It’s fascinating to see how farmers in Afghanistan keep summer fruits fresh for other seasons. The method which they use for keeping the grapes fresh for winter is called Gangina.

Gangina is made of two layers of wet soil, then putting it to sun to be dried.

When it is completely dried, they will put inside of it the interested fruits, most of the people prefer to put grapes inside of it, at the end they will close the hole completely to ban the entrance of any air or gasses.

They will keep this Gangina in a cold area or a place so that there is no direct sun light. Some people will put it under ground.

The farmers in northern Afghanistan use this method to keep the grapes fresh—some of which do very well in the market with it. In winter or spring when the market is facing the shortage of fruits, they will supply the kept fruits to the market to help provide for their family.

“First we mix the soil and straw then wetting to make the desired format of Gangina to be fixed for keeping the grapes. It has a good result to keep the fruit fresher for any seasons.”, said Abdul Malik, a resident of Kalakan district of Kabul Province.

He continued, “Those who have grape vines, pick the grapes in autumn and putting in Gangina to keep it for other seasons. We are keeping two types of grapes in Gangina: Raisin and Taipei grapes because these grapes have more resistance than others. We should remove the broken grapes first, then put them in Gangina. If we put the broken ones in Gangina, it will spoil all other grapes.”

According to Abdul Manan, if Ganagina is put in a warm place or air enters inside the container, all the grapes will be completely spoiled.

Although the northern farmers do very well from making Gangina, it is a type of northern Afghan culture which has a long history in the country and hopefully it will last for centuries to come!

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