All posts filed under: Food

The Uyghur Migrant Food Network

Published by Darren Byler

When young people come to Ürümchi to work or study they are often supported by a whole network of people from their home village. They rely on relatives and friends to help them find jobs and help them get on their feet. But there are some things that their hosts in the city cannot provide: they can’t give their young visitors food from their home village. It is perhaps for this reason that young Uyghurs have developed a food shipping system that brings the tastes of the countryside into the city. This food arrives in boxes shipped in the cargo hold of sleeper buses from southern Xinjiang. What first began as a side-business for a store called Lukman at the South Ürümchi Bus Station has become a full-fledged shipping network across the oases of the South. Lukman handles thousands of boxes of nuts, raisins, pomegranates, cooked meat and special kinds of naan sent from the kitchens of concerned mothers to their sons and daughters across the desert. The boxes are marked with the name of …

Eating Sheep and Sangza

Published by Darren Byler

On the last day of the four day celebration of the biggest Uyghur holiday of the year Qurban Heyt, or Eid al-Adha, it rained hard and cold. By the next morning a light dusting of snow covered the tops of the mountains overlooking the city. Like many holidays of sacrifice and harvest, it signals the end of the season of growth and the beginning of the long hard winter. In a week the heat will be turned on across the city. People are already beginning to sell long-underwear in the walkway at the intersection of Solidarity and Victory Roads next to the Grand Bazaar. Rumors began circulating that the city officials would turn on the central heating system in five days. Rather than waiting until October fifteenth, they would get the creaking radiators filled early. But during the past week no one seemed to think about the onset of winter. Everyone was bustling. Men were buying sheep or keeping an eye out for knife sharpeners as they circulated from housing complex to housing complex. By …

Qurban and the Social Effects of Uyghur Food

Published by Darren Byler

  The first indication that the Qurban festival has arrived in Northwest China is the pooling of sheep outside every block of Uyghur tenements in the cities of Xinjiang. Quivering clumps of fat-tailed sheep are tied to branches as men begin sharpening knives for ritual slaughter. After the throat is cut, a small opening is made in a leg and air is blown from mouth to shank. The sheep is then hung from the nearest available beam or branch and skinned. Under ideal circumstances, every part will be used. If you can’t afford a whole sheep yourself, or you can’t be bothered with butchering it yourself, makeshift slaughterhouses at the entrance to public parks will sell you a bulging sack full of mutton to take home and roast (or at times in the Uyghur case – boil) like an American with a Butterball turkey on Thanksgiving. This year Qurban Heyt or Eid al-Adha, the Islamic holiday which commemorates Ibrahim’s willingness to sacrifice his son through the sacrifice of a ram, coincides with the annual turning on of …