New Year. Doorbell. Little Shir Ali opens the door, and there is nobody there except ... Santa Claus, in a red sheepskin coat, to the heels. In large gray felt boots. A large silver staff. And the back of the bag.

"Shir Ali, you were a good boy this year, that's why I give you my present, develop your basic taste, learn how to cook, and you will feed everyone in your family!" said Santa Claus in thick bass.

Little Shir Ali looked in surprise at the strange uncle who spoke something in an unfamiliar language.

He did not recognize the uncle, but then he saw in the lumen of the sheepskin coat a Hakka-colored uniform and a cornflower blue buttonhole.

And, flashed in the head of little Shir Ali, this is someone from the work of his father. The form is similar.

"Shir Ali, look here for a minute," came a voice from the hallway, it was his mother, Hontur Barnokhanum.

A 4-year-old boy turned to his mother's voice, but there was no one there.

When he turned back to the door, Santa Claus was gone. Magic! But in the place where the strange uncle stood, there was a small wicker basket and there was a children's knife, a small kitchen board, and cakes in a beautiful package.

They were unusual, small, almost like the pens of Shir-Ali himself. The aroma of them was wonderful. There were cakes with strawberries, raspberries, candied with dogwood. The cream was at a minimum. The design of the cakes was fancy, some castles in the air, all miniature.

As the chef of the dining room in the security and strategic analysis department said, that the right taste in a person is formed from childhood. A person should try different products, know the difference between a ripe and immature product. When cooking, when possible, use only the most selected ingredients. Then the food itself becomes tastier and a person can form the right taste. And if from childhood there is not full-value food, then you can spoil your taste or even lose it. Such people were then ordered to cook.

Finding a person with the right concept of taste is very difficult.

A real gourmet must be able to distinguish between basic tastes and this:

- sour (astringent, astringent)

- sweet

- bitter

- salty

- starchy or taste of the fermented fruit.

But then the chef smiled. "You see, Asians have their own taste, Europeans have their own. Asians have not yet developed their own taste, while the European school is a classic culinary school and it should be the standard for all cultures, be it, Asia or Africa."

It was a racist approach. But in totalitarian empires, there could not be another.

He was a representative of the titular nation of the empire. And father Shir Ali was an Asian. The relationship between the representatives of the empire and the representative of the colony was always mildly strained.

"Shir Ali's father was from a large trading clan, and by marrying Hontur (Shir Ali's mother), he became related to a political clan. Their patriarch was in the faction - business executives within the communist party.

Although he was a colonel, and the chef was only a senior warrant officer, but the warrant officer allowed himself to neglect the charter of the service. And he believed that European cuisine is superior to Asians. A certain aspect of imperial thinking is that the inhabitants of the colony are inferior in the development of the culinary culture of the empire. The inhabitants of the colonies were perceived as barbarians.

Moreover, each culinary school in Asia, Africa, Australia, the Americas, and Europe was unique in its own way and had its own historical culinary traditions. If you do not understand another culture, this does not mean that it is bad. It only says that a person is not sufficiently educated as a foodie. He cannot understand the different taste and as a gourmet, he has not yet taken place.

A true gourmet must-have modern knowledge about culinary, but also know its history, schools, and classical trends.

To be able to distinguish the tastes of different products, to know their compatibility, and those products that are strictly prohibited to combine. At the same time, he should know that in different traditions, product combinations are also different.

To be a real foodie, this means to be highly educated, versatile, tolerant of other cultures.

But also to know their features, kosher and halal food.

A true gourmet cannot, does not have the right to be a racist, anti-Semite, xenophobe, otherwise, he loses the right to an objective assessment of his taste.

Here is what Shir Ali, his father said, he said "that only a cultured person can be objective, you still do not understand what it is. But you Shir Ali, you must understand for yourself, never offend people, because their insults later will lie on you with sin. On the Day of Judgment, because of this, you may be on fire! "

This frightened the little boy so much that he remembered the rule throughout his life - live yourself and let another life. Make life easier for people, do not create obstacles for them. Take branches off the road, help people carry the load, show mercy. Do good deeds and you will have less problems.

Shir Ali also learned to recognize other types of tastes - burning, tart, greasy, and, as in India, the taste of metal, in particular, with a thin plate of silver, which is sometimes given in top-class hotels in Uttar Pradesh.

But he did not go to India. The chef himself sometimes beat silver to thin foil and crumbled dishes with them. He claimed that in India this foil is eaten and it is good for health. By setting an example on yourself!

The chef said that the most dangerous thing for a cook, and even more so for a gourmet, is a loss of taste, a complete lack of a culinary taste in one person or another, or a temporary loss or distortion of taste in a cook or confectioner.

Shir Ali was taught to understand subtle tastes, instilled a passion for reading books, but not fiction, but about the history of cooking. Saying that this might come in handy in the future.

He was treated like a young genius. Therefore, instead of running around with peers in the street and playing in the sandbox. Shir Ali read books.

He learned to appreciate good taste, think about it, relish food. He did not live in order to eat but ate to live well.

His reference books were Amir Davalat Amasiyatsi "A Handbook for the Study of Herbs and Minerals for Treatment", Avicena "Treatise of Medicine", "Complete Encyclopedia of Medicinal Plants, Tibetan Medicine and much more.

But as they say, all good tends to end.

While Shir Ali was studying cooking, disastrous events occurred in the world. Volcanic eruptions, devastating earthquakes, nuclear explosions, pandemic plague, and anthrax.

The fall of the socialist camp, the lost cold war. The factional struggle within the party. The faction of warriors won, the party of business executives lost.

Some wanted to move away from communism and become new capitalists, while others held on to the idea of ​​modernizing socialism and preserving communism.

The losers were exiled to the desert, little inhabited areas.

Colonel Mir Ali, father Shir Ali was demoted to sergeant and, together with his wife and two children, was sent to a settlement in the desert of the Red Fire Dragon. So that he stopped the onset of sand there and won new hectares of irrigated land from the desert.

He was sent to a settlement with the sonorous name of "a village of terrible poverty, as you hear the name - run without looking back.

A young family, came from the capital of the empire, in the wilderness. Living conditions of life varied like heaven and earth.

A lot of losers are suffering.