As a member of the tongue Group I have been quite pumped. Initially our group was centered around cultural interactions as well as the rise and fall of civilization, a fascinating topic but quite open ended. As our group progressed we all shared our interests with the rest of the group. We all had different specific interests but it seemed that we all shared a common interest in food. This is how we discerned our topic from the other options. Within the topic of food is many project options. As a group we decided that focusing on the culture of sitting down for a meal would be the best course of action. The way in which we came to this conclusion was through having a conversation on our passions and what got us excited within the realm of the Silk Road. I hope that as a group we are able to pick a meal that comprehensively shows the culture of the people from Kashgar and explains some of their customs. One of the things I am most looking forward to is discovering the journey of Islam onto this area of the world and what sort of food customs might follow. Some foreseen obstacles are lack of historical cookbooks, culinary sources that tie present food to historical food, and an overall familiarity with this region of China and all the accolades that come with that. Our current research methods are that we are all researching an individual aspect of Uyghur cuisine and that eventually our research will culminate on tieing all our information together.My personal thoughts are that this is a wonderful idea for a group project, the real work will be finding a dish that represents such a vast culinary horrizion. To the west we have “middle eastern” food; some typical dishes would be lamb kebabs, rice biryani, samosas, Naan and other dishes of the sort. To the east there is noodles, stir frys, dumplings and many more culinary dreams. With all of these culinary options I feel slightly dazed and confused about how to make sense of this. Which foods should my group represent? What dishes are more Uyghur? How do we know? These are all questions that I am asking at this early stage of group work.
As a team we were initially recommended to check out the maritime trade routes and the role of spices,while this is an interesting topic the group was not sold on the idea. We went around in a circle and then started talking about our interests. Chris started us off by speaking on his interest in the rise and fall of civilization, particularly their collapse. I then spoke on my passion for all things food related. This note definitely struck up some similar feelings in Billie who then shared with the group her passions. Billie seemed primarily interested in the culinary interactions between cultures and how they took place, from a merchant traveling or perhaps through a translator? This area of inquiry has yet to go answered by the group. Lastly, Delaney spoke on her interests too. She spoke on social stratification and in what form did it exist in the cultures we will be studying.
After the class period had ended we all decided to meet in the library to have a quick meeting and help define our area of study. So Chris, Billie, Delaney, and I all met in the library. Upon arrival we all warmly welcomed each other and began to spitball ideas. Relatively quickly we settled on the concept of a meal. The reason why we chose this concept is because of all the facets of a meal. With the dishes that are made, there is a style of presentation, typically there are food cultures and customs as well as typical setting for certain foods and this comprehensive view of a meal excites us. After narrowing down our topic to a meal we discussed what region and culture and time period we would like to explore. Although we all had interest in the past we decided to start with the present due to the need for sources. We also figured that tracking back in time would be lots easier that trying to track forward in time. Next we chose Kashgar as our point of interest, this was due to Kashgar having a central location on the silk road as well as its regional significance as the capital of the Uyghur state in China, Xinjiang. The culture of the Uyghur people will also be a fascinating part of our group research. I say this due to the little amount of preliminary knowledge I have on the Uyghur people. I know that they are of Muslim faith and of Turkic ethnicity. Both of these tidbits on the Uyghur culture provide valuable insight into how they stand out culturally in China . Being either or Turkic and Muslim in China makes you a minority but both is a double whammy! This sort of distance from the Han make for an interesting dynamic that I am excited to learn about.
Some things I look forward to the most in this project are research on earthen ovens and honey drinks! Both of which pertained to the main topic of a meal in Kashgar, yet both have their own place in history as well as my heart. First the earthen oven; equivocal to a tandoori oven in India; the earthen ovens of Kashgar serve the same role. As a household’s main source of culinary heat and helps develop the Char taste equated with certain dishes know to be prepared in these ovens. Not only does there use and role in the kitchen fascinate me; but the actually logistics of how these ovens are built also calls to me. Hopefully our group will be able to build one in conjunction with the rest of our project. In conclusion the Tongue Group is looking good! We are very excited at this stage of the class and hope to build off this momentum and bring together something really special.