Uyghur Nang (Flatbread)

Nang is the staple flatbread of the Uyghur and other peoples, made from leavened dough pressed into rounds and slapped against the heated wall of a clay tandoor to bake. It emerges golden and crisp outside, soft and chewy within, and because it holds little moisture it keeps and travels well; varieties include meat nang, sesame nang, onion nang and the large Kuqa nang.

The tandoor-baked flatbread tradition came from Central Asia and took root in Xinjiang over a thousand years with the Silk Road caravans, a food born of oasis farming and nomadic trade alike. The nang-making craft spreads across fourteen prefectures of Xinjiang; its representative Kuqa large-nang technique was listed as a second-batch Xinjiang autonomous-region ICH item in 2010, and the related traditional staple-food craft has entered the national ICH list.

Nang is eaten on its own, torn and dipped in tea or milk tea, wrapped around kebab as "nang-wrapped meat," or stewed in a pot; across Xinjiang no day, guest or journey is without it, and a saying runs that one may go three days without meat but not one day without nang.

The golden crisp crust from the tandoor wall, the keeping quality that made it a traveller's food, and its place at every meal are the clearest marks of Xinjiang nang.