Chakida

Written by: Mohammad Anwar Andar

Hamida and Janan are the guests of Lalo mama. They are waiting in the yard of the castle for Lalo Mama to come but they don’t see him around them. Lalo Mama comes down from a walnut tree. They greet him and ask him that what was he doing on the tree. Lalo Mama says that he was picking up walnuts and then he lets them to the corridor of the castle.

n the corridor, Lalo Mama invites them for eating Chakida. Hamida and Janan hear Chakida for the first time and ask about it from Lalo Mama. Lolo Mama opens a window for their information.

Window:

In the window, a woman is grinding something in a mortar and says that she is preparing Chakida. She wants her son, Piroz to call the neighboring boys to collect walnuts from the tree. When Piroz wants to go to the neighbors’ houses, his cousin (son of his aunt) Ajmal comes. Piroz mother gives a little Chakida to Ajmal. Ajmal eats and likes it and asks about the preparation. Piroz’s mother says: some boys of the neighboring houses collect walnuts from the tree and separate the shell from the kernel. At the beginning, they grind dried mulberry in a mortar or in a hand mill and then they add the kernel of walnuts with it and grind them together. They call it Chakida. Chakida is preparing in those provinces where there are more mulberry and walnuts as Panjshir, Kapisa, and Badakhshan. Ajmal says that it seems the same as Talkhan. Piroz mother says that Talkhan is prepared only from dried mulberry and Chakida is preparing from dried mulberry and walnuts.

Lalo Mama closes the window. Hamida and Janan learned how to prepare Chakida. Lalo Mama gives them a little Chakida as a gift.