This book was originally meant to be part of my ‘travel/history/food’ month of reading, and though I got a bit far behind in my reading, I still really wanted to finish it.
This book encompasses all three of those subjects – travel, history, food – with a bonus bit of socio-cultural anthropology thrown in. Taking us on a journey from Eastern China to Rome, Jenny, following in the footsteps of Marco Polo, introduces us to tasty dishes and warm characters across the Eurasian continent.
“A culinary Mason-Dixon Line runs across China; north of it, abundant wheat fields feed the population. The wheat-rice line also creates different flavors in the cuisines. Shanxi vinegar, made of wheat, has a unique sweet-sour balance quite different from the lighter southern vinegars, which are usually made of rice.”
While rice is often synonymous with China, we learn in the first chapter that rice is only a staple in the southern half of China, where as the northern parts rely much more on bread and noodles.
“It turned out that the secret to good honey was also the key to many distinctive dishes across the Silk Road: the more cross-pollination, the better.”
The culinary history lesson continues as we follow Jenny (sometimes accompanied by her husband, Craig) through the silk (and noodle) road. But while this book and it’s title lead you to believe that it is simply about food and history and facts, there is actually a deep underlying cultural study – of women. In every place and home she visits, our heroine asks the ladies of the house how they feel about their rights in their country and about being wives and mothers. It is definitely interesting to read if you are a young woman of a certain age, or someone who is curious how women in certain countries really feel, not what is shown to you on the nightly news.
“It occurred to me that the idea of the West was as much of a construct as the concept of the Silk Road, and it was only a lingering Orientalism that kept our ideas of Asia and Europe so divided in our heads.”
She teaches us that cooking is a metaphor for life.
Cooking provided a pathway for living: you started out “raw” and ended up “ripe” or “well-cooked.”
But also, what is really important in life, for people all over. She hits on what seems to be almost a Universal Truth, a Meaning of Life, even. And all of this because of some noodles…
I was reminded of what I’d learned across the Silk Road. I’d gone through a string of places where hospitality was more important than making money. Where people made good, honest food without having to market it or spin it into something bigger. Where people had invited me into their homes so warmly and treated me to so much without asking for anything in return. Where you could sit down for a two-hour lunch in the middle of a workday and feel good about it. That was what the trip was about—the importance of friends and family, of slowing down enough to enjoy life. Searching for the origin of noodles had allowed me to come to those realizations.
The Alternative Graduate 