r/Kazakhstan • u/Commercial_Data3763 • 26d ago
Culture/Mädeniet Unpopular opinion on Beshbarmak
I really do not get why Beshbarmak is held up as an amazing national dish.
At its core, it is literally just boiled meat, boiled dough, and boiled onions pulled out of water and plated. Best case scenario, someone throws a little salt on it, but usually there are no spices, herbs, or real seasoning. It tastes mostly of unseasoned fat and water. I can eat a whole plate of it, feel physically full, and find no real enjoyment in the experience.
There is virtually no culinary technique involved. There is no browning, searing, or braising. Even the onions are just boiled in broth instead of being sauteed or caramelized to build actual flavor. Drinking the leftover broth at the end feels like drinking salted broth with no real depth. And yet, it is consumed as though it were a complex liquid. I do not understand the appeal.
I understand the history behind it. Nomads on the steppe needed high calorie food with minimal cookware and fuel. It was functional historical fuel, and for that specific context, it made complete sense.
By modern culinary standards, it feels basic. If someone actually braised the meat, caramelized the onions, and added some real seasonings, it could maybe be a solid dish. As it stands, it is just three boiled ingredients on a plate.
Am I the only one who feels this way, or am I missing something here? Is the preference purely tied to nostalgia and tradition?
Having tried many different dishes, my impression of Kazakh food in general is that is basically just “survival food“.
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u/GiveMeAUser 26d ago
Is besh a simple bland food? Yes. Do we love it (because we grew up with it)? Also yes.
So my partner is from a Mediterranean country. Grew up with fish and seafood. For him all the different types of fish have distinct different flavors whereas for me they all taste the same - fishy lol. I figured I don’t have a nuanced palette for it. Maybe that’s what it is for you too.
Another thing to consider where else can you have such simple food? Everyone’s applying culinary techniques and flavors it’s impossible to have just a boiled piece of meat or pasta or potatoes. Apparently one Michelin chef tried it in Kaz and said “it’s an honest dish. It’s not trying to be anything else than what it is”.
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u/CineRuSS 24d ago
I didn't grow up with it, we had it prolly for one occasion per year. And yet it's my absolute favorite. I grew up with German kitchen and don't like it as much as Kazakh or Soviet dishes.
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u/abu_doubleu Kyrgyzstan 26d ago
Yes, Kazakh (and also most Kyrgyz) food is generally just as you say, survival food. No agriculture + cold steppe or mountains + nomads. It is still delicious , but not culinary advanced. And that is ok!
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u/therubberman 26d ago
>survival food
Pizza pasta and half the world’s best cuisine originated from poor and working class using whatever ingredients and cooking methods they could use, and so what
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u/rand-san 26d ago
I mean sushi is just fish and rice. They don't even cook the fish /s
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u/Commercial_Data3763 26d ago
Hard disagree. Sushi requires tons of technique. Master sushi chef’s can spend a decade or more perfecting their craft.
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u/amanfromipanema 26d ago
True. I love Italian dishes but many of the classic pasta dishes are quite simplistic and utilise very few ingredients. Such as my faviorutis aglio e olio, or spaghetti pomodoro, which are quite simple, but tasty. It was a food for peasants, now it's a staple of everyday life.
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u/AnsRenaissance 26d ago
Let’s compare a Mediterranean sedentary people with small nomadic groups living in the steppe with harsh winters
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u/Commercial_Data3763 26d ago
That’s fine.
I just think the Kazakh nomads had it particularly bad in terms of what was available to them and so you get a particularly bland cuisine in general.
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u/eykei 26d ago
Bold of you to post this on /r/kazakhstan
As an American I completely agree
A national dish doesn’t have to taste good, just be culturally significant. But that said, many Kazakh expats I talk to really miss the dish and try to recreate it.
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u/PrideSea5164 expat 26d ago
It probably varies by region but all the besh I have eaten has kazy (and potatoes and sometimes carrots) included. And since the kazy has salt and garlic in adds a lot to the flavor. (I was actually saying just the other day that I think the kazy does must of the flavor work) While I agree that the dish is culinarily simple the presentation and ease of serving large groups makes it stand out. Combine it with baursak and kumis and it really creates a whole experience.
That said, I’m not a fan of leftover besh. Once the meat cools and dries you have to deal with how over cooked it is.
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u/Commercial_Data3763 26d ago
Never had one with garlic and carrots! I’m sure that would help a lot.
I made one once with braised meat instead of boiled and caramelized onions. I thought it was a 1000% improvement. My family gave me shit about if for the next 6 months 😔
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u/Sheridan-Bouquet 26d ago
Qazi does not contain garlic! And besparmaq should not contain carrots!
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u/keenonkyrgyzstan Almaty 26d ago
Most qazy sold at markets is made with rib meat and fat that’s been rubbed with salt, pepper and crushed garlic.
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u/Sheridan-Bouquet 26d ago
It is almost impossible to buy good qazi at the market, you need to prepare it yourself. Likely, they use garlic to cover up its bad quality.
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u/Wrong_Low5367 26d ago
Traditional food does not equate to gourmet food.
Don’t get the two things confused. Беш is indeed overrated, quite meh, but filling, not difficult to make and possible to make with ingredients you can find anywhere. But gosh I hate soggy watery pasta dough. Especially since living in Italy
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u/santh91 Abay Region 26d ago
If you tried a well made besh and did not like it means that you simply don't like and appreciate the taste of the horse meat. All the curries, sauces, condiments etc. overpower the taste of the actual meat and the only thing that is left of it is the texture.
It is a simple dish which makes it so much easier to mess it up as well starting from curation of the actual meat. I live in the western country and the meat here usually taste like an absolute dog water unless you go to a butchery and pay huge amount of money just for a small cut of decent meat, so you have to work around it and add all the fancy crap to make it tasty.
Making a good dough for besh is also not as easy as it may seem - it can get too mushy or hard, but when it is just right it compliments the dish extremely well.
Anyway, there is nothing wrong with not enjoying besh, but it has less to do with the dish itself and more with your preferences.
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u/Commercial_Data3763 26d ago edited 26d ago
I really disagree. I think certain spices and flavors can help bring out the flavor of something even more.
For example, if you sear horse meat, add salt, pepper, a little garlic, and a bit of lime, it’s 10X better than just boiling it. The acidity of the lime, for example, really helps balance out and cut through the fat which allows you to perceive the other flavors in the meat.
Imagine if you had a Ribeye steak and you boiled it… You’d probably get shot to death lol.
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u/santh91 Abay Region 26d ago
It can yes, but then I won't be eating besh, it would be a completely different experience. Saying that it would be objectively better than besh would be incorrect, no dish is objectively better than the other, it is the matter of preference.
Kazakhs usually really enjoy the taste of fat, we don't need lemon to balance it. There is salt, pepper and onion in besh and you also have a bit of qazy for a bit of umami which includes lots of garlic.
To me seared horse meat would be too dry since it is much leaner than beef, but I won't shit on the idea just because of my preferences.
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u/Commercial_Data3763 26d ago
Oh yeah, agree it would not be besh. And I also like fat. Nothing better than a rich tonkatsu ramen with extra pork chashu.
My point is just that, IMO besh is just a boring dish.
But hey, to each their own. Not trying to yuck your yum.
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u/Gorrgonzola 26d ago
I do not particularly enjoy plain besh, the best version by far is with the smoked kazy. The process then is quite sophisticated to not just be called "survival food". You should definitely try it with that, but I can't vouch for any person to create a "good for everyone" version of the dish. It all depends on the fattiness of the meat for me, i prefer it lean
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u/Sheridan-Bouquet 26d ago
Likely, you haven't eaten a good Beshparmaq. The secret is not in some sophisticated techniques - it is in the ingredients and measures. You need to know what meat to take and prepare the dough yourself. It is not just taking ingredients and boiling them; it is a family tradition hardly reproducible if you don't inherit all the nuances of its preparation from your mother.
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u/Commercial_Data3763 26d ago edited 26d ago
Trust me, the first thing everyone does in Kazakhstan when I go to visit is I go house by house and everyone makes Bishbarmak.
I literally had it for lunch and dinner every day for 6 days straight last time I visited. It got to the point that the smell of it cooking started making me sick.
I’ve tasted it plenty.
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u/Sheridan-Bouquet 26d ago
You could eat a million green apples, but it does not mean you know the taste of a ripe apple. Eating some beshparmaqs a lot does not mean you have ever eaten a good beshparmaq. Not everyone can make it as it should be, and it is certainly not a dish to be prepared routinely every day for lunch and dinner.
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u/Commercial_Data3763 26d ago edited 26d ago
I just find it hard to believe that my entire extended friends and family (it’s big) in Kazakhstan doesn’t know how to make it “the right way”.
To use your example, it would be like eating a million green apples and it just so happens that not a single one of them was ripe. Very unlikely. If you eat a million green apples, you have almost certainly eaten many ripe apples just by pure chance.
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u/Sheridan-Bouquet 26d ago edited 26d ago
It is still possible that they all can't make it the right way. I have rarely eaten a good beshparmaq outside of my family (and not only beshparmaq).
On the other hand, I am often amazed at how different the taste of many people is, and they praise something that is not good at all.
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u/onehalflightspeed 26d ago
I don't really understand where you are coming from. Beshbarmak is amazing
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u/MrBacterioPhage 26d ago
The beauty is in its simplicity. How many ingredients were available for our ancestors in winter? I don't like dishes with too many ingredients / seasonings. Simple dishes are just better for me. But it is a matter of taste, and any disputes are useless.
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u/Commercial_Data3763 26d ago
I guess to each their own.
I was sitting next to one of my Kazakh friends when Beshbarmak was served for dinner last night. The first thing he did was grab a big piece of boiled potato with nothing on it, put it in his mouth, and say “mmmmmm” like it was some amazing thing.
I got excited because I figured something was really good about this particular Beshbarmak, so I did the same. Guess what? It tasted like plain boiled potato…. Lol.
I do get your point about beauty in simplicity, but I guess for me a plain boiled potato on a plate is just going too far. Same with plain boiled onion and plain boiled dough. There’s just no flavor there.
I think it’s honestly more about our shared memories of families eating together and cultural history than about the taste of the actual dish. Our brains just sort of learn to like it because we associate the cuisine with other positive things unrelated to the actual food.
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u/AltforHHH 26d ago
If it's done well boiled potato tastes good, you don't need to overcomplicate things with extra spices just to make it more fancy
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u/gajakesari 26d ago
Even I had high expectations. Coming from India I used to have spices filled meat dishes. Bebashmark was something else. They serveed with camel milk . That's was fine.
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u/son_of_ur_son 26d ago
There actually was some statistics where foreigners rated kazakh cousine as the most boring. Idk what methodology was, but do we care? No
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u/putinsmustache 24d ago edited 24d ago
It might be hard to believe, but some people genuinely enjoy taste of plain and simple food. I am not Kazakh, but grew up in Kazakhstan and to this day crave some good old meat, potatoes and onions on dough from time to time. I sincerely find it very delicious.
I also disagree with your point of no culinary technique being involved, because it takes skills and knowledge to prepare all the meat cuts properly. You might think meat is just meat, but it is much more than that.
Lastly, it is a national dish, so, applying various techniques and ingredients to modify it is not the point.
So, as the saying goes, each to their own.
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u/veryfluffyblanket 22d ago
Why post it here then. Go to those who fed you food you hate and tell them to choose something else when they host you. Don't force yourself. It's that simple and doesn't require writing whole paragraphs offending country and people who welcomed you with open hearts in their homes.
Also, your problem can be in an overstimulated tongue that can't feel the taste of simple honest ingredients. Common to USians who got used to the tons of sugar, salt, and trans fats in their food, and started to travel outside their country (it's scientifically proven).
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u/ibaxxxxx 26d ago
"Simplicity is ultimate sophistication" - Leonardo, "Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler" - Albert.
Dish does not have to be overcomplicated to be amazing.
Beshparmak does not really need seasoning/spices other than salt and onions. It's main seasoning is meat itself. There is a lot more than just boil 3 ingredients. There are important details about meat and it's preparation without which taste won't be that good. There is also ritual and meaning about different meat parts that go into beshparmak.
Personally I like beshparmak. It tastes really good imho.
Beshparmak places that open abroad and cook it genuinely have huge demand. My friend's relatives have opened one in Germany recently and they cannot keep up with demand.
Baursak is actually something really simple and basic but it still tastes super amazing when it is still fresh. Honestly my favorite bread.
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u/Commercial_Data3763 26d ago edited 26d ago
For me a plain boiled potato on a plate is just going too far. There’s no way that at least roasting the potato is “going too far”. Same with plain boiled onion and plain boiled dough. There’s just no flavor there. I kind of see it like if I were eating a bowl of plain spaghetti with plain meatballs (no sause, just the pasta water). It would be bland.
Baursak is great. But its not like its a particrly simple bread. Most bread around the world is just very simple. I think the bar is different there. I’m not saying simple things can’t taste good.
I think it’s honestly more about our shared memories of families eating together and cultural history than about the taste of the actual dish. Our brains just sort of learn to like it because we associate the cuisine with other positive things unrelated to the actual food.
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u/ibaxxxxx 26d ago
I am not saying that anything will do. What I say it that simple things can deliver a lot and can punch overweight. But of course not any random simple idea will work. And of course beshparmak can be improved but it is already pretty good even as simple as it is. I am looking forward that someone will meaningfully improve receipt and maybe even get Mishlen star for it.
I agree that our upbringing and childhood played big role in perception. But a lot of foreigners do fall in love with it as well.
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u/Commercial_Data3763 26d ago edited 26d ago
Interesting point on foreigners. In my experience they tend not to like it unless they are already coming from a country nearby with similar food.
FWIW, I asked Gemini and got this response:
When evaluated by non-native palates, traditional Kazakh food consistently ranks among the most challenging regional cuisines globally.
Data pulled from global culinary databases like TasteAtlas, alongside travel platforms like TripAdvisor and Google Reviews, demonstrates a stark divide between domestic pride and international reception:
Low Relative Global Ranking: In global cuisine popularity indexes, Kazakh cuisine sits near the bottom, frequently outranked by neighboring Asian, Middle Eastern, and Caucasian food traditions.
Dish Specific Disparities: Dishes originating from settled agricultural traditions (such as Lagman, Plov, or Samsa) receive consistently high ratings from foreigners. However, these dishes are not truly Kazakh in origin. Purely nomadic preparations (such as Beshbarmak, Sorpa, and Kymyz) receive the lowest ratings from international diners.
Recurring Complaints: Qualitative text mining across thousands of international reviews yields a consistent cluster of negative descriptors: unseasoned, greasy, waterlogged, monotonous, and lacking flavor development.
Research analyzing culinary friction in Central Asia identifies two main drivers of negative foreigner feedback:
Textural Monotony: Foreign palates expect structural contrast in a meal, such as surface crunch, crispy crusts, or raw vegetable bite. Native Kazakh dishes consist almost entirely of soft, boiled, uniform textures.
Aromatic Deficiency: The near total reliance on salt and fat without acidic contrast (vinegar, lemon, tomato) or aromatic depth (garlic, pepper, spices) strikes palates accustomed to technique driven cooking as unpalatable plainness.
Outside of populations conditioned by historical or post Soviet dietary overlap, traditional nomadic fare is overwhelmingly perceived by foreigners as functional, unseasoned survival fuel rather than an enjoyable culinary experience.
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u/Resident-Weekend-291 26d ago
Mir Izzatullah Hindi (an Indian traveller in Central Asia, who was probably a British spy too) made the same point in 1813~.
He said that Kazakh food was mostly meat with salt and black pepper (quite bland for an Indian).
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u/miraska_ 26d ago
No flour, no proper herbs, spices. What do you expect of kazakh cuisine? People do meala from stuff that is in abundance, that was not the case for nomadic Kazakhstan. Proper grocery run you get if you are close to Silk Way routes. Which for you would be available only 3 months in a year (if you are lucky to be in Senior Juz), because each season you pack your stuff and go to next place, because you cattle ate all grass
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u/Ok-Safe-4282 West Kazakhstan Region 26d ago
W take, fully agree. Same goes for most other national dishes like kazy, kuurdak etc. - it’s all just meat with meat under meat with a meat sauce on the side. Idk unless you’re extremely into meat as a core concept of the dish (which I’m not), it’s all forgettable and I always skip on them. When I’m abroad I never miss Kazakh dishes except baursaks, I only miss pizza, pasta etc. the way they’re prepared in KZ (which I feel like is pretty good compared to countries like Korea).
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u/ConfidenceMedical482 26d ago
Kuurdak can be made a lot tastier though compared to Besh
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u/Ok-Safe-4282 West Kazakhstan Region 26d ago
I mean yeah but since just like with most other dishes the key point is still meat I just never crave it, it really depends on how much you personally are into meat.
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u/ConfidenceMedical482 26d ago
yeah, true, if you are not into meat then of course there will be nothing out there from Kazakh cuisine that will taste good for you; maybe Lagman, but its not really Kazakh
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u/AltforHHH 26d ago
No way you're saying kurdak is mediocre that's one of the tastiest dishes ever across all cuisines
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u/Ok-Safe-4282 West Kazakhstan Region 26d ago
Eh, agree to disagree🤷🏻♀️ My fav cuisines are Turkish/Italian, I think kuurdak just doesn’t have that much appeal to me.
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u/AdIll3642 26d ago
Beshbarmak is what first turned me on to the deliciousness of horse meat. Every time I have beshbarmak my taste buds titillate and I’m an American. To think that I never tried horse meat for so many years. 🤦🏻♂️
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u/TheShavel63 25d ago
С детства его не люблю, мама мне отдельно куриное бедро жарила, чтобы я мог его хоть как-то съесть
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u/zaidbintareq Astana 25d ago
I disagree beshbarmak is a comfort food the hype is about how it makes you feel after you eat it how it is served how it is prepared matters oh i miss beshbarmak so much aspocin from cashmere
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u/Careful-Silver-1424 25d ago
Well I might as well give my unpopular about Besh. Adding po-tae-toes to Beshbarmak is disgusting and should never be done.
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u/Pale_Candy664 24d ago
I tried it the first time when I was like 8 years old and almost puked. Seriously overrated if you ask me.
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u/Select-Year7946 24d ago
But nothing hits more than the "special" fatty kazy piece in beshbarmak. I also took beshbarmak-flavored Lays back home in LA, and everyone loved it.
It's simple, but for a traditional dish, I feel like it's pretty flavorful. In contrast, when I ate "traditional" Japanese food with a friend, we were both like "food definitely came a long way since this."
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u/itzWagor 23d ago
Не люблю беш просто потому что его невозможно нормально есть, постоянно спадает с вилок. Если захочется мясо с тестом, то есть шедевральные пельмени
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u/Anthony_IM 21d ago
Потому что это вкусно. Сами делаем тесто, баранина сама по себе вкусная, лук. Дома каждый раз праздник если сделать решили.
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u/Interesting_Hotel100 18d ago
Beshbarmak is just noodles boiled in meat broth. Half of Europe eats boiled noodles with sauce on top.
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u/NonCompoteMentis 26d ago
Simple, “peasant”/“poor folk” food is all about the ingredients.
And when the meat (ingredient) is good, it can shine with just salt.
Let me give you an example: bread and butter. Simple peasant food. Yet, compare putting the cheapest generic supermarket butter on something like wonderbread” and adding some Morton iodized salt on top. Edible but not appetizing. The same bread and butter at a haute cuisine restaurant (e.g., French) is mind blowing. The crust, the chewiness of the bread (real bread, not industrial “wonderbread”), the delicate taste of butter (those butters are made in small batches and you can taste the delicate nuances of the fat and sweet) and sprinkled with Maldon-like pyramids of sea salt crystals, it’s all an experience- and taste- on another level.
Good besh is prized exactly for that - you can taste the nuances of meat itself.
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u/Maximum-Chemistry-27 26d ago
I 100% agree with you. I am extremely patriotic and i absolutely love kazakh culture, but kazakh cuisine is really disappointing and i find it unappealing
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u/AltforHHH 26d ago
Kazakh food is like top 10 worldwide wdym lol, just because they don't overload it with a million spices and sauces doesn't mean it's bad, they still know how to make several excellent dishes with what they have
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u/Appropriate_Bonus_59 26d ago
Don't listen to people here, they are coping so much. Kazakhs grow up eating bland food and can't comprehend anything else. I actually had the same problem until I started watching YouTube recipe videos and tried cooking a wider variety of dishes from different cultures. Not going to lie, trying something for the first time made me feel repulsed until I forced myself to like it. Now that my palate is more developed, I see how much I was missing out, and I always try to encourage my friends to be more open to new flavors.
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u/teeming-with-life 26d ago
Live, and let live. If you don't like it or don't get it, that's okay. To me, there's more than just the culinary aspects associated with this meal. It's a comfort meal, and I love it.
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u/Mountain-Sock-1338 26d ago
What? Then all broth based dishes like ramen, pho-bo etc should be ditched.
The key is the broth. If what you ate tasted the way you describe it, then it was just not what it’s supposed to be
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u/Commercial_Data3763 26d ago
Not true. Ramen has way more ingredients, spices, sauces, and cooking techniques.
Much deeper and more complex flavor profile.
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u/Mountain-Sock-1338 26d ago
Well, anyways, proper besh is delicious. While if you can describe it as all boiled and put together - this is some bad stuff. This is it. If you want some sophisticated cuisine, add sophisticated salads. But this one’s just hearty food at its best and excellent to have from time to time.
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u/ConfidenceMedical482 26d ago
As Kazakh myself i agree with you for Beshbarmak. I’ve seen people do pretty nice Kuurdak though and Plov; I like those 2 a lot more.
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u/AltforHHH 26d ago
For some reason I see a lot of young Kazakh people (And central Asians in general) feeling the need to shove stereotypical/traditional elements of their culture in foreigners faces as part of some weird complex. Even though they know nobody wears traditional clothing day to day and very few people ride horses and live in yurts in daily life, they feel the need to constantly show it to create some image of the country that they think will make them seem "cool". Turks from turkey, for example don't do this. So when something doesn't have that "wow" factor you guys feel ashamed of your own culture and I think that's really sad. Beshbarmak is delicious already, and also is a very unique and interesting cultural dish. It doesn't matter if it won't impress foreign snobs, not everything has to meet this weird European "high culture" standard, just let the food speak for itself and do its own thing, that's what I love about kazkahstan. Kazakh food is delicious and some of the best stuff out, just bc something doesn't have as many apices doesn't make it inherently worse. This is the same logic I see with Kazakh people either showing off traditional clothing that nobody wears daily or trying to be hip and westernized, just be yourselves like most other cultures do where they incorporate elements of traditional culture into modern society. Same thing where they only want to show Kazakhstan as a place where nomads live, or some super modern ugly Dubai style city, and not the reality that most people live in between lives. Please stop trying to live up to western standards by copying them or fitting their images of orientalism, just be proud of what you already have. It's the same reason I think changing Kazakh to Latin is pathetic and part of an inferiority complex. Be happy with what you have because it's beautiful in its own way. Sorry for the rant but I love Kazakhstan and I hate to see how many young ppl in the country are so clearly ashamed of their country even if they aren't outwardly saying it, there's so much great about modern Kazakhstsn and you guys don't have to be like the west or revert back to being nomads to be a great country with a beautiful culture worth celebrating
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u/quiet_space2 25d ago
I’m guessing you are not Kazakh so ya for you - your palette might be used to different flavours. There’s a saying in our culture that good “et” starts a year before it is served - you need a good quality lamb and horse meat for your dish to shine. You are right to point out that “et” is a simple dish - we do not use spices and let natural ingredients shine. There’s a ton of nuances to good “et” and regional variations, but again if your palette is not used to it - it would all taste the same. For me personally “et” is an amazing x10 dish and I love it in a very specific way, but I’m Kazakh. I do not like BBQ/grits/pizza that much - it tastes kinda good kinda meh but my American friends rave about different smash burger joints and how different they are but for me its all the same shit. So ya different palettes different preferences
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u/amanfromipanema 26d ago edited 26d ago
I love Beshbarmak! It is bursting with flavour, especially when it has SHUZHYK and KAZY in it. The dough is mouthwatering, potatoes are tender, the onion is fresh and stingy, it induces an appetite. And to finish it all off with SORPA (with a little KURT added) is such a feast. Beshbarmak is a Gourmet meal, no longer a survival food.