14 Recipes
Bukharian and other Central Asian Jewish tables are often laden with meat dishes like the many variations on rice pilaf called plov, and savory hand pies like samsa or goshtgizhda. There are also garlic laced dishes like eggplant dip and fried fish for Shabbat and holidays, and ones where cilantro plays a leading role like the rice preparation oshi bakhsh.
Jews have lived in the region for centuries — though exactly how long is uncertain. There is a folklore that the first Jews here were one of the Lost Tribes. Other sources trace the community’s presence to the Babylonian Exile, and still others say Jews arrived here in the 4th century C.E.
The area was once part of the Persian Empire and in the 16th Century Iranian-speaking Jews divided in two with the establishment of Shiite Safavid monarchy, when Iran was separated from Sunni Central Asia, according to scholar Claudia Roden’s work “The Book of Jewish Food.” The latter group separated into Bukhara and Afghanistan in the 18th century.
Bukharian Jews remained cut off from global Jewry until 1793, Roden adds. But during the 19th Century, when the region came under Tsarist control, some Ashkenazi Jews migrated here and were later joined by Jewish refugees from Poland fleeing Hitler.
Like all Jewish communities, their cooking reflects the dishes of non-Jewish communities around them like plov, adapted to be kosher, as well as unique Shabbat dishes like osavo (also spell oshsavo) and those for holidays like osh jzhurghotiy, a chilled mungbean porridge served during the Nine Days of Av. During the Soviet period, dishes from across the Soviet Union like pelmeni also became part of the community’s culinary repertoire.
As the Soviet Union fell, families like Svetlana Davydov’s left, seeking opportunities and religious freedom. Today, a small community remains in the region.
This collection includes Bukharian recipes, Uzbek ones made by some in the community, as well some from Afghanistan, which is often counted as part of Central Asia.
Does your family prepare recipes from this region? Please reach out to us; we would love to hear about them. For more Jewish recipes, explore our full archive.
In this collection
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14 Recipes
