ABSTRACT
F irst there is sex. But after that, of all human activities, food (especially stodge) seems to be the most resistant to cultural change. In Daghestan, culinary tradition stretches back to the sixth-century Sassanian Persians,
through pagan and Islamic times, and there are even traces of Tsarist influence. The standard cooked dish in Daghestan is khinkal, oblong flour dumplings, which forms one of the oldest surviving recorded meals. In the tenth-century Arabic Kitab at-Tabikh wa Islah al-Aghdhiya al-Ma'kulat ('Book of Dishes'), there is a story about the Sassanian emperor Khosrows, who built his palace in Derbent during the middle of the sixth century. His favourite meal was virtually the same as today. Meat was boiled and flour pasta was added to the broth. The pasta was drained and garnished with the juice of crushed raw garlic and walnut. The broth and boiled meat were served separately.
