In the autumn of 2009, a grandmother in the village of Mun, in the Ghund valley of the Tajik Pamir Mountains, approached two young researchers and asked them to write down her old recipes. "I want to share them with my children and grandchildren while I still remember what I know," she said.

Surrounded by her family and neighbours, the conversations about the recipes became a passage into the timeworn traditions of the Pamir Mountains and the rapid changes they now face. Over the following ye...