Kawapchi: One who roasts kabobs
March 2017
I jump off the bus and take a deep breath of the cool air. I feel a sense of calm and relaxation wash over me as I turn my phone off to prepare my brain for sleep, and begin my walk home. After waiting for the light to turn green, I cross the street, dodging turning cars from all directions who don’t give me right of way. I stop at the kawap stand, no larger than one square meter. The kawapchi smiles in recognition and replies with “yaxshi” (good) to my greeting of “qandaq ehwalingiz?” (how are you).
“I’ll have 3 egg-coated chicken kabobs, please!” I say, hardly able to contain my excitement.
“For here or to go?”
“Here!”
“Spicy or Cumin?”
“Cumin!”
He carefully uses an iron pincher to pick up and place three kawap on iron rods into the round, pit (tonur) oven that is glowing red with the heat of the coal burning inside.
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| Picture of a tonur oven with samsa I got from the Internet: https://asianmarketsphilly.com/2014/07/20/uyghur-flatbreads-meat-pies-and-the-tonur-oven/ |
The smokey scent of roasting meat fills my nose. A single light bulb hangs from the ceiling, illuminating the tiny area under the awning where I wait with four other patrons for our roasting kawap. We are all waiting with our hoods up, rubbing our hands and bouncing our legs in the cold. My nose is running but every time I sniff I get a big dose of kawap grill smoke down my throat.
I also ask for two samsa from the shop next door. I hear a boy around 12 with a baby face rounding out his cheeks say softly under his breath, sighing, “Only a few more samsa left.” “Do you get to go home when you sell them all?” I ask. Smiling, he says yes, and dishes out a Dixie cup of freshly made cream-flavored ice cream to a little girl about five-years-old who stops by for a treat in her tracksuit uniform and Disney’s Frozen backpack.
The two kawapchi working are smiling with droopy eyelids like they are high on hashish, making jokes and calling each other sen (very intimate second person address). They are working together, one putting the kawap (egg-covered mutton or liver) in the tonur oven, then the other taking the iron rods out and squeezing the meat with naan to pull it off the rods, sprinkling cumin on them, and wrapping them up in plastic bags to go.
I make small talk with them, the usual stuff. The kawapchi replies to my series of questions: “I’m from Kashgar, I’ve been here a year, I’m 19 years old. No, I don’t like it here, but it’s more free than my hometown. I have 4 brothers and sisters.” They smile in amusement at my accent and tell me I’m cute.
When the kawap are finally done, I stand next to the cardboard box that’s been set out for trash, and eat the bite-sized chunks of meat off the iron rod, chewing the meat off the bone and spitting it out into the trash can-box. The others next to me do the same. We stand there together wordlessly enjoying the juicy meat, the salty flavor of the cumin, and the crunchy coating of egg over it. Some others opt for liver kawap instead, and one has a trickle of blood running down the side of his mouth when he bites into it. After I finish, my stomach full, I hand them 6 kuai and thank them. They smile back at me and I'm on my way.
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| Tonur oven with samsa: https://www.farwestchina.com/2011/03/a-uyghur-oven-pic-of-the-week.html |
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| Kawap! It turns out there is no shortage of Uyghur food pictures on the Internet: https://www.seriouseats.com/2015/07/kashgar-uyghur-cuisine-silk-road-best-bites-travel.html |
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