Beshbarmak vs. nuggets: Kazakhstani children are forgetting the national cuisine
Qazaq Gourmet brand chef Artem Kantsev said at the Industry Day forum in Almaty: 11 out of 20 children at a party did not know what beshbarmak is. Restaurants are looking for new forms for traditional flavors.
Out of 20 children who came to a children's party in Kazakhstan, 11 did not know what beshbarmak is. This figure was cited by Artem Kantsev, brand chef of the Qazaq Gourmet restaurant, speaking at the Industry Day gastronomic forum in Almaty. According to him, such cases signal the gradual disappearance of traditional dishes from the diet of young Kazakhstani people.
Kantsev shared a personal story that made him think about the future of the national cuisine. When his son turned 10, the brand chef asked him what he wanted to see on the festive table. The child chose beshbarmak — and explained his choice simply: he was already tired of pizza and nuggets at other children's parties.
However, about 20 children came to the party itself, and according to the speaker, 11 of them did not know what beshbarmak was.
"This is a wake-up call… a very dangerous one," Kantsev noted.
Not an isolated habit, but a systemic shift
Kantsev emphasized that this is not about a one-off gastronomic habit, but about a reason to seriously consider how to preserve children's connection with traditional products and flavors.
"Young people are eating kurt and other traditional products less and less often," he said, comparing attitudes toward the national cuisine across generations.
In the brand chef's opinion, preserving national gastronomy is not only the task of restaurants. This issue should also be considered a subject for scientific research.
"We need to bring in science. Perhaps there are some studies, or research needs to be conducted in this direction — how to leave our generation that native taste, which is nurtured from our land," Kantsev said at the forum.
A restaurant as an entry point to the national cuisine
Discussion participants also noted the role of restaurants. In Kazakhstan, families with children actively visit food service establishments, so restaurants are becoming one of the places where a child can first encounter traditional dishes.
At the same time, this is not necessarily about bringing back the dishes in their original form. The restaurant business is already looking for ways to combine products familiar to the modern guest with elements of nostalgia.
One example is the Akku café in Almaty. Its brand chef Yegor Yevstratov said that the team tries to work carefully with the establishment's image and guests' memories. At Akku, they have kept coffee brewed in a cezve, kvass in a faceted glass, and dishes designed to evoke nostalgia among the older generation — in particular, cod liver and a sandwich with dill butter.
Not forcing, but engaging
This is how another approach to preserving gastronomic culture is taking shape: not forcing the new generation to eat the same things their parents and grandmothers ate, but finding a modern form for familiar flavors.
If for some children beshbarmak remains a festive table dish, for others their first encounter with it may happen precisely in a restaurant. And how modernly establishments can present traditional products may well determine their place on the menu of the next generation of Kazakhstanis.
It was previously reported that in Kulsary an unusual format of one of the most famous dishes of Kazakh cuisine was created — freeze-dried beshbarmak. The ready product simply needs to be poured with hot water, after which the dish can be served at the table.
Source: Kursiv
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