Storytelling through Food : Uyghurs

I wanted to tell stories through cuisine because those stories could be understood by everyone since they resonate with the very part of us that makes us feel human and connected with others: the desire to eat.

Surprising as it may seem, everyone wants to eat food. Can you think of a person who doesn't want to? You probably could, but tell them to eat soon.

Nevermind.

I could think of no other better story to tell than the story of Uyghurs to illustrate my point. Hopefully, this story is a good start for many other stories to come............or not.

So who are Uyghurs?

Image credit : futureatlas.com

PANONIAN, CC0, via Wikimedia C

They are a Turkic ethnic group located in the east part of Turkistan. They live in a region known as "Xinjiang Uyghur autonomous region". Their neighboring countries include China, Tibet, India, Mongolia, etc. They are influenced by Chinese, Arabic, Turkish, and Indian cuisines primarily. It's because this region was the center point of the ancient silk road, which was a network of trade routes active since the mid-15th century.

East Turkestan (what Uyghurs call their region) has over 5000 years of history, and some of the histories I am going to share today are stuffed inside some of the dishes which are part of traditional Uyghur cuisine. Uyghur food has resemblances with Turkish as well as Chinese cuisines. Their cuisine consists of dishes that are noodles, stir-fries, kebabs, and also flatbreads which are baked inside clay ovens. From an outside perspective, it might look like it's fusion food, but it is not. These influences from different cuisines have been incorporated into their culture for thousands of years.

So I wanted to highlight some dishes that I found while I was searching for Uyghur cuisine.

Starting with the first one :

Image via Flickr by Alpha

Big Plate Chicken: This was the first dish that caught my attention and opened me up to Uyghur food. The Big Plate chicken or Dapanji consists of chicken, potatoes, and vegetables in a spicy and aromatic soup that is served on a bed of thin flat noodles.

Mizu basyo at Japanese Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Laghman: This is considered to be a very traditional Uyghur dish, which is hand-pulled noodles stir-fried with meat, vegetables, and spices. This is a dish that I have seen commonly in different Uyghur restaurants.

Image Credit: Photo by Shameel mukkath

Polo: Polo is a rice dish consisting of braised lamb and carrots. The rice is cooked with stock made from carrots and lamb. It is then topped with raisins.

Image via Flickr by Alpha

Kawap: Kawap is kebabs or lamb skewers. These are actually not unique to Uyghur cuisine but are commonly eaten there. Uyghur region is probably the origin point for the reach of kebabs in places like Beijing, Shanghai, etc. in China.

Mizu basyo, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Manta: Manta is a stuffed dumpling that is bigger in size compared to normal ones. It is stuffed with beef, onions, and spices. Kawa manta is a dumpling stuffed with pumpkin or butternut squash and lamb.

These are some of the dishes that I have seen across Uyghur restaurants around the world. The restaurants serving these dishes have one thing in common.........their stories and specifically their stories of oppression.

A story always exists everywhere, but it's the way that it's told that grabs the attention of the audience. My attention was captured by the dish "Big plate chicken" made by the restaurant "Dolan's Uyghur Cuisine" in Los Angeles. The restaurant has its employees wear a t-shirt that says "Google Uyghurs", and when you do that, the first search result tells you what you need to know.

Uyghurs are an oppressed Muslim minority in China. The tensions between Uyghurs and Han Chinese have existed for a long time, but some attacks led by a Turkistan Islamic party in 2004 when China hosted the Olympics, led to the government taking extreme measures to control and suppress the rights of Uyghurs. This includes enforced admission into internment camps, forced labor, sterilization, torture, ill-treatment, indoctrination, invasion of basic rights and privacy, etc.

It's not just "Dolan's Uyghur Cuisine" that I saw that is trying to spread awareness about this. Other restaurants which I have seen online like Silk Road Uyghur Cuisine, Etles Uyghur restaurant, Yana kebab express (now closed), etc. have been spreading their own messages. Some of them have their own parents, siblings, relatives, friends, or family taken into the camps by the government and they have no point of communication with them whatsoever.

People are starting to be more aware of this and the UN has also addressed this issue and called the People's Republic of China to investigate the allegations of human rights violations in XUAR. But these restaurants are all trying to get people to care about this and be aware of it in their own way........by feeding them. Food acts as a gateway to the world of other people. It is one of the ways in this world that makes us feel closer to something which we don't yet understand completely. These restaurants are rallying people to fight and raise their voices against people threatening something which they want to protect.........like the Big Plate Chicken.

A dish that I thought was delicious and looked really tasty led me to learn about an ethnic group that is trying to get help from across the world to fight against their "ill-treatment"(That's a light word to use for this). Me writing about it isn't going to do a lot. But, it is the starting point of something and a step in the right direction. And if you want to do something in your own way, try to learn more about this issue. That's a good place to start, isn't it?

Hopefully, one day I can go to an Uyghur restaurant and eat a "Big Plate Chicken" knowing it's being made by people who aren't fighting for their right to live peacefully.

See you next week.