Culinary Journeys

Arrival. Transfer to the hotel for a freshen-up. A gentle walking tour of the city's old quarters in the late morning, easing the legs after the flight. Late lunch at the Central Asian Plov Centre on Iftikhor Street, where six wide cauldrons cook the morning's plov in turn and a queue of office workers, grandmothers, and families wait their portion. We eat at the long communal tables, the way the city eats. The rest of the day is for slowing down: a nap, a tea on the hotel terrace, an early dinner.

Morning train east through the Kamchik Pass into the Fergana Valley, the green basin that grows half the country's wheat, cotton, and silk. We are received in Kokand at the home of Hasan Umarov and his wife. Hasan is a master blacksmith whose work is known across Central Asia. We spend the morning in their kitchen, preparing kechiri together, an old, slow-cooked recipe of the valley that has all but disappeared from the city restaurants. We eat lunch with them at the family table. In the afternoon, Hasan opens his forge: he works at the anvil for us, then puts the hammer in our hands so we know what the iron asks of the shoulder. Late afternoon visit to Khudayar Khan's Palace, the last great residence of the Kokand Khanate, with its painted ceilings and ganch-carved walls. Evening drive on to Fergana city for the night.

Morning at Kumtepa bazaar, the great market of the valley, where the silk traders, the herbalists, the spice-sellers, and the bread bakers spread their goods over more than a hectare. We spend a slow hour in the food rows, learning the herbs and the cuts of meat from a cook who shops here twice a week.

Afterwards we walk to the workshop of master Sobir, who shows us silk-making from the cocoon to the finished bolt: the boiling, the unwinding, the dyeing in natural pigments, the loom. In the afternoon we move on to a working neighbourhood bakery, where we mix our own dough and learn to bake the Fergana-style non, slapped against the inner wall of the tandyr. The bread we bake is the dinner.

Morning visit to the ceramic school in Rishtan, where the red clay of the surrounding hills has been turned for centuries and the cobalt-blue glaze is made from a recipe the masters keep among themselves. We meet the artists at their wheels and hold a finished plate, still warm from the kiln, in our hands.

After lunch we drive west across the Kamchik Pass back to Tashkent. A slower evening: a cooking class in the kitchen of a local woman who teaches us the city's cold eggplant salad, with tomato, garlic, coriander, and the right vinegar, served with bread. A quiet dinner together at her table.

Morning high-speed train across the country to Bukhara. Afternoon walking tour of the old city: the Ark fortress, the Bolo-Hauz mosque, and the trading domes where the silk merchants, the jewellers, and the hat-makers have kept their stalls for five hundred years.

In the evening we meet our friend the Bukharian chef, who teaches us hand-pulled lagman: the dough rested overnight, drawn out into a single noodle without a knife, the broth simmered for hours with lamb shank, the vegetables cut into ribbons. We pull the noodles ourselves. We cook them. We eat them together.

A full day at the pace the city deserves. Dawn at Lyabi-Hauz before the bazaar wakes. Poi Kalon ensemble at the soft hour, when the bricks turn the colour of bread crust. Lunch with a calligrapher's family in the old quarter. A short stop at the house of the city's halva maker, where the white halva is poured warm into copper trays and cut on the stone slab his grandfather cut on.

The evening is yours. Forget the calendar. Sit under the chinor tree at Lyabi-Hauz. Let Bukhara's old air do its slow work.

A free morning in Bukhara: a coffee, a hammam if you like, one more wander through the trading domes for the silk or the silverwork. Lunch on your own or with the guide. Late afternoon high-speed train to Samarkand. Evening arrival, settling in at our family hotel.

The Registan in the morning, when the light is still cold. Bibi-Khanym mosque mid-morning. From there we walk into Siyob bazaar with a local family who cook for a living, and we shop together for the afternoon's plov: the devzira rice, the lamb shoulder, the long matchstick of yellow and orange carrot, the cumin, the chickpeas, the dried barberries.

In the afternoon we cook the Samarkand-style plov from start to finish in their courtyard, over the open flame in the kazan. The plov is the evening meal, eaten at the long table on the platform. We finish the day with a slow walk through the lit city.

We drive thirty minutes out of the city to Ohalik, the village that gave our company its name. A gentle morning walk along the lanes and gardens, with the village children running ahead. Then to the kitchen of Mahbuba, who is preparing fresh pastries with her daughters: somsa folded with lamb and onion, qatlama layered with butter, and the morning's patir. We knead the dough on the wooden board on the floor. We fold, we shape, we light the tandyr with grapevine cuttings the way her mother taught her.

Lunch is everything we have made together. We return to Samarkand in the afternoon. The evening is at leisure.

Farewell breakfast in the courtyard at Amira Boutique Hotel. Transfer to the airport for travellers flying from Samarkand, or to the high-speed train for those continuing to Tashkent.