Featuring three ingredients — flour, sugar and butter — this traditional Dagestani dessert is commonly referred to as flour halva. It’s the first thing I bought on the evening of my arrival in Makhachkala. Two beautiful local ladies I met at an Italian boutique in the city centre a few days later told me they used to dislike this treat as children because they were made to eat it, and also because you have to mix the dough for two hours. They said that when you set out to do it, your neighbours come to lend a hand.
We talked about other local dishes too, and one of the ladies confessed that during her seven-month stay in Moscow she’d had nothing to drink tea with. She got the impression that desserts were generally good-looking but either insipid, owing to a lack of fresh local produce, or unsweetened, owing to Muscovites’ obsession with healthy eating. She also remarked that you can eat at 1 a.m. and stay in good shape, the key is to enjoy what you’re eating. That’s Dagestani dietary advice for you.
