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The lantern is swinging wildly in the mule-drawn cart as it follows the light in the watch tower and nears the inn next to the bazaar….And what a bazaar it is! A colonnade of the most richly decorated shops, wrapped in velvet and satin, each pillar coated with copper and gilt, gigantic tiered lamps fed by butter, burning like the sun and fairy lamps on the parapet etching their brilliance against the night sky…. There’s everything that you thought only belonged to bahisht, gold, silver, jewels, gems, silk, brocade, carpets, porcelain, spices, even the finest horses. They say they melt gold here continuously in the mint and the king sleeps on a gilded bed of ivory and jasper. The merchants are bedecked in the finest attire as are the Turkmen, their beards waxed and curled. The plebeains retire in tents. The innkeeper refills the samovar, lines up fresh fruits from his orchard, keeps the lentil soup on the boil and stews the meat in its own juices. Meanwhile, the carpets, coats and pillows warm up the weary traveller. And he sleeps with stories, of how the tower was actually the home of a warlord’s daughter. How her father confined her there to protect her from a prophecy that she would die of a spider bite at 16 and how he cried so loudly the day she died after being bitten by a spider hidden in her fruit basket. They say his heart-breaking grief shattered the tower so that it broke into pieces. Tomorrow is another day on the road.
Today, centuries later, we are at the same place, the tower still in a tumble, at Burana, which rests on the remains of the ancient city of Balasagun, one of the largest medieval cities in Kyrgyzstan’s Chui Valley. Along with Kashgar, now in China, Balasagun was one of the capitals of the Turk Khanate and a key town on the ancient Silk Road. This segment of the Chui Valley, situated between the Kyrgyz capital of Bishkek and Lake Issyk-Kul, became one of the main political, economic and military centres in Eurasia. Archaeological excavations revealed towns and monumental constructions, dating from the fifth to the 12th centuries, reflecting the cultural and artistic traditions of many countries and peoples, from Byzantium in the West to India in the South and China in the East. It was believed that Balasagun was quite advanced for its time, with its own sewage and irrigation system and quarters for all religions.
The museum here has shards of memory — in porcelain jars, terracotta vats for storing grains and water, bronzed tools and weapons, oil lamps and hair tweezers — each documenting civilisational extremities. Till it all returns to dust, leaving just the tombstones. Strewn all over the Steppes grasslands and amid remnants of millstones, where travellers ground their wheat to make their own breads, are stone figures of the dead. Be it a warrior who had won many battles with his mighty sword, the man who held a chalice of peace, Mongols, Tartars, Persians and Chinese, Buddhist monks and women, each has left a footprint in the sands of time. But their food continues to keep us alive.
Our local host welcomes us into her yurt and serves kompot (compote), the way it was made in the days of wandering nomads, cold in summer, hot in winter. She had stewed berries, apricots, peaches, apples, rhubarb and plums in a large cauldron of water with raisins and cinnamon. Did an Indian traveller trade the cinnamon here aeons ago? After all Chinese traveller Hiuen Tsang did walk these paths on his way to India.
If the desire for silk led to trade routes and a confluence of cultures in one of the earliest instances of globalisation, it was hunger that drove travellers to equip themselves with culinary skills. As their caravans stopped, travellers shared the food they brought from home and the knowledge of making them. That’s how the Silk Road became the first experiments with global fusion food. And given that people were always on the move, the food prepared had to have a long shelf life.
At Pishhpek restaurant in Bishkek, a transcreated fort-inn, we find the origin of our samosa, triangular pockets of flaky pastry with lamb meat cooked in its own fat with onions. Called samsa, this is interchangeable with cheese, cabbage and pumpkin stuffing, a flexibility which allowed Indian traders to take it back home. It was portable, filled with protein and an energy-giver on long journeys.
But at halts, there was feasting. The meat came from grazing animals in the highlands, sheep or horses, and was boiled in its own broth for hours over charcoal in cast iron cauldrons with cabbage and onions. They say dead sheep, that had been pounded by horses’ hooves during a game of buzkashi, made for the best dish, giving us the world’s first “meal in a pot.”
And though Marco Polo was credited with bringing noodles from China, hand-pulled dough strips were used liberally along the Silk Road. So, you have a multi-cultural noodle soup or lagman, with farm vegetables and potatoes that were brought by Spanish and Portuguese traders and have now become native to these parts. Manty or steamed dumplings carry the aromatic whiffs of spices from Osh Bazaar, the Silk Road market that continues to thrive in Bishkek.
Could boorsok, shallow-fried dough pillows, be the precursor to our crispier namkeens? Served as an anytime snack that can last days, these are piled high across the dastorkan (tablecloth), to be had with honey, dates, jam, raisins or butter. Could the cheese balls have been derived from kurut, the accidental cheese? As nomads carried milk in their camel leather saddle bags, the galloping motion of the horse churned it and separated the milk into curd. Drained, dried and lightly salted, it turned into a solid, portable food! Today it is a roadside savoury, had with fermented mare milk or kumis, a guaranteed probiotic for wanderers in the wilderness. The importance of kumis to Kyrgyz culture is demonstrated by the fact that Bishkek is named after a paddle used to churn the fermenting milk.
Flatbreads or naans are abundant, a legacy of long-haul travellers, who carried them clearly for their satiety and carbohydrates. But the Silk Road had its own balance of “hot” and “cold” foods to avoid stomach aches on arduous journeys. Yogurt and garlic, pomegranates and walnuts, apricots and lamb, peaches and trout. The spice bazaars are still there as are the gold mines (Kyrgyz gold is high-grade). But it is the shared food that has become a cultural icon, a testament to a borderless world that was, and still can be, lived.
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