Akhond Ishaq tells what and how they cook in the world's most heroic restaurant situated at 5,000 meters in the Himalayas: a survival organization that provides climbers the pleasure of heat.
The story
There are extreme and heroic cuisines in the world. But none, perhaps, is as extreme and heroic as the one Akhond Ishaq served for years to mountaineers in the Himalayas. Recounting the adventurous story of this 36-year-old Pakistani is Julian Mendez on Siete Canibales: he narrates that as a child, he sold apples to the military, then at the age of 13, he worked in Lahore as a dishwasher for the pay of 6 euros a month. Crucial experience to gain access as a climbing escort and cook in camps 5,000 meters above sea level.
"I started cooking for mountaineers in 2000. I had some experience because I had worked in a Chinese restaurant. I left as a helper on a Korean expedition, making corn soup, almond chicken, basmati rice, peas, and cream for dessert. They enjoyed it. Then the Poles came... It was so hard because we were the first to arrive and the last to leave. And up there you don't taste anything, the potatoes are stones. A hot meal is the only pleasure you can give a climber, something to warm his stomach and make him sleep. I was the first to make a potato tortilla and pizza in the Himalayas."
Nothing particularly glamorous. But rather an exercise in survival. Each time it involved bringing up the essentials to sustain 25 people over 3 months: 200 kilos of flour, as much rice, two yaks, four goats, 85 kilos of chicken, and 2,000 liters of kerosene (gas becomes liquid). But anything at that altitude freezes immediately, so much so that each egg, before being cooked, had to be left to cool next to the flame. And one certainly could not risk food poisoning, despite the hygienic difficulties.
In just one camp – to be precise, Gasherbrum I – everything changed in 2011. Basque mountaineer Alex Txikon, the first ever to climb Nanga Parbat in winter, had climbed with five other companions, but three went missing, and he hoped to find them, despite being half-frozen. An undertaking in which, for ten very long days, he could count on the support and warmth, including physical warmth, of Akhond, who slept with him in his sleeping bag while outside the thermometer read minus thirty degrees.
© Phunjo Lama-Afp-Getty Images
At that moment, face to face with death, gripped by supreme values, they bonded forever. "We talked a lot about our lives, about what we wanted to do," Akhond recalls. Until one day, the sky opened, and a helicopter appeared. The Basque, however, refused to leave on his own until a vehicle arrived for him. "When I went up, I was crying with happiness and life. Alex took my hand and said, 'I'm taking you to my home.' When we arrived in Skardu, he made me shower, took me to the barber, gave me a pair of shoes, and we ate together at the hotel. He told me he would prepare the documents for me. I couldn't believe it, me being born in a cow's ass..."
Since then, Akhond – Txikon's 14th “son” – has put down roots in Biscay. After training in the meat station at Beñat Ormaetxea's Jauregibarria restaurant and a degree in the Basque language, he runs the bar/restaurant at Igorre's Batzoki, gives Asian cooking classes and does theater. But he still waits for his wife and children to join him in his new home.
Source: Siete Canibales
Find the article here
Photo: credits Akhond Ishaq
