Report: Culinary Workshop on Cooking "Gdańsk Plov"

after classes

For almost four years now, each semester we have hosted several dozen students at our Faculty from partner universities, including institutions in Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, and Kazakhstan. Through exchange programmes, they complete part of their legal studies with us. They represent the leading law and business universities of Central Asia led by Tashkent State University of Law.

Our international students are deeply proud of their traditions, whose origins reach back hundreds of years - often to ancient times. Distinctive cuisine, clothing, dances, and songs all form the vivid, rich, and diverse culture of Central Asia.

We decided to introduce Polish students to the wealth of this remarkable region from which our students come - the heart of the Silk Road and the Land of Blue Domes.

Last Friday at 4:30 p.m., the first culinary workshop in the Faculty’s history began. Working together - Polish, Uzbek, Kazakh, and Tajik - we prepared plov, one of the iconic dishes of this region of the world.

Among our Uzbek guests studying at the Faculty this semester, we were fortunate to have the ideal person: Murodjon belongs to a family that has continued the culinary profession for nine generations (sic!). He successfully combines his passion for cooking with his law studies. Together with the Head Chef of the Faculty restaurant, Le Grand Buffet, Mr Łukasz Nieckula - with whom we organised a pierogi workshop for our Uzbek guests a year ago - they served as coordinators of the entire cooking process.

It is worth adding that plov is a ceremonial, ritual dish, and therefore accompanies many events in the life of families and communities. In every household, the responsibility for the quality and flavour of plov rests with the man. In Uzbekistan and across the region, a guest is treated with great respect, and their satisfaction is a matter of the host’s honour.

Each region of this part of the world has its own variation of plov. We decided to prepare the first-ever “Gdańsk Plov.” Discussions about a unique additional ingredient - distinctly Polish, yet fitting the dish - went on for several weeks. In the end, two ideas prevailed: an apple stuffed with dried fruits and honey (the winner was the grey reinette - gently tart and an excellent match for rice), and the timeless Polish… pickled cucumber.

In the first part of the event, we listened to a multimedia lecture on the history, varieties, and techniques of cooking plov. Then it was time for practice: students, divided into teams, began preparing the ingredients - everything in accordance with high gastronomic standards.

The second part of the event took place while we awaited the finished plov, which our culinary masters were preparing intensively. The process can take even several days, but our Uzbek “master chef” managed to shorten it to two hours.

What to do in the meantime? We thought of that too. Teams of students from Central Asia and Poland prepared knowledge competitions about both countries, humorous quizzes, and presentations of what both regions of the world can offer one another - and what they are proud of.

The integration quickly gained pace and intensity. Before we knew it, the dining hall had turned into a disco that Samarkand, Bukhara, or Tashkent would not have been ashamed of - Uzbek karaoke and traditional dances warmed up the atmosphere and made it easy to forget the passing time and growing hunger.

Finally, the grand finale arrived: our chefs carried into the room a huge cauldron filled with fragrant plov. Halal beef and lamb, carrots, raisins, tomatoes, onions, and of course the rice indispensable to plov - together with the Polish additions - disappeared quickly from the participants’ plates.

We hardly noticed when the clock struck 9:40 p.m.!

The first Uzbek cuisine workshop turned out to be a success - both in attendance and gastronomically. A Gdańsk plov was created, but most importantly, many Polish - Uzbek - Tajik - Kazakh friendships and relationships were formed.

An idea for the next edition of our event has also emerged - during the summer semester, when another group of students from the Land of the Silk Road will visit us.

None of this would have been possible without the efforts, work, and commitment of our co-organisers:

Student Research Clubs Council, Faculty of Law and Administration, University of Gdańsk
Student Government Council, Faculty of Law and Administration, University of Gdańsk
Academic fraternity Konwent Polonia
Academic fraternity Lauda
School of International and Advanced Problems of Law
Le Grand Buffet – the restaurant at the Faculty of Law and Administration, University of Gdańsk

And without the people who had been preparing the entire event for several weeks - to whom we extend our heartfelt thanks:

Faculty students—members of the Student Research Clubs Council, Student Government Council, K!Polonia and K!Lauda: Ms Kornelia Siedlecka, Ms Karolina Sokołowska, Mr Błażej Kirszenstein, Mr Filip Neugebauer, Mr Korneliusz Radziwiłowicz, Mr Miłosz Piotrowski, Mr Artur Sabiniarz, Mr Wiktor Jakiel, Mr Kacper Janowski - as well as students from our partner universities: Tashkent State University of Law, the National University of Uzbekistan, Tajikistan State University of Law, Business & Politics in Tajikistan, and Shokan Ualikhanov Kokshetau University in Kazakhstan - led by our talented chef, Mr Murodjon Dilmurodov - for their help with organisation, active participation, colourful and warm contribution to our event, and for decorating the room (and helping to clean it afterwards).

We also extend our sincere thanks to:

Prof. Marcin M. Wiszowaty, - originator and coordinator of the entire undertaking
Mr Łukasz Nieckula - Head Chef and Manager of Le Grand Buffet, together with his team: Ms Anna, Mr Michał, and Ms Stefania - for making the entire restaurant available to us, sourcing the ingredients, perfect service, angelic patience, and financial support
Prof. Edvardas Juchnevičius - for excellent photographs
everyone who joined us for this exceptional evening: those who chopped the ingredients beautifully, had a wonderful time with our guests, and set an exemplary standard in clearing their plates (which was no easy task given the enormous Uzbek portions) -Faculty students; members of our staff (Professor Monika Tomaszewska, Dr Damian Cyman, Mr Wojciech Jankowski); our guests -lecturers from Uzbekistan’s Tashkent State University of Law, Professor Shukhrat Ismoilov and Professor Mansurjon Boltaev, who visited our Faculty this week to deliver lectures; and the senior members of the academic fraternity Lauda - Mr Tomasz Woźniak and Mr Filip Umiastowski
the Dean of the Faculty, Prof. Wojciech Zalewski, - for his kind support of our initiative.