Instead of my usual stories of the military/conflicts/struggles, this time I thought I'd I tell you about something nicer.
The Bakery. The Afghans serve a 6-8 inch diameter piece of bread, called "naan" with every meal. Cooked in a mud oven, this is really about as home made as it gets. Naan is very good. The Afghan bazaar sells naans with cinnamon and sugar, similar to the "elephant ears" that we buy at the fair.
Most of the time I eat them in the ANA mess hall. You rip a bite-sized piece off, bend it to pick up some rice, beans, and/or meat, then dip it in your soup or yogurt and cram it into your mouth. Messy, but tasty.
I've seen how they prepare the naan before and it's pretty cool so I wanted to go see how they make them for the ANA. It turns out that the process is similar, except there is no cinnamon and sugar and the ANA cooks do it on a much larger scale. The official (ANA) bakery is in a standalone “qalat” (house) that is in a kind of out-of-the-way place on the camp. (They say this separation will prevent purposeful poisoning ... I disagree). I've been by their bakery tons of times, but yesterday I stopped in to see how they do it. This was sort of a personal visit, but also sort of official since my counterparts are responsible for the mess hall and bakery.
The ANA bakery makes thousands of naans everyday because they're serving 3000+ Afghans three meals each day. They have four boys shaping and pressing wholes into the dough. Then those guys stack their uncooked dough onto a tray, separating each naan with old linen and pass them toward the ovens. The ovens are quite large, tear drop shaped, made of mud, with a fire in the middle which makes them HOT! The cooks slap the dough onto a curved plank, one or two pieces at a time. Then they reach into the heat and slap the board onto the interior wall, causing the dough to stick upside down. The naans cook while sticking to the wall for about 30-45 seconds. At any point in time there might be 15-20 naans cooking in each oven. Then the cook picks up two tongs and starts grabbing the naans out of the ovens, throwing them towards a cooling table in between the ovens. As I watched, I estimated that about 1/3 of them missed the table and hit the dirt floor. No matter though - they're still used - the dough boys just pick them up, slap them on their leg (to get rid of the dirt) and toss them onto the pile. When the pile gets big enough they lay a sheet on the dirt floor beside the table and push all of the naans onto it. Then the dough boys grab the corners of the sheet and drag / carry it to a waiting ANA vehicle (AKA: Ford Ranger). Once the vehicle's bed is full, they drive them to the mess hall. Presto! You're naan is served.
They were happy to have visitors. As my interpreter and I watched, they gave us some and, of course, they served chai to drink.
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| One of the three ovens. Notice the pile of wood to the right - that’s their
fuel. Notice the “table.” |
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| The dough boy is delivering the uncooked naans. Notice the smoke marks on the
walls / ceiling. |
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| "Q" (my interpreter). Notice the ANA SGT collecting the bread on the floor. Notice dirt floors. You can also see some naan stuck to the oven wall behind Q. |
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| Dough boys shaping and poking holes into them. You gotta love their tables! |
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| I’m holding the bread they gave us. I’m using Q’s hat as a pad because that bread was HOT |
