Out in the far west, where we are, other treats include sheep brains and sheep butt. The mutton here is said to be the best. It could be the freshness, it could be the fatty tail, but it also could have something to do with how they treat the meat. Here in Kashgar , you see sheep all day long, walking in the streets, tied up at the market and hanging from hooks, dead. There's not a lot of refrigeration here, so butchers just hang big slabs of meat out in the open along the street where people can see it.
Customers come by and touch the meat, deciding what to buy.
Hundreds of flies and bees walk on the meat. The butcher handles the raw flesh constantly. It may seem gross, but there is probably an age-old wisdom to treating the meat this way, and it could be why it tastes so good. Here are some clues as to where the flavor comes from. First of all, each fly carries something like 2.5 million bacteria on its body.