Melons in April at Ashkhabad market
At the market in Ashkhabad, Ella Christie found that the fruit stalls sold up to seven different varieties of raisin, some of which were mixed with dried peas, and crunched in handfuls by the local people. Others were cooked in the national rice-based dish of pillau, and further varieties used for making a sweet syrupy type of wine. In this market Ella Christie also found puchara, a fruit like a small Tunis date with a reddish-yellow papery skin, previously unknown to her. She was particularly surprised to find melons out of season, preserved by a process the full details of which were kept secret, but which was said to involve burying them in dry sand.
