XAŞ

A few weeks ago I had the pleasure of partaking in one of the most infamous (at least amongst PCV's) Azerbaijani traditions - eating xaş in the morning. What is xaş you ask? Wikipedia has a lengthier answer, but its basically a cow hoof and/or head soup. My host mom made it the other day, and it was quite a long process. Basically you take the hooves and head and boil it for hours (ours was boiling for pretty much the whole day before). I'm not sure what (if anything) was added to the soup in the cooking process, but basically the cartilage and little meat that is on the bones melts/detaches itself and gives the broth a very gelatinous consistency. You heat this up in the morning, the earlier the better, and eat it with bread. Usually there will be other things on the table that you can put into the broth to give it some flavor, my host mom had a garlicky-oil thing as well as some vinegary stuff. She served me a bowl and put a little of both of those additions before I could protest otherwise (if you know me you know how I feel about condiments/sauces/etc.!) (FYI: It is common here in Azerbaijan for men to eat xaş in the morning along with a few shots of vodka...some say it is to mask the taste.)

My bowl looked like this:


I'm not gonna lie and say it was the best meal I've ever had in Azerbaijan, but it really wasn't that bad. The broth ended up too vinegary for my taste (next time I'll forgo that part) but it wasn't too bad with bread. The best part was the bone/cartilage part though, it was pretty good! This is coming from someone who likes mondongo, which is exactly what it reminded me of. I even made a little sandwich out of the cartilage and a piece of bread, it was deeeeeelicious.

After my unique breakfast, my host mom explained to me all the benefits of eating xaş. Apparently it is great to eat if you have arthritis or when your joints hurt or basically when you have any kind of ailment. Something about eating cow feet & skull that is supposed to replenish the energy in your own joints. All around it was an awesome experience, and now I can check it off of my Azerbaijan bucket list!