By Zahiruddin
CHITRAL: The absence of an outlet of local cuisines in the city restaurants and the tourist spots of Kalash valleys and Garam Chashma has greatly disappointed the tourists visiting the area and yearning to have a taste of the local foods.
The tourists including the foreigners complained that tasting some varieties of local foods also becomes the liking of every visitor of an area apart from seeing its beautiful sites, historical places and cultural heritage.
They said that although Chitral is full of attractions for eco- tourists as well as mountaineers but the unavailability of local cookeries becomes conspicuous for them although local species of fruits like grapes, pear, apricot and mulberry are abundantly found for sale in the market and free of cost in the villages.
Hartwig, an Austrian tourist in the local food street at PIA chowk of Chitral, asked this scribe about any restaurant where there purely local foods are presented and my answer was in negative which disappointed him who was accompanying two others.
“I have read a number of books on Chitral in which there is a description of rich variety of local foods whose flavor and taste had also been praised”, he said and named a few of the cuisines.
The cuisines of Chitral are said to have resemblance with that of Central Asian states and the neighboring areas of Afghanistan in which meat, butter, cheese and desi ghee are lavishly used while their flavor is enriched by addition of walnut, honey and local varieties of herbs and dried fruits and cappers.
Although Chitral is known for the abundance of trout fish but it is also not available in the market which can be presented as one of the specialties of the area and similar is the case of yak flesh which is abundant in upper Chitral and known for its superb taste.
The owners of a number of leading restaurants of the city, when contacted by this correspondent for their version, said that the local foods are more costlier than the national varieties due to which they are in demand by only a small fraction of their customers.
They said that the local foods are available in homes only which are cooked for guests or for special occasions while consummate cooks are also not found for cooking the local dishes and as such the tradition of local foods is also on decline with the passage of time.
Professor (retired) Rahmat Karim Baig, a researcher on local culture, said that at first the local kitchenware became extinct which were made of wood, stones, clay, leather and horns of animals.
He said that a number of local dishes have also died out and their very names are not known to the people of the new generation many of which expensive by ingredients and were not available in the local market.
He expressed his satisfaction over the availability of rich literature about the local dishes including an exclusive book ‘Dastarkhwan-e-Chitral’ written in 1950s by Shahzada Hissamul Mulk who served as governor of the viceroyalty of Drosh in the princely state of Chitral.
Shahzada Sirajul Mulk, the owner of a hotel with a restaurant offering continental foods, said that there were highly expensive as well as cheap varieties of foods of local variety and the latter can be made available in almost every restaurant of the city.
He said that the kali (noodle soup) is easy in cooking can be offered in the market which has recently been replaced by chicken corn soup and there are also a number of low-cost varieties which can be introduced in the local market.
