Baklava in Beijing

And one more small, good thing before tomorrow's journey west: the foods of old Beijing. For among the things that first lit in me that fierce passion for East–West connections were these very foods, and the question of why there are "baklavas" in Beijing.

These are not baklavas proper, but bean-filled relatives. Yet it seems these delicate sweets are not the product of parallel evolution; they are indeed direct descendants of the ancient population movements between western and eastern Asia.

And even if the number of shops specialising in "sugar ears", apricot-kernel "tofu" and osmanthus jelly seems to have multiplied beyond measure in recent years, pride of place still belongs to old and beloved institutions, many of them bearing the metal plaque announcing a "time-honoured brand", a qingzhen (halal) sign, or both together.

It is true that many of these foods, sweet and savoury alike, are local developments, the fruit of 600 years and more in which the northern city served as an imperial capital and a magnet for migrants, ingredients and recipes in a never-ending culinary arms race. But it seems that at least some of them, like the sugar ears and the shaobing flatbreads bursting with carved meat, really are imports from the lands of the West, and versions of them appear at the latest in the "foreign" cookbooks of the Mongol empire, if not earlier.

Tomorrow we set out for the edges of the Yellow River, and the immense culinary wealth of Beijing's alleys will give way to the plainer food of the western desert margins — but also to the teeming cultural abundance that only frontier regions know how to produce.

At least we won't lack provisions.

Good night