Azernews.Az

By Amina Nazarli

Delicious Azerbaijani cuisine is one the first things that tourists want to discover coming to the Land of Fire.

Visiting foreign countries tourists are prone to try local dishes, but not their usual nationals dishes or fast food. For instance, Italians coming to Azerbaijan prefer to try the “king” of the national cuisine -- Plov in Baku, instead of eating familiar pizza.

According to the World Tourism Organization’s studies, the visitors remember a country thanks to its national cuisine.

Azerbaijan already has experience in local food promotion. The country serves no exception to the old adage that breakfast is the most important meal of the day and during the first European Games in Baku last summer, which gathered thousands of tourists, the country patented Azerbaijani breakfast, allowing it to stand out among regional fare.

The traditional Azerbaijani breakfast consists of sweet butter, various types of white cheese, cream, honey, preserves, tea, and kuku or scrambled egg with herbs.

The decision to register the brand was aimed at promoting national cuisine and today Azerbaijani breakfast options are compulsory in hotels throughout the country for tourists to enjoy.

So far, the Azerbaijan National Cuisine Center has already patented several national main dishes and now working on certification of the rest dishes.

Director General of the Center Tahir Amiraslanov said that this process is not an easy process.

Talking about the regional food, Amiraslanov said that the root of the South Caucasus cuisine goes to the Azerbaijani dishes.

“The root of the dishes prepared by the nations in the South Caucasus goes to the Azerbaijani cuisine. These dishes have their history, author and cooking method,” he stressed.

“We were able to gather some 4,000 kinds of dishes. It’s not easy to determine ancient dishes. We should study historical sources, and this requires sufficient funding,” he said.

Azerbaijan’s national cuisine, being one of the oldest and richest cuisines in the world, makes many gourmands mouths water. "Nush Olsun!" ("Bon Appetite!") begins every meal time in Azerbaijan with rich and delicious national cuisine, delighting both soul and flesh.

National dishes are very delicious and diversified, distinguishing with their originality and refined taste.

Different kinds of dolma, levengi, kabab, qutab, piti, dushbere, khingal different sweets such as pakhlava, shekerbura and etc. will really inspire you to stay here for ages.

--

Amina Nazarli is AzerNews’ staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @amina_nazarli

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz