THE TASTE OF UNITY

In Soviet Kazakhstan, as in nearly every other Soviet republic, the family dinner table often looked remarkably the same across households. Plov alongside borscht, cutlets next to manty, golubtsy, samsa, shchi, and beşbarmaq. These dishes formed the shared vocabulary of everyday Soviet cuisine: universal and familiar.

A study of food culture among rural Kazakh families in the Jetisu region from the 1960s to the 1990s recorded the widespread presence of dishes like borscht, plov, cutlets, manty, samsa, lagman, golubtsy, shchi, and othersiКультура и быт, 1967: 138–139; Абдулина, 1997: 82–83. A similar menu appeared among working-class families in Almaty, Karaganda, and Temirtau from the 1950s to the 1970s, regardless of ethnicityiМатериальная культура, 1971: 13–14, 113; Востров и Кауанова, 1972: 228–229; Кауанова, 1982: 145–149.

In the international mixed families of ethnic Germans in northern Kazakhstan, beşbarmaq and plov were often mentioned as staple meals (Наумова, 1986; Наумова и Чешко: 1989). The same dishes became common in the kitchens of Soviet Koreans, while the traditional Korean noodle dish kuksu was produced on an industrial scale at pasta factories run by the Ministry of Food Industry of the the Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic (Kazakh SSR)iЦой, 1985: 87; Ким, 1989: 41; Джарылгасинова, 1992: 81.

However, behind this facade of culinary unity lay a much more complex process of cultural appropriation and symbolic distribution of and control over gastronomic rights. The dishes incorporated into the common Soviet diet did not simply lose their local characteristics—they became part of a new cultural matrix, where recipes were redistributed among ethnic groups according to unwritten rules. This wasn’t only about adapting recipes or ingredients but about a peculiar nationalization of taste, in which specific dishes became associated with particular peoples as elements of an official cultural identity within the Soviet framework.

Soviet cuisine didn’t just create food—it shaped ideas about cultural ownership. This is how certain dishes came to be firmly linked with particular peoples: ‘Uzbek’ plov (or pilav), ‘Kazakh-style’ meat (or beşbarmaq), ‘Ukrainian’ borscht, ‘Tatar’ belyash, and othersiBolatkhan, 2024: 121–22. At the same time, dishes shared across cultures—like cutlets, meatballs, beef patties, and navy-style macaroni—were described by writers of the eraiРешетов, 1980: 77; Жилина, 1989: 202 as ‘borrowed from public dining’, with adapted recipes for these everyday meals also appearing in cookbooks aimed at housewives.

Thus, the roots of the modern tendency to identify dishes by their assumed national origin can be traced back to these Soviet-era practices. Take plov, for example: actively promoted as Uzbek, yet its complex history invites us to question the accuracy of such a label. In the Soviet academic tradition, the origin of plov was closely tied to the settled peoples of Central Asia, primarily the Uzbeks and Tajiks. Yet, empirical evidence does not fit quite as neatly into this narrative.

While studies document around fifty variations of plov among the Uzbeks and more than twenty among Tajiks, the dish was by no means unknown outside of these groups. Plov held a significant place in both the ritual and everyday life of sedentary populations; however, over time, its recipe became increasingly standardized. With a suitable research focus, similar traditions might well be uncovered among other groups, such as the Turkmen or Azerbaijanis.

According to popular discourse, plov only became commonly cooked among the Kazakhs, as with other nomadic peoples, during the Soviet era. However, historical records show that the nomads were acquainted with plov much earlier, considering it an elite dish reserved for special occasions, and likely adopted it through contact with the Uzbeks and TajiksiБердыев 1989: 151, 153–157.

This narrative rested on a broader framework of Soviet national policy, which aimed to convince culturally similar peoples that they each belonged to distinct ‘nations’, each with its own unique cultural (and thus culinary) heritage. In this context, assigning plov to just one group was problematic, since both Uzbeks and Tajiks claimed it as their own. In other words, against the backdrop of the USSR’s food nationalization policy, where each people was assigned their ‘national’ dish, plov became a potential point of rivalry.

However, this issue gradually lost relevance when The Book of Tasty and Healthy Food introduced the ‘Uzbek plov’ in 1952, alongside other varieties such as lamb plov, fish plov, pumpkin and fruit plov, mushroom plov, raisin plov, and Gurian plov. It is important to note that in the earlier editions (1939, 1945–50) the Uzbek plov variant was absentiКнига о вкусной, 1939: 202–204; Книга о вкусной, 1945: 66, 201–205; Книга о вкусной, 1950: 3–10, 83; Книга о вкусной, 1952: 5, 238–39; Книга о вкусной, 1955: 5, 238–39. Thus, before this moment, there was no institutional assignment of the plov to any one ethnicity—neither Uzbek, Tajik, nor as a ‘shared Central Asian’ dish.

The name ‘Uzbek plov’, once included in a widely distributed publication, became less a culinary classification and more an element of a cultural-political narrative that firmly associated plov with being Uzbek. This formula effectively secured the right for a single national group to be seen as the ‘bearer’ of this particular dish.

Nevertheless, based on historical sources from the medieval period, it can be said that for Kazakh nomads, plov was a dish reserved for special occasions. It symbolized a festive meal while simultaneously preserving the collective involvement of guests within the shared dining space. In the Soviet period, when representing traditional Kazakh cuisine, references to plov were usually overshadowed by the main ritual dish, et (boiled meat served in a specific order), which was presented according to a strictly defined custom.

In the conditions of Soviet life, when rice was less accessible as compared to, for example, flour, economic considerations and taste preferences worked together to uphold the status of plov as a ‘non-mundane’ dish. Its practicality for cooking in large quantities and its ability to hold its form made it especially suitable for mass gatherings, like an as (a memorial feast), a pominki (a memorial gathering for someone who had passed away), a toi (a celebratory feast, often marking life events like weddings or births), and others. Because of this, plov became firmly established as a special-occasion dish and a symbol of social unity among those sharing the communal meal.

A similar dynamic can be observed among other ethnic communities in Kazakhstan, including the Dungans, Uighurs, and Koreans. For each group, plov not only became an indispensable part of the festive table but also acquired distinct ritual functions. By the mid-twentieth century, ethnographers noted that the Dungan celebratory menu invariably included plov made in two different ways, one with meat and one with fruitiСтратанович, 1946: 178. This custom has endured and evolved: today, plov remains a vital component of wedding menus, serving as a ritual marker of transition. Among the Dungans in some regions, plov symbolizes the beginning of the wedding, while in others it marks its conclusion, highlighting its flexibility as a ritual sign.

Soviet-era studies of the Uighurs noted that their cuisine makes wide use of rice dishes, with plov being the most renowned among them. Typically, the festive version of plov includes finely chopped carrotsiЗахарова, 1952: 263–69. Plov was also mentioned as an essential dish on both everyday and festive tables among the KoreansiДжарылгасинова, 1966: 13; 1977: 65; 1980: 54; 1992: 81.

It is essential to recognize that not all instances of ‘nationalization’ were purely artificial. Take, for example, Kazakh-style meat, or beşbarmaq, which is firmly associated with the Kazakhs within Soviet gastronomic policy and has deep roots in Kazakh tradition. Yet even in this case, the standardization of recipes and their inclusion in the all-Union gastronomic canon transformed the perception of the dish, imbuing it with symbolic significance within the framework of the Soviet projectiBolatkhan, 2024: 123.

At the same time, some dishes have histories that are more complex and less amenable to rigid national classification. Consider the manty, for example, whose origins trace back to ancient trade routes along the Silk Road and the era of the Mongol Empire, when the method of making stuffed dumplings spread across vast Eurasian territories. Manty underwent a lengthy process of adaptation, localization, and the development of intertwined meaningsiDunlop, 2013: 128–130; Öney Tan, 2013: 144–147.

On one hand, this makes it difficult to regard manty as the exclusive heritage of any single people. On the other hand, manty are undeniably part of Kazakhstan’s gastronomic culture; it is here that the dish developed its history, local variations, and a well-established place on both everyday and festive tables.

Modern perceptions of Kazakhstani cuisine cannot be separated from this Soviet legacy, where food ceased to be merely a matter of taste and became part of a vast social project. Many recipes that have come to be regarded as ‘traditional’ in the region are, in reality, the result of complex processes of adaptation, reinterpretation, transformation, and borrowing, resulting in unique phenomena characteristic of this region. These dishes reflect the distinctive experience of Central Asia, a space where cultures not only intersected but also created something new.

A striking example is morkovcha, which is a salad made of grated carrots seasoned with vinegar, garlic, oil, salt, sugar, and spices. Though its roots lie within the Korean diaspora, in the Kazakhstani context, morkovcha is a product of local experience. It was born here as a response to the availability of certain ingredients, local conditions, and tastes. Unlike the Koreans based in SakhaliniSakhalin is an island that lies 6.5 kilometers off the coast of Khabarovsk Krai in Russia in the north and 40 kilometers off the coast of the island of Hokkaido. It is governed as part of the Sakhalin Oblast and is the largest island of Russia, among whom morkovcha is virtually unknown, this dish in Kazakhstan has become part of the shared national gastronomic repertoire and is made and enjoyed not only by Koreans. The Korean diaspora itself was formed in the region partly as a result of migration processes linked to the resettlement policies of the 1930s, which shaped both its geographic placement and its culinary adaptations.

It was precisely the broad acceptance of morkovcha by diverse groups that made it an integral part of everyday cuisine in Kazakhstan. Thanks to the recipe’s versatility, simplicity of preparation, and the accessibility of its ingredients, morkovcha has endured, spread, and continues to thrive as an integral part of Kazakhstan’s gastronomic reality, transcending its ethnic origins. Thus, morkovcha is not simply a ‘Korean’ dish, but rather the result of a history of interaction, adaptation, and shared living among the peoples of Kazakhstan.

The Soviet policy of internationalizing food left a lasting impact on which dishes belonged to which peoples. At the same time, the recipes and culinary practices themselves were standardized and adapted to common conditions of production and consumption. The national labels assigned to dishes often reflected ideological objectives more than their actual historical or cultural distinctions. This is why many elements of modern Kazakhstani cuisine are perceived as a natural part of daily life, even though, in essence, they are the outcome of complex processes of adaptation, control, and cultural exchange. Understanding this legacy is important because it not only allows us to see familiar foods in a new light but also helps us recognize in them flavor and the imprint of a living history.