>> The Library of Congress in Washington DC. ^M00:00:03 ^M00:00:22 >> Mary-Jane Deeb: Welcome to Library of Congress. I am Mary-Jane Deeb, Chief of the African and Middle Eastern Division and I wish you all a happy Nowruz. We are celebrating today Nowruz with a special cultural program on Azerbaijani culture and food, and I just want to say that every year, the African and Middle Eastern division, which is responsible for the collections and for serving those collections from 78 different countries is here and collects materials from Azerbaijan that it serves, as well. Now why we celebrate Nowruz, it is because it is a secular facility sacred to the Zoroastrians, but in fact, celebrated not only in Iran, the Persian world, the Persian speaking world, but also throughout central Asia from Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, and certainly in Azerbaijan. It is also celebrated in India, and in some of the people in Iraq and Turkey, in Turkmenistan, and many other places. And every year, we do something special. So this is a very special event today 2016, for example, we celebrated it at the White House. We were invited by Mrs. Obama, and we had a display and a special Nowruz lunch at the White House in 2015. We had a special presentation by Dr. Saeed Hussein Nasser, and many of you know him at George Washington. In 2014, we opened a big exhibit on 1000 years of the Persian book. A year earlier, we had a film on the Shah Hanami. So year after year, we have unique programs that celebrate new year, celebrate the beginning of spring. I know it's a not very auspicious the snow outside, but we do what we can to bring spring to everyone and to bring spring through Nowruz, through the programs, through the food, through the culture, which is so rich and so wonderful, and you hear much more about it today. We are delighted to be cosponsoring this event today with the embassy of Azerbaijan, and the embassy has been absolutely wonderful, has a fantastic team. We have a young lady, Fadoon [assumed spelling] here, who has been a dynamo putting this together in a very short period of time. So I want to thank the embassy of Azerbaijan for also making possible this wonderful menu and event today. We have with us, and we are honored to have with us today the ambassador from Azerbaijan. His Excellency, Elin Suleymanov, was appointed ambassador of the Republic of Azerbaijan to the United States in October 2011. Prior to that, for over five years, Mr. Suleymanov had been the nation's first consul general to Los Angeles and the Western states leading team, which established Azerbaijani diplomatic presence on the western coast. He's a graduate of the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy in Medford, Massachusetts, and holds a graduate degree from the political geography department of Moscow State University in Russia and from the University of Toledo, Ohio. Mr. Suleymanov, His Excellency, Ambassador Suleymanov, has authored numerous articles and is a frequent presenter at academic events. He is fluent in several languages, and now we'll ask them to be fluent in English and welcome you all, of thank you. ^M00:05:12 [ Applause ] ^M00:05:18 >> Elin Suleymanov: Thank you, Ms. Deeb. This a great honor to be here. My English is heavily accented. So I'm not sure how fluent I'm going to be, but I will ask you to bear with me. The happy thing, it's going be very short. So, Ms. Deeb, thank you so much for partnering with us. It's a great honor to be speaking in this marvelous hall. We all know about Library of Congress from her childhood, from different things, but now, we're finally presenting here in a partnership with Library of Congress. Thank you so much, Ms. Deeb. Thank you to the division. Thank you to the team. Thank you, Ms. Weeks, for being with us. Thank you. I actually have a book itself to present you, but we'll do, but I will also ask Feride later to sign it. So you'll have it actually -- we could have pre-signed it, we thought it would be better if she signed it in your presence. >> Mary-Jane Deeb: Absolutely. >> Elin Suleymanov: So Ms. Deeb, thank you very much. This is the book itself. >> Mary-Jane Deeb: Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you. >> Elin Suleymanov: So thank you for your partnership. If Feride could sign it. >> Mary-Jane Deeb: That's wonderful. Thank you. >> Elin Suleymanov: And while the ladies do that, let me say a couple of words. First of all, we are very proud to partner with Feride Buyuran on this book. It was a joint project, in which we didn't do anything. She did all the work. But we are very grateful. This is the first book of its kind. She will tell you more about this. It's not surprising that this book actually was written in California. Because when you look outside the nature and the weather of Azerbaijan and the fruit in the meat at all this is probably more like California than elsewhere anywhere else. So, Ms. Buyuran, I'm not surprised that you were inspired to do that in the [inaudible] of Los Angeles. >> Feride Buyuran: That's true. >> Elin Suleymanov: Rather than elsewhere, but we could have called this conversation a taste of Nowruz. As Ms. Deeb pointed out, is very important to realize that today, we are in the second day of the last week of Nowruz. I know it sounds strange for people who don't follow this, but we're very religious about this. Very, very, very committed. So happens is every Tuesday before the actual Nowruz, which a solar equinox, which is the real beginning of spring, we dedicate ourselves to eating a lot of fattening food, sugar, carbohydrates, and jumping over various burning [inaudible]. Mostly fire. It's good for you, because it clears your soul. Yesterday, we did that as well, because that's a celebration of the beginning of spring. Don't be fooled by the cold weather. Actually, the sun will be soon, I think it's on Monday, right? The night from Sunday and Monday, it will be solar equinox. The spring begins, and no more cold weather. I promise you. That's been true for centuries. That's been true for thousands of years, but the celebration of Nowruz is not possible without the food, because that's very much the heart of the Nowruz celebration. You jump, you eat, you cleanse your soul, and you get minimal carbohydrates back. So Ms. Buyuran will be talking about this. But what Ms. Deeb also said is very important. I think, in addition to the Nowruz, at the beginning of the celebration of the actual equinox, Nowruz is a celebration of unity. It's the unity of Iranian culture, Azerbaijani culture, culture of people of Central Asia, the Caucuses. So much, and throughout, and in fact in places like the Middle East, Iraq, and Russia, Turkestan, and Uzbekistan. Everybody has their own specificity of these things. I believe that we really have the best [inaudible]. People believe they have the best [inaudible]. People boil the best eggs and keep the eggs together. Everybody has a different thing, but what it does, it unites people in many ways, and it's a fascinating field. When you go to different places quite far from each other, actually, in terms of distance, and people celebrate together. They celebrate in a way which is so familiar for each of us. So I think that's, in a way, a great opportunity for us to think about this as a unifying force. Especially during this week a celebration. Now there's something that is also special about this book, and you've noticed it. Not only the celebration bringing us all together, the food. If you look at the specificity of food, it's actually very common to so many of our neighbors, so many of our friends, some many of our partners. In a way, when we say Azerbaijani food has also been developed under different influences. It has influenced others. So in a way, the unification of food is also a very good thing. And in addition to the talk by Ms. Buyuran, I also hope that we can have some of that here, because they told me that they will serve some food. So I look forward to listening, and also eating, as well. So thank you very much and good luck with your presentation. Thank you. ^M00:10:02 [ Applause ] ^M00:10:12 >> Joan Weeks: [Non-English Spoken]. So -- ^M00:10:18 [ Applause ] ^M00:10:21 For the others, that is welcome, and on behalf of my colleagues, and in particular Dr. Mary-Jane Deeb, Chief of the African and Middle Eastern Division, I'd like to extend a very warm welcome to everyone. I'm Joan Weeks, head of the Near East section, who's the sponsor of today's program, along with the embassy, and we're very pleased to present this program on Pomegranates and Saffron a Culinary Journey to Azerbaijan, but before we start our program, and very quickly, before we introduce our speaker, I'm just going to give you a little brief overview of where you are. This is a custodial division, and we have three sections that build and serve collections from all around the world. We cover 78 countries and more than two dozen languages. The Africa section covers all of the sub-Saharan Africa. Hebraic section covers Hebraic and Hebraic worldwide, and our Near-East section covers all of the Arab countries in North Africa, Turkic Central Asia, Iran, Afghanistan, and the Muslims of Western China. So you see it's quite extensive, and we hope that at some point you'll come back into our reading room and use the collections for your research. I'd also like to invite you to try out our blog, where our specialists right special events and stories about our collections, and like us on Facebook, and that way, you'll find out about future events, and now, I also just like to just let you know that if you ask a question at the end, you are implicitly agreeing to be used on the video that will be uploaded on our website. So now I'd like to introduce our speaker, Feride Buyuran, who dreamed about creating her own cook book and finally published it after seven years of hard work and obsession/determination. She was born and raised in Baku, Azerbaijan, and moved to the United States at the age of 24. Feride holds a BA and MA degree in English and literature from the University of Languages in Baku and an MBA from California State University at Long Beach. She is the writer behind the blog AZ-Cookbook.com where she shares recipes and stories from her native Azerbaijan and her book, Pomegranates and Saffron, a Culinary Journey to Azerbaijan, has won five prestigious awards. So without further ado, let's welcome Feride to the podium. ^M00:12:58 [ Applause ] ^M00:13:05 >> Feride Buyuran: Thank you, Mrs. Weeks. Thank you, Mrs. Deeb. Thank you, Mr. Ambassador. You've been very supportive of my work since the early days when I started writing the book. Thank you for this opportunity to be here in the Library of Congress. Coming from LA, this is a really big thing for me. So I am very honored to speak about the topic that I love a lot. It's Azerbaijani cuisine. So thank you very much. And before I begin my presentation, I'd like to mention, we have stickers under four chairs. So four of you will win my cookbook, and I will happy to sign them for you. So do we do it at the very end? Because everybody is reaching for the stickers. So four people, lucky people, and I'll sign it for you after my presentation. Okay, well, they're looking for that thing. Okay, in 2007, when I had just started researching Azerbaijani cuisine for my book, I stumbled upon this beautiful quote by Anya von Bremzen. She's a prominent food writer. And I saw this quote in her famous book Russia, Please to The Table the quote read, "Azerbaijani cuisine is perhaps the most distinct, yet the least known of all three Caucasian republics." So this idea really stuck with me, and I carried it the seven years of my work on the book. I thought I really wanted to deliver the beauty Azerbaijani cuisine, the diversity of it, how it steeply seeped in the culture of people populating this territory and the history of people, living on that land. So I hope I achieved my goal, and after seven years of working, the book was published. So what is Azerbaijani cuisine and why is it so distinct? What makes it different from other cuisines or what makes it common with other cuisines? My lecture will give you a very brief overview of the country. Most of you are probably very familiar with it. I'll be very brief, and then I'll talk about the cuisine, the techniques of cooking general ingredients that we use in the cooking. Then I'll talk about the evolution of Azerbaijani cuisine throughout the centuries. And then we'll talk about special days and food traditions. This is Azerbaijan on a big map. So you can see it's a very small country on the crossroads of Asia and Europe. It's bounded by the Caspian Sea where the capital of Buka is located, our neighbors are Iran, Turkey, Armenia, Georgia, and Turkey. This is the map of Azerbaijan. I don't want to talk too much about the country, because you probably already know. I'll switch to the country overview, to the cuisine overview. So what are some of the main factors Azerbaijani cooking, one of them is seasonality factor? We use fresh ingredients. Summer greetings in the summer. Winter ingredients, feeding for the winter, in the wintertime. Hearty meals in the winter, light vegetarian meals in the summer. So this is a very important aspect of Azerbaijani cooking. And also, it's very used to use fresh ingredients. We go to farmer's market very often. You know, farmer's market operate every day over there. It's not like here. I don't know how it is here, but in LA, it's once a week. So Azerbaijan, it's every day, and everybody shops very frequently for the ingredients to use the cooking, because cooking is made from scratch on a daily basis. Then there is a concept of sweet and sour and some of the dishes, and this is something that came to our cuisine from Persia from the times Azerbaijan was part of the Persian Empire. We blend, we mix sweet with sour. For example, some rice pilafs the toppings for some rice pilafs, they have apricots, but at the same time the top you may have sour plums. So it's beautiful combination. It's delicious, but it's also for the purpose of -- to balance the richness of the dishes, especially if it's a meat dish. And also, sour ingredients help with the digestion of the food. So there is a medicinal property, as well. There is also minimum waste. The idea of minimum waste. For example, when we slaughter sheep, we try to use as much of it is possible. We make kebabs. Then with the innards, we make something that's called jiz-biz. It's really good, unless you're a vegetarian. Then you won't like it, but it's really delicious, and then the feet and head is simmered for a long time until we obtain something that's called khash. It's very good for hangovers, but not always. I love it. I don't have hangovers, but I love it. So and also, wastes are also sometimes used for their medicinal properties, as well. What else? And traditional food preservation is very important. We do have a lot of jarring during the summer months, but we also have a very old tradition of preserving food when there were no refrigeration possible. For example, we make govurma, which is lamb fried in its own fat and stored for winter. Then it's used, scooped out with its fat, and added to the dishes. Then we have something that's called ghage or gujarat. It's basically large pieces of meat salted and dried. Then you can use the dishes, as well, especially pasta dishes. In the coastal regions, they dry fish and use it in the wintertime, as well. Cooking on a saj is a very important. Saj is a very interesting utensil. It's a pan. I think we have a picture of it in the later slides. Basically, it's a dome-shaped vessel where you bake and cook at the same time. On one side, you bake breads. On the other side, you cook savory dishes. And I'll show you the pictures after that. Okay, so these are the pictures. This is a pomegranate car, a truck. They sell pomegranates in the trunk of the car. I snapped this picture last year in Baku during the pomegranate season. And there are lots of fresh herbs and the bazaars. And this is a dairy seller that came to our neighborhood in Baku, and I was typing with my family. I just took a picture of her. She was very happy to be in the presentation. So this is something is very common there, as well. People, you know, neighborhood vendors, they go to the neighborhoods and sell something. This is our vendor over there. I talked about this, and I forgot this slide. So this is kufta. On the right, you can see kufta. It's a huge jumbo meatball with sour plum inserted in the middle. This gives it a nice, tart flavor. Also takes away the richness of the meat and helps with the digestion. And the khash that I talked a little earlier, the feet and the tripe is on top. And on the bottom, you see cheese that stored in the sheepskin. It's called matal pendir. It's called cheese that stored in the sheepskin. It's called matal pendri. It has a very distinct flavor. ^M00:20:06 So we don't waste any part of the animal. And I talked about this. This is dried meat in the middle. That's how it looks, and dried yogurt. There's also a tradition of drying the yogurt for the winter months. When the yogurt is drained and there is no liquid, they shape it into cones or circles or rounds, and they dry it under the sun. And they use it in pasta dishes. Cooking on a saj, in the middle, you can see flatbread stuffed with meat, fresh herbs. On the right is saj-cooked lamb with vegetables. I took this picture in the region of Gabala in Azerbaijan. It's a beautiful region, and on the left, you see this is an Azerbaijan crepe. It symbolizes the sun. When you pour the batter in the middle, it spreads around and you can see that it looks likes the sun rays. Breadmaking is very important, as well. Bread is a very important aspect of Azerbaijani cuisine. It's revered. It's sacred. It's been prepared and Azerbaijan for centuries, according to archaeological discoveries. And archaic methods that were used back in the time were really archaic. Pieces of dough were basically baked in the ground. A hole was made in the ground. Fire would start there, then when members were hot, a piece of dough would be just put on top of embers and the dough would be covered with leaves, and the bread would bake. But this is a very archaic method. Later on, of course, with time, other methods came. You can see here a brick oven, which is called kure, a big one. In the middle, it's a tandoor oven. It's very common in Azerbaijan, and you basically, you slap the dough against the wall of a heated tandoor, and the dough doesn't fall. It just stays there until it's nice and golden. And on the right, it's lavash. Flat bread baked on the side. When I was researching for my cookbook, I realized how diverse Azerbaijani cuisine is. My family is from different parts of the country, from Ordubad, from Balakan, from Zaqatala. There really, I called a triangle. One part is here, another here, and I'm from Baku. So the cuisines of all of these regions are very different, and as I researched for the book, I realized how diverse it is. Not only within the regions, but also there are many cuisines of ethnic minorities, the population of Azerbaijan. For example, I found out that Molokan Russians, that came to Azerbaijan in the 19th century when they were expelled from Russia because of their belief in spiritual Christianity, they settled in Azerbaijan. And there is a village Ivanovka is populated by Molokan Russians, and they preserve their ways of cooking. They make laksha, these noodles, the old-fashioned way. They make pierogi of many kinds on Easter. There's also the cuisine of the mountain Jews that came to Azerbaijan in the 5th century from Persia. They have a very distinct cuisine, as well, that is a mixture of Persian cuisine, Azerbaijani cuisine. They have elements of different cuisine. So these are some examples of the diversities. We have many kinds of baklava. The one in the picture is guba-style baklava. It's different from Baku style because here the dough is made with rice flour versus Baku style. It's made with wheat flour. And that's stuffed -- ^M00:23:35 [ Inaudible Speech ] ^M00:23:38 Oh, you can't hear? Can you hear well? Can you hear? Hello. True. Hello? Can you hear? >> Yeah. >> Feride Buyuran: Okay, much better? Okay, sorry. I'd like to talk about the history of Azerbaijani cuisine. One of the most important factors that really started the development of Azerbaijani cuisine is the Silk Road that started in China's Xinjiang Province in 183 BC, and it lasted to the 15th century. So all these caravans started bringing spices, rice, and all kinds of commodities, passed through Azerbaijan, and there are lots of caravan routes. You can see in the picture they're basically inns that were built to accommodate the traders that passed through Azerbaijan. This one is in Sheki, and on the first floor, the trade was happening. The camels were resting. On the second floor, they were sleeping. It's like a hotel room, and so with the Silk Road, new ingredients came. For example, spices came from India we use a lot of cardamom and baking, for Nowruz baking especially. Cardamom, turmeric, those fennel seeds, anise seeds, they came from India. And saffron came from Persia. So the silk Road really played a big role in bringing a lot of ingredients to Azerbaijan, and saffron was very important. Still is. It came -- the earliest mention of saffron and Azerbaijan was in the 9th century. It was really expensive. It was exchanged for gold coins only. And not all the ingredients came, but also dishes came with the Silk Road. For example, we have this dish which is like a rice pudding. It's called firni. The same thing is made in Iran. A very similar dishes made in Pakistan in northern India. So it's believed that it came with the Silk Road, and very good firni is made in Sheki. My assumption is that it came to Sheki first via the Silk Road and then it distributed to the rest of the country. But I haven't proven it yet. It just my assumption. Tea becomes a staple, as well. Azerbaijan is a very big tea drinking -- we have a very big tea-drinking culture. There's a kettle on the stove all day long, and whoever walks in the door, we have to treat them to a glass of tea. But how did tea come to us? It came from China via the Silk Road, again. The leaves originated in China, but until the 18th century, it was mostly an import. So we really didn't grow tea ourselves. It was mostly coming from other places from China, but in the 19th century -- in the 18th century, the first factory was established in the church of Azerbaijan, and that's how the tea industry developed in the country. And this is a glass of tea. You can see this is samovar, something that came from Russia, More of our Russian influence, although a very archaic, samovar was found on the church of Azerbaijan in Sheki. So there are theories about where samovar was first born, but the shape resembles the Russian style, and the glass is a pear-shaped, just like in Turkey. We call it [non-English word spoken], which comes from [non-English word spoken] is pear. So it's pear-shaped. And what else? So in the 7th century, Arab expansion happened in Azerbaijan. With that changes happen, as well. For example, sharbat a more commonly used drink, versus wine that was were popular before that, because the consumption of alcohol was prohibited in Islam. And you can see beautiful vessels here in the middle and on the right. This is where sharbats were served. In the middle, this is called [non-English word spoken], and on the right, later on, after the 15th century, it was replaced with special bowls, intricately ornated and designed. And Turkic migration was also brought a lot of changes to the cuisine. Turks it started to populate the territory of Azerbaijan from the 6th to the 11th century. More Turks came in the 11th century, and with them, they brought their own cooking techniques, their own ingredients. They brought this art of making kebabs, very down to earth dish, but it was very popular in Azerbaijan. They also brought dumplings, which are believed to have traveled through Central Asia from China, and we have a lot of dumplings. You can see the picture in the middle. These dumplings are called guza and they resemble Chinese [non-English word spoken] or Japanese[non-English word spoken]. And Azerbaijan gurza. I think the name is very similar, although, guza also is the name of a snake. So also, you see arishta, which is believed to have traveled from Persia, although it's believed that the Turks really embraced it and made it their own. We use noodles. Those are noodles, basically. And there is also, we were also introduced to the use of yogurt, which is a staple in Azerbaijani cuisine. We scoop yogurt on top of many dishes, vegetarian dishes, pasta dishes. You can see in the picture soup that's called dovgha. It's a yogurt soup filled with lots of fresh herbs. It's very refreshing and delicious at the same time. The most dramatic impact of -- on Azerbaijani cuisine happen during the Soviet Union. What happened during the Soviet Union, you know, the Soviets had this idea of the same for all. So that means that all the republics that were in the Soviet Union, part of the Soviet Union, 15 republics altogether, they had to have the same eating habits, the same menus, so they introduced the same for all style. Cafeterias opened across the country, and all of these cafeterias served the Soviet-style foods, which include some of the things you see in the picture [non-English word spoken], for example. These sausages, Soviet-style sausages. There was mashed potatoes; [non-English word spoken], which is meat patties. Buckwheat and other similar Russian foods. So everything was controlled from Moscow. ^M00:30:01 That's where all the rules were made, all the decrees were adopted. And the cuisine was primarily based on elements of Russian cuisine, although for festive occasions, they adopted elements of other cuisines. For example [non-English word spoken], which comes from the word [non-English word spoken]. It's a kebab. They adopted it from the Caucuses and also from Central Asia, but mostly it was built on the elements of Russian cuisine. Some not very good things happened during the Soviet time. Rice production declined. When I was researching for my book, I realized that before the Russians, before the Soviet Union was established in Azerbaijan, there was a big rice-growing industry in the country. When the Russians came, when the Soviets came, they realized that this is a very labor's process to grow rice, and it wasn't really fitting the Soviet style of eating. So a lot of plantations, rice plantations, were abolished, and instead of them, cabbage plantations were started, potato plantations started. So rice dishes that were very popular before and were really a part of the cuisine before, now they became, they started to be served at the end of the dinner for something, or something festive. Spice bazaars also were demolished, because Soviet cuisine did not require the use of a lot of spices. So spice bazaars disappeared, as well. And new drinks came into existence, such as European-style drinks. Sharbats disappeared, and the German winemaking tradition that existed before the Soviets came also suffered, as well. We had a German population Azerbaijan that came. Those were German colonies that were established in the 19th century, and they brought with them their winemaking skills, and they started winemaking industry in Azerbaijan. Unfortunately, they had to be exiled to Siberia and Kazakhstan because of the war of the USSR and Germany. In 1941, they had to leave Azerbaijan, and these are some pictures of the German winemaking time, and new breads were introduced. Instead of traditional breads, such as lavash, tandoor, and others, Soviet style loaves, long and round, were established across the country, and my grandfather actually owned one Soviet bakery. That's his picture. This is a picture of him. He ran away from the Stalinist exile. He hid in another region, and later on, he realized there was a need for a Soviet-style bakery, and he started one. So that's him down there. And after the collapse of the Soviet Union, goods things started to happen. We started to receive a lot of new foods from other countries. The first foods that came to us in Azerbaijan were Turkish foods, because of the proximity of the regions, and also because of the tastes were very similar. So the first foods that came to Azerbaijan, I remember, in the early 1990s, when the Soviet Union had just collapsed, was the doughnut kebab, the spiraling meat that was really fancy back then, but it's really widely spread now. So Azerbaijanis started to reclaim their traditions of preparing traditional meals more often now in restaurants, they serve a lot of things that were not served before, for example, piti. This is piti. It's a lamb stew with chestnuts cooked in a special pot. And special days in food traditions, you've heard about Nowruz a little bit. So I just want to say that a lot of traditions, a lot of holidays, they have food traditions involved in them. So in weddings, a lot of foods, even when two families meet, the families of the bride and groom, the first ceremony, when they agreed to the marriage, is a tea ceremony. They sweeten the tea, which means that the union is going to take place, and so the commemorations, for example, when death happens in the family, halwa is made. It's believed to soothe the pain of the grief, and this is my daughter holding a plate [non-English word spoken]. It's sprouted wheat. They symbolize abundance and fertility, and this is Baku-style baklava, one of many styles of baklava that is made in Azerbaijan. You can see the different styles, you can read about the different types of baklava in my cookbook. This is a Baku style or Ganga style baklava, and this is shakerbura. It's intricately designed with something that is called [non-English word spoken], and baklava actually symbolizes stars. Shakerbura symbolizes half-moon, and this is shorgoghal. It symbolizes the sun. It's a flaky, spice-filled flatbread. They're really good. And the most important thing is the tradition of hospitality. We have a saying that says, "A house without a guest is like a mill without water." And it's very true. For Westerners, our hospitality may seem overwhelming, because we push everybody to eat and drink. Even if you are not hungry, you have to eat. So you cannot refuse the food, because you have to be polite, because there is so much labor put into preparing something for you. Always express gratitude to the host. At the very end, I wanted to review this quote that I found in Alexander Dumas's book Adventures in Caucasia. I really love this. It really gives the gist Azerbaijani culture. So this is what he said. "The officer commanding the nearby village of Sourakhani came to invite us to take tea with him. Tea is hardly the right word, for we found he had prepared an excellent supper for us, a Tatar meal of shashlyk, pears, grapes, and watermelons. He also offered us rooms if we cared to stay the night." Tatar, by the way, is how we were called during the Russian Empire, and I hope you get to try the signs of hospitality firsthand if you visit Azerbaijan, and I hope you try the food of Azerbaijan. If you don't go there, we have food served here, courtesy of the Embassy of Azerbaijan. Please enjoy it, and thank you very much for listening and for coming here. ^M00:36:14 [ Applause ] ^M00:36:23 >> Joan Weeks: Just for a few questions. I think we have time >> Feride Buyuran: Yes. >> Joan Weeks: I think we have time for a few questions if anybody has a question for our speaker. Yes? ^M00:36:37 [ Inaudible Speech ] ^M00:36:42 Can you -- time. ^M00:36:44 [ Inaudible Speech ] ^M00:36:52 >> Feride Buyuran: I missed the first part of your -- ^M00:36:54 [ Inaudible Speech ] ^M00:37:04 It's more nationwide. For example, in Baku, there are restaurants that serve food from other regions of Azerbaijan, something that, for example, hasn't been served during the Soviet times, but now it's being served. So it's more on a general, in general, yes. >> Joan Weeks: Any other questions for us? Yes, Angela? >> [inaudible] like there is here in the US for meats that are organic versus non-organic? Are the animals that you have there fed [inaudible] or -- >> Feride Buyuran: I think there is. I haven't lived there for 15 years, but I believe if you buy something that's, for example, my mom never buys chicken that's sold in supermarkets. She buys chicken from somebody who raises the chickens herself. Like it's village-grown chicken. So naturally, it doesn't have any hormones or everything, but as far as I know, some of the chickens that sell in the supermarkets have some bad stuff, just like here. You know? So there is a classification just like here. >> Joan Weeks: One last question. Anybody? Well, I think we're all very anxious to taste some of this cuisine. If you search under your chair, four people will find a red bow, and if you have a red bow, if you bring it up, Feride will sign your book, and the rest of us can go start through the line. ^M00:38:40 [ Applause ] ^M00:38:45 >> This has been a presentation of Library of Congress. Visit us at loc.gov.