Azerbaijan and my long running battle with Dill:

Friends and former colleagues who knew me and worked with me in Russia and Ukraine will immediately recognise this article, perhaps with some humour. I can remember that amongst the first words of Russian I learnt was how to say ‘no dill please.’ This was (and still is) because dill is the one herb that I abhor and it is also the herb that is used in almost every dish in countries that were formerly in the Soviet Union. If you are going to a restaurant in Russia or any former Soviet countries and you don’t like dill – beware.

How to ruin a delicious dish of potatoes - add dill.

I think dill is one of those things that you either love or hate and I am firmly in the latter category. It’s not just that I dislike it – the flavour it carries is so strong that someone described it to me as like someone had sprayed perfume on your food. I remember one former colleague who agreed with me about this – he could not even enter the section of the supermarket where dill was sold. The smell was so strong that if he was exposed to it, it would stay in his olfactory senses for hours, thereby ruining his day and any meals he ate.

I had completely forgotten about this until I recently travelled to Azerbaijan. While there, I was quickly reintroduced to the two things that used to put me off their restaurants - the almost universal insistence on serving salad with meals and the remarkable amount of dill that seems to find its way into practically everything.

Apparently the salad tradition has quite a lot to do with the Soviet period. In pre-Soviet Russia and other parts of the region, vegetables were certainly eaten, but fresh vegetables were hard to get, particularly in winter so they were often pickled, salted, fermented or otherwise preserved rather than served as the fresh salads we would recognise today.

During this period, a more standardised style of eating developed, particularly in restaurants, hotels, canteens and institutional cooking. A typical meal was structured around a first course, usually soup and followed by a main course, with salads or vegetable dishes served alongside or between the courses.

Salads were also inexpensive and practical. Cabbage, carrots, beetroot, cucumbers, potatoes and other vegetables were readily available and could provide variety when meat and other ingredients were relatively scarce.

This helps explain something I noticed very clearly in Azerbaijan: salad is not necessarily regarded as a separate course in the Western European sense. It is considered something that belongs on the table with the meal.

The dill plant.

That is why refusing it can produce a slightly puzzled reaction and boy, did I get that. In one place, the waiter actually insisted that I take the salad because he informed me that: (a) it was healthy, (b) it was part of the meal, and (c) it was included in the price. From his point of view, he wasn’t necessarily offering me an optional extra; he was providing what they regard as a normal part of the meal.

Azerbaijan also has an older and very strong tradition of serving fresh vegetables and herbs alongside food, so the modern Azerbaijani habit is a combination of its own Caucasian culinary traditions and the influence of the Soviet food system.

Then there is dill.

Dill became one of the dominant everyday herbs throughout much of the former Soviet Union and Warsaw Pact Eastern Europe. There is a very practical reason for this: it grows easily, is inexpensive and was readily available to ordinary households. You could grow it in any garden, in any climate; you could grow it in a window box in an apartment if you didn’t have a garden. It was strong, resilient and always full of flavour – and it was cheap. Other herbs and spices had to be imported and they were either too expensive or were not available.

How to ruin a soup?

Over generations, it became an everyday rather than a special ingredient. Eventually it became so deeply embedded in the cuisine that cooks often used it almost instinctively.

Dill goes into soups, potatoes, salads, stews, pickles, fish, sour cream, dumplings and many other dishes. In some parts of the former Soviet Union, it has almost become the default finishing herb for savoury food.

There is also an element of familiarity. A cook who has grown up eating dill may regard it in much the same way that an Italian cook instinctively reaches for basil or a French cook for parsley. They are not necessarily thinking that they are adding a strong or unusual flavour. To them, the dish simply seems incomplete without it.

Azerbaijan is particularly interesting because its cuisine has a much wider herb tradition than Russian cuisine. Coriander, mint, basil, parsley, tarragon and other herbs are also important, reflecting Azerbaijan’s Caucasian, Persian, Turkish and Middle Eastern influences.

So the enormous presence of dill in Azerbaijan is partly a Soviet legacy, but it sits alongside a much older and broader Azerbaijani tradition of using fresh herbs and vegetables.

The interesting thing is that food preferences can be remarkably cultural. What one person regards as a delicious, essential flavour can be completely overpowering to someone else.

And that certainly explains my experience here.

I can understand why they like their dill. I just wish they would occasionally acknowledge that there are people like me who don’t and either give me a choice or prepare the food without it.

I must say that when I did get back into the habit of saying ‘no dill please,’ in Azerbaijan, the food I got was delicious. So it can be done.