Cumin, Camels, and Caravans

  In retrospect, it proved an imprudent act for the thousands of Muslim mercenaries and merchants, given that they were surrounded by millions of Han Chinese and isolated from their own kith and kin by thousands of miles. The Chinese military acted swiftly, and by 1362, it had already weakened Muslim control of its ports. Then, in 1365, the Yuan General You-ding confronted the sipahi militia in a battle at Xinghua and massacred thousands of Muslim mercenaries.14 When he arrived in Zayton, he wantonly slaughtered every single Muslim, Christian, or Jewish resident who had not immediately fled by sea or taken refuge in the hinterlands. The survivors tried to keep their identities hidden. By 1366, the Han Chinese had fully regained every one of its harbors for the Great Yuan Empire, and had dissolved the independent Muslim state, putting any remaining semu ren into more subservient positions.

  The episode brought to a close the era of “free trade” in the Far East, along with any further colonization by Middle Eastern merchants. Remarkably, however, the Muslims and Christians who gradually trickled back toward Zayton were not arrested or deported, though many eventually resettled in the nearby township of Chendai. Instead, the Yuan emperor’s bureaucrats worked to rehabilitate them, encouraging them to moderate and vary their roles in Chinese society if they were resolved to stay in the region. To avoid any further monopoly on trade by Muslim merchants, many of the Arabs and Persians were encouraged to become fishermen and cultivators of clams, professions that their descendants maintain to this day. Others became farmers and processors of Fujian’s famous teas.

  Of course, there were economic benefits as well as disadvantages to the Muslims rejoining forces with the Han Chinese. Both sides felt compelled to collaborate, since the international commerce that had long fueled the economy of Fujian had come to a complete standstill. And so, because foreign merchants were no longer arriving with goods to trade, some of Zayton’s Muslims were invited by the Chinese to assist in regaining control of their part of the transcontinental spice trade.

  Historical linguist and geographer Jesse Watson, my wife, Laurie, and I had heard much about the Quanzhou Maritime Museum, but when we arrive there, it seems as though something has gone awry, for parts of it are in disarray. I notice that curators are disassembling what must have been a rather large exhibit—large enough to have taken up an entire wing on the ground floor of the museum.

  There, half in boxes and half on the floor, with interpretative signs stacked on a table nearby, are the objects and oral histories of ethnic Quanzhou residents once assembled by local folklorists. Much of what we see appears to be an inventory of stone markers found in the oldest quarters of Quanzhou. Back when the city was called Zayton, stone carvers living nearby used scripts and symbols to inscribe the words from a variety of cultures residing close to the harbor. Most, if not all, of the stones were unearthed when the last buildings of ancient Zayton were condemned to make room for the skyscrapers and shopping malls of modern Quanzhou.

  There are gravestones and residence markers from the thresholds of entryways to houses built six to ten centuries before our own arrival. Some have inscriptions in Arabic, some in Farsi, and others in a mix of archaic Chinese scripts and Arabic. Some have no writing at all, just a Star of David or an iconic plant, much like the house carvings I had seen in Essaouira, Morocco.

  Collectively, these stones are somehow touching, sitting there naked, the exhibit broken down for who knows how long. But before we are able to explore and reflect on the entire range of markers once assembled there, a security guard whisks us out of the room, explaining that it is formally closed to public viewing. Then, he adds, a few of the elements missing from this collection have recently been installed in a new Islamic culture museum next door. Jesse, Laurie, and I decide to depart from the dimly lit backwaters of the maritime museum and hurry over to see if the Islamic museum is open.

  The Ding Hui Muslims of Fujian Province have used four galleries in a large building complex to document their history, from their involvement in the maritime spice trade six hundred years ago to their survival throughout Fujian Province today. The photos, drawings, objects, and oral histories tell of their work not only as multigenerational spice traders but also as bakers, clam cultivators, farmers, and fishers. Although the collection does not ignore the legacy of famous Muslim seafarers and caravanners, it focuses more fully on the history of ordinary individuals.

  As I walk through the exhibits, from photo to photo and sign to sign, I notice that the locals did not outwardly refer to themselves as members of the ethnic Hui until relatively recently. Most of them appear to have adhered to the teachings of the Hanafi school of Sunni Islam, just as the Abbasids did. They knew that some of their relatives had originally come to China overland via the various Silk Roads, but they were not sure when or why. Others knew that their ancestors had been engaged in maritime trade with today’s Vietnam or India, and that many had steadfastly held to Islam even when China’s emperors had suppressed it. Following the Ispah Rebellion, many of these Muslims moved out of Quanzhou to avoid further persecution from the Han, so that the Chendai township has become the hub for people now known as the Ding.15

  The photos and oral histories of this multiethnic minority strike me as both endearing and priceless, if only because they are seldom integrated into any “official” history of Fujian. The stories are less about heroes, statesmen, and military giants and more about blue- and white-collar workers going about their daily business and prayers.

  One particular black-and-white photo from early in the twentieth century intrigues me. It straightforwardly shows thirty-five Ding Hui spice traders together at the Chendai mosque, coming out of prayer, gathered together as friends, coworkers, and relatives. There is a cohesiveness to the group, a sense that its members have strong affinities with one another, if not outright love and respect. These are not random individuals idly passing through the mosque on a particular day. This is community.

  Now, at least, these Arab and Persian merchants are no longer abstractions to me. Their traditional profession in the spice trade had persisted for centuries, unbroken. It reminds me of similar photos I had seen in Fez and Jerusalem that recorded a century of shopkeepers tending their spices. I have even met families of spice traders who have continued working in the same souk for upward of four hundred years.

  I am astounded and pleased that the culture museum’s exhibits also feature one Ding Hui family whose members I had contacted at their offices in nearby Chendai. They are descendants of Pu Shugeng, the spice trader turned minister of foreign trade in the Southern Song dynasty. Many of them now live in a small fishing village nearby. Like a number of their Ding Hui neighbors, they have cultivated razor clams, worked in small factories where bags or sandals are woven, or grown poppies for harvesting opium. And yet, no less than six centuries after the Pu clan first became engaged in the spice trade, some of its members still work in herb, spice, and medicinal plant commerce and remain known for their strong trade relations, particularly with the Vietnamese. I am pleased to learn that today the Pu clan is regarded as one of the eight most prominent Muslim clans involved in plant trade in Fujian Province, along with the Hjin, Chen, Li, Huang, Yang, Wu, and Zhang clans. It reminds me of encountering a Banu Nebhani descendant still selling frankincense in an Omani souk. Some family traditions die hard, or not at all.

  As I leave these exhibits behind, I realize how impressed I am that the Pu clan of Ding Hui has resided in one region for so long, even though nowadays not all of its members are carrying on the family’s ancient trading profession. To stay in one place for at least six centuries swims against the tide of restlessness and wanderlust endemic to many Arab, Persian, and Jewish family histories. The yearning to see Mecca, Baghdad, or Jerusalem may still crop up in family lore, but how many descendants of these peoples of diaspora have moved back to the motherland when given a chance? Culture is something that they have carried with them like a peddler’s croaker sack or an old leather suitcase. It lifts up and leaves th
eir places of origin as easily as a corn is removed from a sore toe . . . after treating it with an herbal salve.

  • • •

  • STAR ANISE •

  Although star anise (Illicium verum) contains the same sweetly warm, aromatic oils that true anise does, just about everything else about this eastern Asian spice could not be more distinctive from its western Asian analog. Its mahogany-colored pods, shaped like eight-pointed stars, are harvested from an evergreen tree before they reach full maturity. The essential oils that carry the flavors of anise, citrus, clove, pepper, and cassia for which star anise is known are found in the dried pulp of the pods’ pericarp rather than in the seeds.

  Native to southwestern China and northeast Vietnam, though no longer found there in a truly wild state, this tree is now cultivated throughout southern China, Laos, Cambodia, India, the Philippines, and as far from its natal grounds as Jamaica. The only populations outside of human management today are feral remnants of abandoned orchards. Some sources suggest that the cultivation of star anise in southern China dates back at least three millennia.

  Throughout its range of cultivation in Asia, star anise is a key ingredient in making some of the world’s most distinctive spice composites. In China, it is typically blended with ginger, cassia cinnamon, Sichuan pepper, cloves, and either fennel or licorice to make five-spice powder, or wuxiangfen, an aromatic blend characteristically used in marinades for rich meat dishes such as Peking duck. Star anise also finds its way into garam masala, the Persian-influenced seasoning used in the Mogul cuisines of northern India in sauces or marinades for meat and poultry. For this blend, it is usually combined with true cinnamon, fennel, cardamom, cloves, coriander, pepper, nutmeg, and bay. In southern Thailand, star anise adds a pleasant sweetness to iced tea.

  Its name in both Mandarin (bajiao) and Cantonese (baat gok) refers to its eight-cornered star shape, but other, more descriptive terms in various Chinese dialects liken its flavor to that of fennel. Not surprisingly, as star anise was carried westward, most cultures created syllogisms that compared it to anise. But the term for this heady spice that is echoed most widely in other languages is badijian, its Farsi name: badyani in Urdu, badijan in Macedonian, badián in Spanish, badyan in Russian, badjans in Latvian, badiane in French, badian in German, and even badian anise in English. The similarity of these terms likely reflects the key roles that Farsi-speaking Sogdians and Persians played in moving Chinese spices along the Silk Road to their ultimate consumption and delight in Europe and elsewhere.

  Green, Aliza. Field Guide to Herbs and Spices. Philadelphia: Quirk Books, 2006.

  Katzer, Gernot. “Gernot Katzer’s Spice Pages.” http://gernot-katzers-spicepages.com/engl/index.html. Accessed May 8, 2013.

  ZALĀBIYA • SHAQIMA • BUÑUELOS

  Deep-Fried Cardamom-Spiced Fritters Soaked in Saffron Syrup

  One of the delights that the Han Chinese did not have in their repertoire until the Persians and Arabs arrived was fried pastries soaked in sweet sauces. The Chinese derivative of Persian fritters may be shaqima, the sweet fried pastry commonly served in Fujian and Guangdong Provinces. The pastry also traveled in the other direction, from Persia to al-Andalus, where a dough was formed into spheres or spirals, fried until golden, and then soaked in a saffron-infused syrup. It was known among the ancient Persians as zoolbiya, and the earliest written reference to it comes from a favorite cookbook of Persians and Turks, written by Muhammad bin Hasan al-Baghdadi during the Abbasid dynasty. It is known today as ziebia in Iran; zalābiya in Syria, Lebanon, and Egypt; and zlabia or zlebia in the Maghreb. Mogul traders apparently carried it to the Indian subcontinent, where it was first called zoolbier, which later transformed phonetically into jalebi.

  As the pastry traveled westward, it became lokma among the Western Turks and loukoumades among the Greeks. Algerians apocryphally claim that their term for it, zalabia, is derived from the Berber version of Ziryab’s name. In Morocco, zalābiya or zlebia is a favorite fast-breaking food at the nighttime festivals of Ramadan. In Spain and beyond, Sephardic Jews have called it by a set of related names: bumuelo, binuelo, bermuelo, and bulema. Once crypto-Jews and crypto-Muslims moved on to the Americas, their recipes lost a connection to saffron, but these same sweets have become known as buñuelos in Mexico and the U.S. Southwest. It is likely that crypto-Jews brought them to the area around Santa Fe, New Mexico, three centuries ago, where they remain exceedingly popular.

  It appears that as this dessert strayed farther from its homeland, it also lost its signature flavor in the dough (cardamom) and its use of lime or sour orange juice and rose water in the syrup. However, New Mexican–style buñuelos often include aniseeds, cinnamon, and even raisins in the syrup. In the East today, the pastry often comes in fantastic shapes (spirals and pretzels). In much of the West, it is served like doughnut holes the size of Ping-Pong balls. Regardless of the shape, the texture of the deep-fried dough lies somewhere between chewy and crispy, with a crystallized, somewhat crunchy sugar coating surrounding it. Makes 12 fritters.

  For the Pastry

  1½ teaspoons active dry yeast

  ¾ cup warm water (about 110°F)

  1½ cups pastry flour, sifted

  1 teaspoon sugar

  Seeds from 2 green cardamom pods, crushed

  Pinch of salt

  Safflower oil or rice oil for deep-frying

  For the Saffron Syrup

  1½ cups loosely packed brown sugar

  Pinch of saffron threads, dissolved in 1 cup water

  Grated zest and juice of 1 lime, 1 tablespoon sour orange juice, or 1 tablespoon rose water

  To make the pastry, in a bowl, sprinkle the yeast over the warm water, stir gently, and let stand until foamy, about 5 minutes. Add the flour, sugar, cardamom, and salt and mix together until a smooth, wet dough forms.

  Cover the bowl, set it in a warm spot, and let the dough rise until it has doubled in size, 1 to 2 hours.

  Just before the dough is ready, make the syrup. In a nonstick saucepan, combine the brown sugar, saffron water, and lime juice. Place over medium heat and stir until the sugar dissolves. Bring to a boil, without stirring, then turn down the heat to medium-low and simmer gently until the syrup thickens slightly, 8 to 10 minutes. Remove from the heat, add the lime zest, and pour into a heatproof bowl. Cover to keep warm.

  When the dough is ready, pour the oil into a deep, heavy saucepan or a deep fryer to a depth of about 3 inches and heat to 375°F, or until a drop or two of water flicked into the hot oil sizzles on contact. Have ready a bowl of water.

  When the oil is hot, dampen your hands with the water, pick up a walnut-sized piece of dough with one hand, shape the dough into a ball between your palms, and carefully drop it into the oil. Shape more balls the same way and add them to the oil, being careful not to crowd them in the pan. Alternatively, scoop up the dough with a spoon and drop it into the oil. Dip the spoon into the oil before taking the next scoop to keep the dough from sticking. Fry the balls, turning them as needed to color evenly, until golden and crisp, 3 to 5 minutes. Using a slotted spoon, transfer the pastries to paper towels to drain. Repeat until you have fried all of the pastries.

  If needed, rewarm the syrup. Arrange the warm pastries on a platter with the syrup alongside. Invite guests to dunk each fritter into the syrup before eating.

  Butel, Jane. Jane Butel’s Southwestern Kitchen. New York: HP Books, 1994, p. 28.

  Shaida, Margaret. The Legendary Cuisine of Persia. New York: Interlink Books, 2002, p. 264.

  Twena, Pamela Grau. The Sephardic Table. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1998, pp. 242–43.

  CHAPTER 10

  Navigating the Maritime Silk Roads from China to Africa

  The Arab, Persian, Sogdian, and Chinese use of the Silk Roads for spice trade was closed down for much of the last quarter of the fourteenth century, largely because of the growing power of the Turkic conqueror variously known as Timur, Timur-e Lang, Tarmashirin Khan, or in the Western world, Tamerlane.
His multiregional dominance, like that of Kublai Khan and Genghis Khan in the centuries before him, had pervasively disrupted overland trade routes between the West and the East. Based in Samarkand, Tamerlane was particularly vengeful in his relations with the Han Chinese, for they had overthrown his Yuan cousins in 1368. By conquering modern-day Armenia, Georgia, Azerbaijan, and Iraq by the close of the fourteenth century, he had effectively terminated the landward flow of goods from China into the Near East and northern Europe. Consummate middlemen such as the Turks and Armenians were particularly affected. This shift resulted in the stimulation of maritime trade from Arabia and India through Southeast Asia and on to the Chinese ports along the South China Sea. It also encouraged Muslim traders other than Arabs and Persians to attempt the control of routes from Bengal and the Malabar Coast on into Southeast Asia. There, the Muslims from the Indian subcontinent had success in converting the dominant powers in various seaports to the ways of Islam, not just spiritual ways but economic ways as well.

  At the same time, piracy proliferated in these regions, with maritime marauders hijacking shiploads of sandalwood, Sichuan and black pepper, nutmeg, and mace, and then reselling their booty for outrageous prices. By the time Tamerlane launched a massive campaign from Central Asia against the Chinese in 1404, the Han Chinese rulers painfully realized that they needed to secure control of Southeast Asia’s sea routes in case their former overland trade routes remained out of their control indefinitely.