China’s remote northwesternmost Xinjiang province.Yaks, camels and Xinjiang’s famously fat-bottomed lambs have all been delivered to the market — the biggest of its kind in Central Asia — by bearded men from miles around, to be sold by the day’s end.The air is thick with cries of “bosh bosh!” — meaning “coming through,” in the local Uyghur language.At a nearby food shack, we order a couple of samsa — a crispy, stone oven-baked bread parcel filled with seasoned diced lamb, purchased and slaughtered in halal fashion that morning.
Here, the phrase “farm to table” is literal. Blood from the remaining flesh of the animal drips from its bones by the shack’s entrance.Xinjiang might be one of China’s best-kept secrets.Once a vital stretch of the ancient Silk Road network of trade routes, today the province is notorious for violent ethnic tensions between the indigenous Turkic Uyghurs and swelling Han population, which have choked tourism in recent years.