Day #66: Nomadic cuisine

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Food is included in our tour, so I don't have to worry about cooking anything, it arrives (literally) on a plate. The meals prepared by our tour guide are loosely based on Western food, but when we stay with nomadic families we eat whatever the family is eating, there is no choice.

On arrival at a new family we are always welcomed into the family ger and offered tea and snacks from a bowl, usually sweets or a bread that looks like a doughnut but tastes drier and breadier, or a snack made from dried curds, which tastes of strong, salty cheese. The tea is milk from the family's herd which is heated in a large bowl first thing in the morning, salted and then kept in a Thermos flask for use throughout the day. It is very rich and works to warm you up when it is cold and refresh when hot. Generally I like it, though it can be very salty depending on the family's taste.

Food cooking is done by the women. The cooking is done on top of a small iron oven which is usually in the centre of the ger (the chimney goes out through the roof) and is fuelled by wood or, more usually, dried animal dung. The oven serves the dual purpose of heating the ger.

The typical meal prepared by the family, which we ate most days, is a version of noodle soup with meat and sometimes potatoes, and occasionally carrot. The noodles are made from scratch by making a dough from flour and water, rolling it out and chopping thinly with a cleaver. These are boiled in a pot with salt, potatoes and carrots (where applicable), and with some kind of meat. It may be the time of year, but we almost always had dried mutton (we once saw it hanging up to dry in the ger). It has to be hacked into pieces and boiled to tenderise. The overall end result is not bad, though the meat can be very tough and leathery, and the Mongolians sometimes pour milk tea into it to soften it (I did not attempt this, as I was not sure I could stomach it). Fresh meat is rare but not unknown. Fresh fruit or other vegetables were unknown, though. From what I could tell, the Mongolians eat the noodle soup two or three times a day, every day. I was prepared to eat this for the duration of the tour, but I can't say I will miss it either.

Today's stop was at some sandstone cliffs famous as a site where dinosaur bones were found, although of course there is no evidence of that now. We has a pleasant walk though the rock is so soft it must be quickly eroding.

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