Exchange of Food as the Pioneer of Globalization

The Mongolian names for dumplings (buuz) and restaurants (guanz) sounds conspicuously like their northern Chinese equivalents 包子 (baozi) and 館子 (guanzi).  Simultaneously the southern Chinese name for the same dumplings 饅頭 (mantou) made to both Korea as mandu and Central Asia as manty.  The favorite pulled noodles of Lanzhou 拉麵 (lamian) found itself to Central Asia as laghman just as it went to Korea as ramyeon and Japan as ramen.

And these are just foods where the names themselves passed on.  If just looking at the foods themselves the commonality of food across a wide swath of the Eurasia continent and beyond is too clear.  Flavored pilaf rice is enjoyed all the way from Xinjiang to the Swahili coast in East Africa.  Grilled meat skewers are staples of street food from the East China Sea to Eastern Mediterranean.  All are washed down with vodka and Chai from Mongolia all the way to Eastern Europe. 

The fact that Central Asia is at the very crossroads of Eurasia continent can best be illustrated by its food.  While pulled noodles and tea traveled through the region west along with the Dungan Chinese, grilled meat traveled east with the Arab traders, its meat filled pies called samsa headed south to India along with the Mughals, evolving into the triangular curry filled samosa.  It also accepted plenty of culinary influences from the North, taking in Russian style salads and Borscht along with copious amounts of vodka.

The result is a kaleidoscope of food seen elsewhere in a region that is not particularly known for spectacular cuisines.  Yet, the variety of its food is a great reflection of the region's history as a center of globalization, where cultural influences from all four directions are not resisted but accepted heartily and customized to fit local tastes.  As the first point of contact among different civilizations, food offers the best physical evidence of interaction among different peoples.

It is food that makes interacting with foreigners all that much palatable.  By sharing in similar foods, there emerges a concrete basis for people with different customs, religions, and languages to start talking to each other.  Those who are capable of bringing in good food to a new region has always been valued for their presence.  In modern context, food has been the greatest physical symbols of migrant influences in multiethnic states like America, Canada, and Australia.

Good food is also a sign of a sophisticated civilization.  There is a reason that people in all cultures welcome guests with provision of the best possible foods available.  Ability to present and partake in delicious foods is taken as high capacity of the hosts as individuals and advanced status of their cultures. Even nomadic cultures, with simple cuisines of meat and dairy, have the concepts of best cuts of meat for the best animals, given to valuable guests during special occasions.

Hence, to mix the best of different civilizations, the mixing of food must come before everything else.  Only  by fusing different cuisines into one that is enjoyed by all without really thinking about where the foods actually come from, can there truly be a unified people that see beyond simple physical markers of different race, religion, and language.  If two people can never bring themselves to eat the same foods, then the two people can never fuse to become one.

That fact is evident in Central Asia.  The Turks, Mongols, Chinese, Russians, and Persians all came together to form new ethnic identities with distinct Eurasia looks, precisely because they came together to eat the same food.  Those who are incapable oof partaking in the multicultural feast due to dietary restrictions, such as the Jews and fundamentalist Muslims, found themselves unable to assimilate.  When modern nation-state are founded, those are sidelines were relegated to a fate of unceremoniously departure.