In 2000, a Japanese tourist walked into Syed Israr Hussain’s guest house in Minapin, Pakistan. While most visitors come to the village, nestled in the Nagar Valley below Rakaposhi mountain in the Karakoram range, to hike or summit the peak, this tourist had a different agenda. The tourist asked—no, “he demanded,” remembers Hussain—to be served a very specific meal. He had fond memories of a delicious chicken stew he had eaten when he visited the village 30 years earlier. The stew, he noted, had been cooked to perfection in a…
