by Jen Lin-Liu

Published by Riverhead Books, 2013, 400 pages

Food and travel—what’s not to like? This is a book about food across cultures—in this case, pasta in all its forms (I use the term to include noodles, dumplings, etc.). The writer Jen Lin-Liu is a Chinese-American food writer who lives in Beijing and runs a cooking school for foreigners. The book traces her journey as she travels from Beijing to Rome looking at how noodles evolved along the Silk Road.

It all started with a pasta-making class in Rome. Lin-Liu is struck by how similar making pasta is to making noodles. Surely there must be a connection? She is determined to find out and sets off overland from Beijing to Rome, crossing China, Kyrghyzstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Iran and Turkey. Her mission is to document the changes in cuisine as she moves from East to West, and “what links made up the chains connecting two of the world’s greatest cuisines.”

It is a fascinating story because of the people she meets, of course, and because of the food. She cooks with local people—in this part of the world (as in most others)—this means women. As they cook together, they learn about each other’s lives.

She visits Isabel, an elderly single woman in a Tibetan town. In Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, she meets up with Gulzat, a “globe-trotting sociologist” who lives with her family and mother-in-law. In Kyrgyz culture (and not only in Kyrgyz culture!) the mother-in-law is dominant and the daughter-in-law does the housework. In Turkey, she finds women striking out on their own, determined to lead an independent life.  

She finds many similarities in food across the cultures: not just noodles and dumplings, but also a dry bread that must have originated with nomadic tribes, as well as the ubiquitous dish of rice and meat, polo to the Uighurs, plov in Central Asia and pillao in Iran (and what I, as a South Asian, know as pullao). Pasta, often in the form of dumplings, is a constant until Iran where it practically disappears. In Kashgar, Len-Liu learns to make manta—Uighur dumplings. In Turkey, she finds a similar dish—tiny dumplings called manti. Turkish mothers-in-law judged their daughters-in-law by how many manti they can fit on a spoon (40 is the magic number). She comes across an identical tradition in Emilia-Romagna, Italy, except instead of being called manti, the dumplings are called Venus belly-buttons.

This is also a journey of self-discovery. Len-Liu has been married for two years and explores how she can keep her independence and be part of a couple at the same time. Her conversations with the women she meets along the way help her to come to an understanding. 

Which brings me to something I enjoyed about the book: Len-Liu herself. Her voice is clear. Passionate, fiercely independent, warm, and just a little pig-headed. She has an insatiable curiosity and eye for detail, and the countries and food come to life in this book. 

As for the origin of noodles… we still don’t know. 

This review first appeared on Women on the Road.