This Restaurant Is Keeping Uyghur Food Traditions Alive
It’s a London spot
“You look like us,” Mukaddes Yadiqar says, studying my face, turning to her husband, Ablikim Rahman, for confirmation.
I grin back, welcoming the acceptance. “I get that a lot.” Which I do. I guess I have one of those faces that melds in an environment, provided it’s not Scandanavian.
Yadiqar and Rahman know how to meld as well. They’re Uyghur (also spelled Uighur), Turkic Muslims from an autonomous region in the northwest of China. Xinjiang borders Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and India on the west; a tiny bit of Russia due north; and Mongolia in the northeast. Uyghurs are an ethnic minority in China’s Communist government and have, of late, been the victims of internment camps put in place by the Chinese government.
The couple misses their homeland, and are desperate to hear that family is safe, but in the meantime, they’re greatest desire is to keep their culture alive — with their children, with their traditions and with their food. Which is why, after seven years of living in Manchester and running a mobile sales shop, they moved to north London in April 2017 and opened Etles.
