Full Recipe
Author
Anna Ansari |
Description
"My mind has been blown a few times while researching this book. Realizing that the Chinese word for spinach— bocai—which I have known for decades, means “Persian vegetable” is one of them. The “bo” in bocai refers to Bolinguo, an archaic designation for ancient Persia, from whence spinach originated. Oh—and the Western European words for spinach (for example, epinard, espinaca, spinaci) are all derived from esfanaj, the Persian word for spinach. That's some iron-heavy etymology right there.While scholarship has stumbled over the precise date and means of spinach's transmission from west to east, it is generally accepted that the so-called “chieftain of leafy greens” (as spinach was dubbed by the 12th-century Arab Andalusian agriculturalist Ibn al-'awwãm) arrived in China, in seed form, from Iran via Nepal in the middle of the 7th century ce. Special and rare enough to be sent as tribute from the Nepalese king to the Tang Court in Chang'an, spinach is now a mainstay on tables across the world. Including mine. This is but one of a few spinach recipes in this book, a testament to both the versatility of the leafy green and its ubiquity in the culinary traditions of the regions we are exploring.Serve with bread and cheese, or enjoy as part of a brunch spread."Excerpted from Silk Roads: A Flavor Odyssey with Recipes from Baku to Beijing © 2025 by Anna Ansari. Used with permission of the publisher, DK Red. All rights reserved. Photographs by Laura Edwards.
