While this is probably extremely basic and obvious, it has taken me this long in my research to come to the realization that the body is a tool of its own in cooking and that there is a history and culture to the body as a tool.
To make noodles, people in Kashgar as well as many other places in China use a very specific technique of stretching, folding and, basically, slapping to thin dough into noodles. This technique is highly unique and the use of the fingers and hands are so integral and specific to the process and end result. How did this technique come to be? I must know! Hopefully more to come on this front.
To make naan and bagels in Kashgar, bakers have to shape the dough in order to get the right shape. Tools such as rolling pins and a chekish might get used, but no tool can replace the hands for certain steps of this process.
Hands molded the pots used, carved wood into certain kinds of utensils, slap naan onto the walls of ovens, knead dough, roll dough into balls, pick vegetables and fruit, pick up bread to dip into tea or dinner. What else? Are other parts of the body important to different steps of cooking or handling of food? What specialized tasks do fingers have in different cooking scenarios? Are feet ever used for kneading dough, making grapes into wine, etc?
I believe this is really where my epiphany came from: I was so focused on tools, utensils and modes/methods of cooking that got created over time that I completely forgot about the one thing that is present in every kind of cooking everywhere: the human body. I am still focused on tools created for cooking, but now I have a whole new avenue of research to go down! This is getting me super jazzed about research (which might also have to do with the time of day -2am- and amount of coffee consumed) and I can’t wait to go through videos, photos, and texts to study how people in Kashgar use their hands, their arms, their feet, and any other part of their body to cook.