Silk Roads

“Anna Ansari is a rare kind of home cook who is able to get under the skin of any cuisine and turn the simplest of ingredients into pure magic. She’s also one of the best writers I know: she’s witty, intelligent and very refreshing to read.” – Meera Sodha “A real feast – vividly evocative, witty and enlightening. Utterly delicious.” – Felicity Cloake “A superb culinary journey along Silk Roads less travelled.” – Jay Rayner This is the story of the world’s most famous trade routes, retold through recipes. In this rich and delicious cookbook, Iranian-American cook and writer Anna Ansari takes us on a culinary, historical, and personal odyssey across the Silk Roads. Weaving together essays, family photography and 90 recipes, Ansari brings life to the flavours of the Silk Roads – from the walnut groves of her father’s Iranian childhood, across Central Asian markets brimming with fragrant melons and thronged with fat-tailed sheep, and into the neighborhoods of modern-day Chinese cities. Discover delectable dishes from Baku to Beijing – Azeri-Iranian stews served with crispy-bottomed rice, dill-infused noodles from Western Uzbekistan, Georgian cornbread, Uyghur lamb chops and all kinds of dumplings, from fat, spiraled oromo to tiny, stuffed dushbara in a delicate saffron broth. Plus, you’ll find refreshing drinks and sharbats, and American-inspired desserts like apple pie with quince, sticky persimmon pudding, and walnut-studded spiced blondies.

“Anna Ansari is a rare kind of home cook who is able to get under the skin of any cuisine and turn the simplest of ingredients into pure magic. She’s also one of the best writers I know: she’s witty, intelligent and very refreshing to read.” – Meera Sodha “A real feast – vividly evocative, witty and enlightening. Utterly delicious.” – Felicity Cloake “A superb culinary journey along Silk Roads less travelled.” – Jay Rayner This is the story of the world’s most famous trade routes, retold through recipes. In this rich and delicious cookbook, Iranian-American cook and writer Anna Ansari takes us on a culinary, historical, and personal odyssey across the Silk Roads. Weaving together essays, family photography and 90 recipes, Ansari brings life to the flavours of the Silk Roads – from the walnut groves of her father’s Iranian childhood, across Central Asian markets brimming with fragrant melons and thronged with fat-tailed sheep, and into the neighborhoods of modern-day Chinese cities. Discover delectable dishes from Baku to Beijing – Azeri-Iranian stews served with crispy-bottomed rice, dill-infused noodles from Western Uzbekistan, Georgian cornbread, Uyghur lamb chops and all kinds of dumplings, from fat, spiraled oromo to tiny, stuffed dushbara in a delicate saffron broth. Plus, you’ll find refreshing drinks and sharbats, and American-inspired desserts like apple pie with quince, sticky persimmon pudding, and walnut-studded spiced blondies.

‘Filled with insights, the very latest research and plenty of surprises: a superlative catalogue of one the most ambitious and spectacular exhibitions ever staged at the British Museum.’ – Peter Frankopan, author of The Silk Roads: A New History of the World ‘A sumptuous book…a book of the exotic and the wonderful, a trip to ancient and far-away lands, a book full of artistic and cultural treasures, a book to savour and enjoy.’ – Sacred Hoop magazine A richly illustrated publication that explores the networks of contacts and exchanges spanning Afro-Eurasia from 500 to 1000 ce, highlighting how the movement of people, objects and ideas shaped cultures and histories. The term ‘Silk Road’ conjures a range of romantic images. Camel caravans crossing desert dunes. Merchants trading silk and spices. Far-flung commerce between ‘East’ and ‘West’. The reality was far richer. Focusing on a defining period between 500 and 1000 CE, this beautifully illustrated book reimagines the Silk Roads as a web of interlocking networks linking Asia, Africa and Europe, from Japan to Ireland, from the Arctic to Madagascar. It tells a remarkable story of people, objects and ideas flowing in all directions, through the traces these journeys left behind – including ceramics from Tang China recovered from a shipwreck in the Java Sea, sword-fittings set with Indian garnets buried in England, and a selection of letters and legal texts from a synagogue in Cairo revealing a Jewish community’s links from India to al-Andalus. Woven throughout, encounters with various peoples active on the Silk Roads, from seafarers to Sogdians, Aksumites and Vikings, reveal the human stories, innovations and transfers of knowledge that emerged, shaping cultures and histories across continents centuries before the formation of today’s globalised world.

‘Filled with insights, the very latest research and plenty of surprises: a superlative catalogue of one the most ambitious and spectacular exhibitions ever staged at the British Museum.’ – Peter Frankopan, author of The Silk Roads: A New History of the World ‘A sumptuous book…a book of the exotic and the wonderful, a trip to ancient and far-away lands, a book full of artistic and cultural treasures, a book to savour and enjoy.’ – Sacred Hoop magazine A richly illustrated publication that explores the networks of contacts and exchanges spanning Afro-Eurasia from 500 to 1000 ce, highlighting how the movement of people, objects and ideas shaped cultures and histories. The term ‘Silk Road’ conjures a range of romantic images. Camel caravans crossing desert dunes. Merchants trading silk and spices. Far-flung commerce between ‘East’ and ‘West’. The reality was far richer. Focusing on a defining period between 500 and 1000 CE, this beautifully illustrated book reimagines the Silk Roads as a web of interlocking networks linking Asia, Africa and Europe, from Japan to Ireland, from the Arctic to Madagascar. It tells a remarkable story of people, objects and ideas flowing in all directions, through the traces these journeys left behind – including ceramics from Tang China recovered from a shipwreck in the Java Sea, sword-fittings set with Indian garnets buried in England, and a selection of letters and legal texts from a synagogue in Cairo revealing a Jewish community’s links from India to al-Andalus. Woven throughout, encounters with various peoples active on the Silk Roads, from seafarers to Sogdians, Aksumites and Vikings, reveal the human stories, innovations and transfers of knowledge that emerged, shaping cultures and histories across continents centuries before the formation of today’s globalised world.

In recent decades, there has been a new surge of interest in the history and legacies of the Silk Roads both within academic and public discourses. A field of Silk Roads Studies has come into its own. Consciously mirroring the temperament of its subject, the field has moved out of the narrow niches of particular disciplines to become a truly interdisciplinary endeavor. New research findings about the historical operations of the Silk Roads and interpretations of their legacies for the modern and contemporary world have broken down geographical and temporal divides that once demarcated the Silk Roads as primarily pre-modern and Old World-centered conduits of globalization. In light of these developments, the time is ripe to begin formulating a new definition of the contour of Silk Roads Studies and laying a new foundation for further work in this field. Silk Roads: From Local Realities to Global Narratives brings together leading scholars in multiple disciplines related to Silk Roads studies. It highlights the multiplicity of networks that constituted the Silk Roads, including land and maritime routes, and approaches the Silk Roads from Antiquity to China's One Belt One Road Initiative from Afro-Eurasia to the Americas. This holistic approach to understanding ancient globalization, exchanges, transformations, and movements - and their continued relevance to the present - is in line with contemporary academic trends toward interdisciplinarity. Indeed, the Silk Roads is such an expansive topic that many approaches to its study must be included to represent accurately its many facets. The volume emphasizes exchange and transformation along the Silk Roads - moments of acculturation or hybridization that contributed to novel syncretic forms. It highlights the multiplicity of networks that constituted the Silk Roads, including land and maritime routes, and approaches to the Silk Roads from Antiquity to China's One Belt One Road Initiative from Afro-Eurasia to the Americas.

In recent decades, there has been a new surge of interest in the history and legacies of the Silk Roads both within academic and public discourses. A field of Silk Roads Studies has come into its own. Consciously mirroring the temperament of its subject, the field has moved out of the narrow niches of particular disciplines to become a truly interdisciplinary endeavor. New research findings about the historical operations of the Silk Roads and interpretations of their legacies for the modern and contemporary world have broken down geographical and temporal divides that once demarcated the Silk Roads as primarily pre-modern and Old World-centered conduits of globalization. In light of these developments, the time is ripe to begin formulating a new definition of the contour of Silk Roads Studies and laying a new foundation for further work in this field. Silk Roads: From Local Realities to Global Narratives brings together leading scholars in multiple disciplines related to Silk Roads studies. It highlights the multiplicity of networks that constituted the Silk Roads, including land and maritime routes, and approaches the Silk Roads from Antiquity to China's One Belt One Road Initiative from Afro-Eurasia to the Americas. This holistic approach to understanding ancient globalization, exchanges, transformations, and movements - and their continued relevance to the present - is in line with contemporary academic trends toward interdisciplinarity. Indeed, the Silk Roads is such an expansive topic that many approaches to its study must be included to represent accurately its many facets. The volume emphasizes exchange and transformation along the Silk Roads - moments of acculturation or hybridization that contributed to novel syncretic forms. It highlights the multiplicity of networks that constituted the Silk Roads, including land and maritime routes, and approaches to the Silk Roads from Antiquity to China's One Belt One Road Initiative from Afro-Eurasia to the Americas.