, one of
China's five
autonomous regions, using fat-tailed sheep meat to prepare
chuan Two general varieties of fat-tails exist, the broad fat-tails and the long fat-tails. The long-tailed varieties have the smallest geographical distribution, being found mostly in Arabia (a variety called the Nejd, black with a white head, named for the
Nejd region, and raised also in Iraq, Central Asia, and Syria) and in the Caucasus (the Colchian, for the
Colchis territory, and the Circassian). The majority of fat-tailed sheep breeds have broad fat-tails, where the fat is accumulated in baggy deposits in the hind parts of a sheep on both sides of its tail and on the first 3–5 vertebrae of the tail. Fat-tailed sheep are well adapted to life in arid landscapes, the fat providing a food reserve for "combatting harsh desert conditions". While sometimes regarded as mythical, there are documentary accounts about the practice as late as 1837. The earliest record of fat-tailed sheep is found in ancient
Uruk (
3000 BC) and
Ur (
2400 BC) on stone vessels and
mosaics. In
Sumer, fat-tailed sheep were kept in temples, for wool. Another early reference is found in the
Bible (
Exodus 29:22 and
Leviticus 3:9), where a sacrificial offering is described which includes the tail fat (called
Alyá, Hebrew: ) of sheep. Mesopotamian records provide a wealth of information about fat-tailed sheep (
udu gukkal); they produced the highest-quality wool and were kept in large numbers. The city state of
Lagash, around 2000 BCE, had over 66,000 such sheep.
Afghanistan A report published in 1915 by
Henry D. Baker, American consul in Bombay, indicates how important the fat-tailed sheep was for Afghanistan. The animal's wool, he says, was one of the country's most important export products; in 1912–1913 the country exported (through
Balochistan) over $1.5 million in wool. Frequently fat-tailed sheep were interbred with Indian sheep to produce high-quality wool. In addition, because the fat was used in the way of butter or
ghee, Afghans were able to produce a surplus of ghee for export to India. The animal's meat was the Afghan population's main meat source, according to Baker.
Uzbekistan Uzbek cuisine is high in fat, and tail fat, called
qurdiuq or
dumba (often from the
Karakul breed), is an important supplier of that fat, which is "revere[d] as a semi-sacred object of gastronomical desire", and used in a variety of national dishes, such as
laghman and
palov. Food scholar Russell Zanca notes that
dumba has become scarce in the post-Soviet era. Under Soviet rule Uzbekistan became a huge grower of cotton, and consequently cottonseed oil took over as the major fat used in cooking; still,
dumba continues to play an important role in the Uzbek imagination and folklore. ==Tail fat==