Noodles in India

pa_dutch · Jul 24, 2014

I just returned from a trip to Tashkorgan, Xinjiang, which is the main settlement of China’s Tajik minority. The town is close to the Pakistan border and has a constant stream of Pakistani businessmen passing through. At the local youth hostel, I spoke with some Pakistani guests who come from Pakistan’s own Tajik minority. They can communicate with Chinese Tajiks in the same language, but the cultures are very different based on national influences.

For example, local Tajiks in Tashkorgan eat laghman, a dish of hand-pulled noodles topped with stir-fried meat and vegetables, a dish popular throught Xinjiang with the Uyghur people and other minorities, descended from Chinese la mian. Noodles are also consumed in a wide variety of soups. The Pakistani Tajiks eat curries with rice and flatbread. They claim that noodles in Pakistan are a foreign food only seen in Chinese restaurants.

Noodles can be found throughout Eurasia, from the egg noodles of Central and Eastern Europe and the pastas of Italy to the noodles ubiquitous to East Asian cuisines. Central Asians also eat noodle dishes that travelled east and west along the Silk Road. Going south, however, noodles seem to miss the Indian subcontinent, with the exception of faloodah, a dessert originating from Iran. How can we get noodles to be an indigenous staple in the Indosphere?

Richard V · Jul 24, 2014

The thing with noodles is it's not very convenient to eat with your hands.

Flocculencio · Jul 24, 2014

They're pretty common as a breakfast dish in Tamil, Malayalee and Sinhalese culture. We call them iddiyappam. It's really just North India which doesn't seem to use noodles.

Delta Force · Jul 24, 2014

Curry is popular in Japan because of trade with India, perhaps noodles could become popular in India the same way?

pa_dutch · Jul 24, 2014

Richard V said:
The thing with noodles is it's not very convenient to eat with your hands.

That's true, but Central Asian culinary cultures are usually hand-eating as well. The simmered rice dish called polo, pilau, or plov, eaten everywhere from Xinjiang to Azerbaijan to northern India, is called zhuafan in Chinese, meaning something like "rice grabbed with your hands". In their homes, most foods revolve around using hands - Large chunks of roasted meat and kebabs, breads, pancakes, pies, dumplings, fruit, nuts, and even some noodle dishes (Kyrgyz beshbarmak, which means "five fingers," and a dish one of my Kyrgyz students called "Kyrgyz pizza" of flat noodles rolled around pieces of butter and then baked in a pan).

Cultures in Xinjiang eat noodles with chopsticks, a custom adopted from their Han Chinese neighbors, while the former Soviet republics tend to use forks due to European Russian influences. In their homes, such utensils are almost exclusively used for noodles, aside from salad-like dishes.

pa_dutch · Jul 24, 2014

Flocculencio said:
They're pretty common as a breakfast dish in Tamil, Malayalee and Sinhalese culture. We call them iddiyappam. It's really just North India which doesn't seem to use noodles.

Interesting, I wonder why the north of the subcontinent missed out on noodles when all of the neighboring regions have them?

Flocculencio · Jul 24, 2014

Re eating noodles with one's hands- iddiyappam are eaten with the hands. The noodles are clumped in rough discs during the production process so you get coherent clumps of noodles which are then broken off and used to soak up the curry.

pa_dutch said:
Interesting, I wonder why the north of the subcontinent missed out on noodles when all of the neighboring regions have them?

There is a noodle based snack present in North and South India (in Tamil and Malayalam, it's called muruku) which involves making noodles out of chickpea flour and then deep frying them until they're crunchy.

But, yeah, in the North as far as local foods go that's the closest thing to noodles.

I guess it's just one of those things- for example, why was pasta never really common in Britain,, Northern France, Scandinavia and Northern Germany? The German example is especially glaring since in Bavaria, Austria etc you have Spätzle but I'm unaware of them being historically present in the Northern German regions.

Richard V · Jul 24, 2014

Delta Force said:
Curry is popular in Japan because of trade with India, perhaps noodles could become popular in India the same way?

Long story but the Japanese actually acquired the curry eating habit from the Royal Navy.

pa_dutch said:
That's true, but Central Asian culinary cultures are usually hand-eating as well. The simmered rice dish called polo, pilau, or plov, eaten everywhere from Xinjiang to Azerbaijan to northern India, is called zhuafan in Chinese, meaning something like "rice grabbed with your hands". In their homes, most foods revolve around using hands - Large chunks of roasted meat and kebabs, breads, pancakes, pies, dumplings, fruit, nuts, and even some noodle dishes (Kyrgyz beshbarmak, which means "five fingers," and a dish one of my Kyrgyz students called "Kyrgyz pizza" of flat noodles rolled around pieces of butter and then baked in a pan).

Cultures in Xinjiang eat noodles with chopsticks, a custom adopted from their Han Chinese neighbors, while the former Soviet republics tend to use forks due to European Russian influences. In their homes, such utensils are almost exclusively used for noodles, aside from salad-like dishes.

I suppose you can eat noodle with your hands but it would have to be a) dry noodles and b) not pipping hot.

The Thais traditionally ate with their hands also, but later adopted the fork and spoon combination. Still they use chopsticks just for noodle dishes.

carlton_bach · Jul 24, 2014

Flocculencio said:
I guess it's just one of those things- for example, why was pasta never really common in Britain,, Northern France, Scandinavia and Northern Germany? The German example is especially glaring since in Bavaria, Austria etc you have Spätzle but I'm unaware of them being historically present in the Northern German regions.

They aren't, except as a luxury dish. But you can actually find an explanation for that: European pasta culture is wheat-based. Regardless of how it started (I heard a fierce polemic about why the Arab origin hypothesis is arrant nonsense just two weeks ago), it could only become a commonplace food in areas where wheat was relatively cheap. South Germany has been wheat land since the fifteenth century at least. North Germany is rye land. Rye noodles are awful.

In Poland, wheat grows very well. And interestingly, in Poland they have lokshen.

Flocculencio · Jul 24, 2014

carlton_bach said:
They aren't, except as a luxury dish. But you can actually find an explanation for that: European pasta culture is wheat-based. Regardless of how it started (I heard a fierce polemic about why the Arab origin hypothesis is arrant nonsense just two weeks ago), it could only become a commonplace food in areas where wheat was relatively cheap. South Germany has been wheat land since the fifteenth century at least. North Germany is rye land. Rye noodles are awful.

In Poland, wheat grows very well. And interestingly, in Poland they have lokshen.

Interesting- so it just seems to be England and northern France that are the pasta outliers.
And despite wheat being the staple in North India (rice being the luxury grain, as opposed to South India where rice is the staple) we see no noodles.

I guess it's just one of those things

carlton_bach · Jul 24, 2014

Flocculencio said:
Interesting- so it just seems to be England and northern France that are the pasta outliers.
And despite wheat being the staple in North India (rice being the luxury grain, as opposed to South India where rice is the staple) we see no noodles.

I guess it's just one of those things

I'm not sure about Southern Russia, either. Pelmeny don't really count, do they?

Simreeve · Jul 24, 2014

Flocculencio said:
Interesting- so it just seems to be England and northern France that are the pasta outliers.

I think that that's because the climate suits different varieties of wheat, whose flour isn't as suitable for that use.

Flocculencio · Jul 24, 2014

Simreeve said:
I think that that's because the climate suits different varieties of wheat, whose flour isn't as suitable for that use.

If so, that might be an explanation for North India's lack of noodles.

Julius Vogel · Jul 24, 2014

Simreeve said:
I think that that's because the climate suits different varieties of wheat, whose flour isn't as suitable for that use.

I think I've heard something similar, as almost all of the pasta in NZ, even if locally made, uses foreign, Australian grain (hard durum?).

carlton_bach · Jul 24, 2014

Julius Vogel said:
I think I've heard something similar, as almost all of the pasta in NZ, even if locally made, uses foreign, Australian grain (hard durum?).

I'm not sold on that hypothesis. Durum wheat is best for pasta asciutta, but Germans have been making spätzle and maultaschen with common wheat for a long time, and in China, they make pasta from rice and millet as well as common wheat.

Kriegdämmerung · Jul 24, 2014

pa_dutch said:
I just returned from a trip to Tashkorgan, Xinjiang, which is the main settlement of China’s Tajik minority. The town is close to the Pakistan border and has a constant stream of Pakistani businessmen passing through. At the local youth hostel, I spoke with some Pakistani guests who come from Pakistan’s own Tajik minority. They can communicate with Chinese Tajiks in the same language, but the cultures are very different based on national influences.

For example, local Tajiks in Tashkorgan eat laghman, a dish of hand-pulled noodles topped with stir-fried meat and vegetables, a dish popular throught Xinjiang with the Uyghur people and other minorities, descended from Chinese la mian. Noodles are also consumed in a wide variety of soups. The Pakistani Tajiks eat curries with rice and flatbread. They claim that noodles in Pakistan are a foreign food only seen in Chinese restaurants.

Noodles can be found throughout Eurasia, from the egg noodles of Central and Eastern Europe and the pastas of Italy to the noodles ubiquitous to East Asian cuisines. Central Asians also eat noodle dishes that travelled east and west along the Silk Road. Going south, however, noodles seem to miss the Indian subcontinent, with the exception of faloodah, a dessert originating from Iran. How can we get noodles to be an indigenous staple in the Indosphere?

Similar to Flocc's example, the Indian community in Myanmar has Indianized the noodle, with a number of curried noodle dishes (North and South Indian style curries) in existence. Not sure if those are unique to Myanmar or not, but it's clear that it could happen.

Also, unrelated, but what were you doing in Tashkorgan?

ramones1986 · Jul 24, 2014

Flocculencio said:
They're pretty common as a breakfast dish in Tamil, Malayalee and Sinhalese culture. We call them iddiyappam. It's really just North India which doesn't seem to use noodles.

Looks like sotanghon and bihon in the Philippines, although the noodles here are Chinese in origin

Julius Vogel · Jul 24, 2014

carlton_bach said:
I'm not sold on that hypothesis. Durum wheat is best for pasta asciutta, but Germans have been making spätzle and maultaschen with common wheat for a long time, and in China, they make pasta from rice and millet as well as common wheat.

Well, I was told this by my father, who is certainly no pasta or bread maker, although he did grow a lot of wheat.

You could well be right though, it may have as much been related to patterns of pasta production in NZ and Australia, as any real requirement.

Dathi THorfinnsson · Jul 24, 2014

Julius Vogel said:
Well, I was told this by my father, who is certainly no pasta or bread maker, although he did grow a lot of wheat.

You could well be right though, it may have as much been related to patterns of pasta production in NZ and Australia, as any real requirement.

Pasta in the anglosphere seems to mean Italian pasta. Which requires the very hard durum wheat. I remember when Grandad started growing durum as a specialty crop.

pa_dutch · Jul 24, 2014

carlton_bach said:
in China, they make pasta from rice and millet as well as common wheat.

I'm not sure what kind of wheat it is exactly, but my go-to store for cooking ingredients here in China has one type of flour for bread and mantou and another type of flour for noodles and dumpling wrappers. I've made the mistake of forgetting to label my purchases before, and failed spectacularly at making noodles from the bread flour. My students are always telling me to make sure I buy the right flour for the right purpose.

Kriegdämmerung said:
Also, unrelated, but what were you doing in Tashkorgan?

I live and work in Xinjiang as an ESL instructor, so I've been doing some travel around local area during my summer break.