Mongolian cuisine
If you have already read a lot about Mongolia, you can imagine that Mongolian cuisine is not quite as diverse as the cuisines of other countries. For Mongols, and here primarily for the nomads, it was very important to eat as high in fat as possible in order to prepare for the barren winter. Mongolian food is often very fat, and in winter you have already slimmed down again. Vegetables are almost never on the menu, where should they come from? There is hardly any area for growing vegetables. When there are vegetables, they are carrots, onions or cabbage. Cabbage can also be stored well in winter.
What do you eat here?
A popular dish in Mongolia are small dumplings with meat that are steamed and called buuz. If they are fried and if they are bigger, they are called Khuushuur. Meat soups are very popular because there is a lot of meat due to the large number of livestock. In the soup you can also find cabbage or potatoes.
The meat is mostly mutton. Pigs and poultry are difficult to keep for nomads. Horses, beef or camels are also sometimes on the menu. The latter, however, only in the desert, then the camel meat is dried. The marmots are also very tasty. Marmots are abundant in Mongolia, a country located in Asia according to aparentingblog, and they are also hunted and eaten.
Cooking with animal manure
Meat is also used as travel provisions. It is dried and ground. This makes it long-lasting. You just have to scald it with hot water and you have something like a ready-made meat broth. It’s similar to our packet soups, only with fewer preservatives! By the way, this dried meat is called borts and consists mostly of beef or yak meat, sometimes also of camel or horse. Incidentally, it lasts for many years – like the bag soup. Mongols in the country mostly cook in their yurts and set up a small stove in the yurt. Animal manure – there is enough of it – then serves as material for heating the small stove.
Fermented mare’s milk
In addition to meat products, there are dairy products. The national drink of the Mongols is called Airag, which is fermented horse milk. The milk of the animals is processed into cream, kefir, quark and cheese, which is durable. The Mongols then consume this in lean times. The Mongols also make a schnapps from milk. Then they mix tea with milk and add – yes, indeed – salt. The tastes are sometimes different. In the cities, people live in apartments just as they do here. There is a kitchen and running water here; many are not rich but can survive.
What is it like to live in a yurt?
There is a small stove in the middle of a yurt. In the past you usually had an open fire here, which was quite dangerous. If you look at a yurt from the outside, you will see a pipe sticking out through which the smoke can escape. If there is a yurt somewhere in the Gobi desert, then the air pollution has to be dealt with. However, if there are many yurts in one place, for example on the outskirts of the capital, the smoke contributes to air pollution. The interior usually includes a small table and beds on the edge of the yurt that you can sit on. Sometimes there is also a chest of drawers in which the Mongolians keep items and clothing.
People live in the narrow space of the yurt. They sleep, they cook and the children play. Incidentally, you should only step on a yurt with your right foot and never step on the threshold, because that brings bad luck. If you ever step into a yurt, be careful!
In some yurts there are even televisions, which are operated with solar power and connected to a satellite dish. Then the whole family comes together to watch television. Modernity does not stop at nomads either.
