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July 29, 2013

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Delicacies of Silk Road make for tasty comeback

Source: Xinhua | July 29, 2013, Monday | Print Edition

Exotic delicacies like Persian bread, Indian desserts and Arabic naan, among other foods, abounded on the Silk Road, as evidenced by the frescoes in the Mogao Caves at Dunhuang, Gansu Province.

 

Grottoes along the ancient Silk Road are home to roughly 70,000 square meters of frescoes. These murals and about 50,000 ancient books that have been unearthed in the same areas offer vivid accounts of what adventurers ate on the grand trade route that linked Xi’an with Rome from about 110 BC to the late 1400s.

 

“Many paintings portray people eating doner kebabs, now a popular food around the world,” said Gao Qi’an of Lanzhou University of Finance and Economics.

 

Researchers also found some of the cookware used to make these dishes are the same as the pans and griddles still used by people living in Gansu’s rural Hexi Corridor.

 

Zhao Chang’an, deputy chairman of the Gansu Institute of Dunhuang Studies, is breathing new life into these ancient delicacies.

 

Dunhuang was a trading hub on the ancient Silk Road. Given its close proximity to Central Asia, dozens of nationalities intermingled - and where people mix, so do cuisines.

 

Zhao owns a restaurant featuring more than 400 dishes reminiscent of the foods from the Silk Road. Tourists can have a taste of the Silk Road for about 100 yuan (US$16.30).

 

“It’s not just the food. How people eat also matters,” Zhao said. “The dignitaries cared a lot about etiquette. They even asked waiters and waitresses to serve food a specific way.”

 

 

 

 

 

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