Mongolian Food – Got Milk?
Milk Moustache
I walked into the ger making sure to duck my head for the low door frame and went around the ger clockwise as I was taught in my cultural training . I took a seat where the family pointed – at the 10 o’clock position; the esteemed position for visitors. They quickly poured a bowl of steaming fresh milk and gave it to me. The milk had a slightly different taste than what I was expecting; it was from a goat. This new taste would quickly become old to me as goat milk became my main source of liquid for the next two weeks.
Pouring milk on an ooovo - showing dairy respect to the Gods.
The Food Pyramid:
The Mongolian food pyramid was a little different than a normal food pyramid and it left me baffled on how the Mongolians survived! The pyramid was dominated by dairy with no sign of vegetables or fruits. I ate more dairy in 2 weeks than I have in 6 months! Goat milk, Camel milk, various forms of yogurt (from runny to hard as a rock), goat milk cheese, the skin of boiled milk, and yes, even the booze was made of milk. Airag is fermented mare’s milk and quite a popular drink. (Yes, of course I tried it!) Milk is so revered that at sports festivals and religious festivals I often saw people putting milk on religious symbols or milk on horses heads for good luck. If milk was the king of the food pyramid, then what was the Queen? Mutton.
Lost in translation - 'Mean' dishes (aka meat dishes)
Mean Dishes:
One of the restaurants I went to in Ulanbatar had nicely provided an English menu for its tourists. My eyes immediately went to the section titled “Mean Dishes”, and I instinctively scanned the menu for a “Nice Dishes” section. In Mongolia, you have to like meat; and you really have to like mutton. Problem; I’m not a real mutton fan, but as far as meat goes, that’s about all there is in the Gobi Desert. Often it’s dried and hung from the ceiling of the ger like jerkey. When it comes time to eat, they just take some down from the ceiling and cut it up and boil it. Of course like any good Asian country, every part of the animal is used. Goats stomach and various blood congealed innards were offered to me; but I decided that this was one cultural experience I could pass on.
Hard cheese drying in the hot sun
Pucker Up:
I was passed a round pale white disk; my hosts motioned for me to break some off and eat it. I took it and realized it was a hard cheese of some sort; I become mildly excited. After living in Asia for a year, I have adapted to the fact that cheese is a privilege and it’s not something I buy very often, yet I miss it terribly. I gladly took this mini wheel of hard cheese, broke off a piece and bit into it. It’s funny how your mind looks at food and automatically sets a taste bud expectation; sour, salty, creamy, spicy. When you mind jumps to a wrong conclusion it can change your whole eating experience. My mind took one look at this cheese and though….mmmm – aged parmesan. Reality hit the taste buds of my tongue abruptly and made my whole face pucker noticeably; it was sour and bitter. Like most things, the cheese was an acquired taste and in light of the fact that we had very little to choose from, you got used to the bitter cheese.
Goats awaiting to be milked
Even the water tastes like mutton:
I always know that I’m doing some great cultural traveling when there is no bottled water for sale; it means that you are deep within the local culture! The Gobi families boiled water for us to put in our bottles for travel. Since the ‘ger kitchens’ were very simple, most gers only had one big round wok that they cook in; imagine if you had only one pot in your kitchen! I found that the deeper I went into the Gobi, the less the water seemed to taste like water and instead tasted like goat. Sure, I had goat on the brain, day after day of goat milk and boiled mutton soup. However, this wasn’t my imagination; the water did taste like goat! I saw the women use the same pot for cooking up our dinner and boiling our water. Since water is scarce anyway, scrubbing dishes clean isn’t always a possibility either; hence the mutton tasting water. Needless to say, when we finally got to a village again, we all stocked up on water!
Our daily dish of mutton noodle soup - sholte khool
Hot food for Hot Weather
It’s about 95 degrees F, there’s no shade, the sun feels like a drill penetrating deep into your skin, and you think that it’s so hot you can hear your sweat sizzle. Finally, when you arrive at a ger (the only shade for miles), you walk inside and they immediately serve you piping hot milk and soup. Refreshing? Not really. I found this very hard to get used to, but there is some weird theory about eating hot food in a hot climate being good for you; I’m not a believer. However, with the absence of electricity and therefore refrigeration, everything was hot. The sholte khool which literally means ‘soup with food’ includes broth, some noodles, boiled mutton, and some potatoes. We had this every day – for lunch and for dinner; the novelty of it wore off pretty quickly. This constant diet of sholte khool was very reminiscent of my 16 days of Dhal Bhat in Nepal – the same food for 2 weeks straight is never easy to tolerate; but you tell yourself that it’s only for 2 weeks and for 2 weeks you can tolerate anything…right?
A Sweet Medicine
My travel partners intestines weren’t tolerating the food as well as I mine and they had given up eating much more than simple bortzig (hard, unleavened bread) and milk tea. One of our rather perceptive Ger hosts noticed this and made us a lunch that would be ‘easy ‘ on the stomach – sweet rice. Rice! I never thought I’d be so excited to have rice again. My travel partners’ illness was my good luck. The rice was boiled and the mother added sugar and a home made thick buttery cream mixture that was so divine I had 3 bowls! It was so nice to have something sweet and without a mutton flavor for a change. The Mongolian diet doesn’t have much sugar infused in it at all, so my sweet tooth was suffering badly!
Making Buuz
Welcoming Change
Lest you think that all of my food experiences in Mongolia were bad, I do have to say that we did have one day of respite from the mutton soup diet we found ourselves on. We stayed at a guest house in a little village one night. Ok – basically we slept on someone’s living room floor with sleeping bags. Our host ran the local restaurant and bar in the village. So not only did we have locals stopping in at all hours of the day buying vodka, but this also meant that we had some really good food! She served us a feast of yogurt with jam and apricots, carrot salad, fried potato-egg pancakes, and buuz (a mutton filled calzone or dumpling). Finally, some fruit and vegetables – my intestines screamed – THANKYOU! All of this fiber was such a welcome change to our steady diet of mutton soup, bortzig and sour cheese. However, ironically after that I had digestive issues for a few days; going to show you that you can never predict where and when you’ll get a bad strain of bacteria that wants to conquer your intestines.
I survived my two week diet of all things dairy and goat; however, I don’t think I’ll ever forget the taste and smell of goat again for the rest of my life! In an attempt to balance out my own food pyramid, the first thing I had when I got back to Vietnam was a big plate of veggies and fruit!
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Filed Under: Mongolia
I stumbled upon your blog and entry on personal update on HCMC because I was looking for information on HCMC, but your stories on Mongolia are terrific. I was offered a job in Ulan Bator several years ago, but opted for Geneva instead, silly me, and can say that I now rather regret it…Anyway I also read your Briefcase to Backpack which was timely for me because I managed two weeks ago to convince my first-born 17 year old daughter 14 hours before we were suppose to board the plane from Singapore to the US to put her in college to defer college for a year and do a gap year! She has not regretted it yet and she is now furiously researching and putting together her ideas on what she would like the year to be about. I travel a lot for work so I carry a briefcase and a backpack frequently but found your site and the stories on it really inspiring and hope that you keep it up. I am coming to HCMC for the first time in a couple of weeks (Sept 24-27) and wonder if you could give me some insider tips on where it is safe (and fun) for a single 40 year-old woman to hang out and maybe meet some like-minded friendly folks, after my work obligations are done. maybe you have written an entry on this that you could point me to?
The pic of the camel is priceless! Wonderful read.
sherry – you write so well of what can be such a difficult time. food is life, and when we try so hard, we’re rewarded in different ways than we think. excellent, excellent article.
It’s amazing how you get such an isight into a culture through the food – You really start to appreciate how we take the widest range of foods for granted. I like dairy and cheese but maybe not THAT much!
Heather – yes – it’s really amazing how we adapt to a taste. I never would have liked sour milk before, but the idea of it no longer makes me gag! That bitter/sour taste was so prevelant in all of their food – even the ice cream!
@ZHR_SING – wow – a choice between Geneva and Ulanbatar – those are certainly worlds apart in every way imaginable!! Honestly – for ease of life, you made the right decision! Mongolia is like Vietnam – a developing country that can be a blast, but can also be incredibly frustrating!
As for your visit to HCMC, the whole city is very safe, just use your head and keep your bags around your body etc as you would anywhere. There are so many good restaurants in District 1. Just ask your hotel about these and they will point you in the right direction:
Warda – Mediteranean with super atmosphere
Qing – wine bar with foot massage place upstairs
Refinery – for brunch
Temple Club – good vietnamese
Hoa Tuc – also good Vietnamese
La Habana – normally some fun music bands on Friday night – on Sunday night they have swing dancing!
Amber Room – for a good martini
The town is small and these are expat places but they are good; not filled by tourists.
Let me know if you have any other questions.
Thanks so much for your kind words about Briefcase to Backpack – we think it’s great of course!
Sherry
I too can’t imagine life without fruits and vegetables. It’s amazing how different our systems are when we live in different places.
Mongolia is one of those places that I’m dying to see! and I can handle a little over dose on dairy:)
I love your stories! Its so easy to take our Western diets and food pyramid for granted. Sometimes I forget that in other parts of the world, it is totally turned upside down. I can’t imagine living on mostly dairy and hot food/drinks!
You’re brave for trying all of those new foods, though I don’t blame you at all for avoiding the “blood congealed innards”! I was horrified when I was in England last summer and learned what black pudding (and was really glad I found out what it was before I ate it). There are some things I just can’t handle! But that rice dish you had sounds delicious.
Oh my. I would definitely have a problem there, being a vegetarian and all. Could I survive?
HI Sherry – I love reading your posts. One question on this last one – I’m fairly certain mutton is lamb, but in this post you are referring to goats, right?
@Wanderluster – it certainly would be challenging being a vegitarian there…you’d be left with those donuts and cheese mainly. It would be impossible to be vegetarian AND lactose intolerant for sure!!
@Jessica – yes – I’m referring to Goat meat. True the word mutton usually refers to mature sheep meat. However in part of the world, specifically Mongolia, they also use the word to refer to mature goat meat. To be sure – I looked it up on Wikipedia too – as you made me second guess myself!!
Thanks for your comments!
Ever since I read Long Way Round I’ve been looking forward to visiting Mongolia. People are incredibly adaptable – though not sure how I’d do, I can’t handle dairy! Guess yogurt would work but lactose intolerance would be an issue!
[...] I loved the competition. The wrestlers were tough, really tough. There was no nicely padded floor, no apparent rules; only the hard, rocky desert ground to land on. They were focused as they began their match often spending the first few minutes simply staring their opponent down. The next move was often taking swipes at the other person, sometimes even latching on to their pretty baby blue ‘jacket’. You were lulled into relaxation as you watched the grown men pawing at each other as if they were puppies playing – then all of a sudden – ATTACK! Before I knew it someone was airborne and you heard a thud. The dust cleared and a winner was declared. The loser brushed the pebbles and dust out of their speedos and graciously watched the winner do their bird dance and receive his prize from the judges – hard unleavened bread/dunts…all of that for bortzig. [...]
This brought back so many memories! That pungent smell of that hard cheese drying in the Ger is one I will not forget (it fall when I was there so not hot enough to dry the cheese outside; they put it on the dung stove inside the ger instead). Great pictures and I look forward to reading some more of your Mongolian adventures!
-Jodi
Hello! I work at a public access television and station and recently did an interview with a lady from Mongolia. I’m scouring the internet for public domain images of Mongolia but I’m having a hard time finding an image of the white foods. I was wondering if I would be able to use the image of the white food drying on the ger in our production. Your website would be given in the credits if you wished.
Thanks! Soha