[Ravensfort] FWD: NYTimes.com Article: Here's to the Horse!

[jacinth]

This was a cool article, and I thought y'all might enjoy it.

>Here's to the Horse!
>
>July 19, 2002
>By MICHAEL WINES
>
>
>
>
>
>
>TEO-ASHOO PASS, Kyrgyzstan - Got horse milk?
>
>Nogoy Raspayev does. Perched on a rock 11,000 feet up the
>Talass Alatoo Mountains, oblivious to a wind-whipped
>drizzle whirling from clouds a few feet above his head, he
>lifts a bowl to his mouth, drinks deeply and practically
>belches an emphatic "Ahhhh!" He licks his lips.
>
>Then he does it all over again.
>
>If you were Kyrgyz, you
>would, too. Horse milk is tasty enough - thick, foamy and
>so much sweeter than cow's milk that even a single cup
>seems leavened with spoonsful of sugar. More important,
>though, is that horse milk can be fermented to make kumiss,
>the de facto national beverage.
>
>Mr. Raspayev was drinking kumiss. Pleasurable as it was,
>the delight will only wax as the summer wanes.
>
>"It all depends on the quality of the grass," one of Mr.
>Raspayev's granddaughters, Baktogul Raspayeva, 20, said.
>"In fall, when the grass is drier, the kumiss becomes even
>stronger."
>
>It only figures that Kyrgyz folk would favor fermented
>horse milk instead of, say, the fermented camel's milk that
>is popular in neighboring Kazakhstan. Horses are a staple
>in rural Kyrgyzstan - part sport utility vehicle, part
>blue-chip investment, part quadruped restaurant. People
>commute on them, herd sheep with them, breed and sell them,
>and, frequently, they eat them.
>
>They also milk horses, which is what several of Mr.
>Raspayev's nine grandchildren were doing this afternoon in
>this near-vertical rise of grassland only yards below
>Teo-Ashoo Pass, a high mountain gap that was part of the
>original Silk Road.
>
>Roughly translated, Teo-Ashoo means "camel pass," not
>because camels make the trip - though once they surely did
>- but because it threads two dromedarylike humps of the
>mountain range.
>
>Here the Raspayev clan and its patriarch, 70-year-old Nogoy
>Raspayev, spend the summer with herds of horses and sheep,
>living in two cone-shaped yurts hauled up from the Susamyr
>Valley some 2,000 feet beneath them. Like kumiss itself,
>this is part of a centuries-old tradition that neither the
>Communist straitjacket nor libertine Western culture have
>managed to strangle.
>
>"The pastures are better here," said Mr. Raspayev, a gruff,
>rheumy-eyed fellow whose roundish features are accented by
>a gray Fu Manchu mustache and a ring of fur for a hat.
>"It's cool, and there's a lot of grass."
>
>Mr. Raspayev is a lifetime herder. In Communist times, he
>worked on a collective farm on the northern side of the
>Talass Alatoo range, a row of saw-tooth peaks and
>commanding vistas that is one of the more knee-buckling
>sights in a staggeringly beautiful land.
>
>Back then, he took the collective's herd, plus a few horses
>of his own, to summer in the heights on the northern side.
>But after Kyrgyzstan became independent in 1991, he moved
>with his son, daughter-in-law and their children to his
>birthplace on the southern side, in the Susamyr Valley.
>
>There the Raspayevs built their own herd of 10 horses and
>50 sheep. In each of the last four Junes, they have moved
>the herd, plus a dozen horses and 150 sheep owned by
>relatives, from the valley floor to these steep pastures,
>returning to the valley after August's heat has passed.
>
>Though he misses the Soviet days of a guaranteed bread
>ration and lifetime job security, Mr. Raspayev's transition
>to capitalist herdsman appears to have been smooth. "This
>is better," he said. "You breed your own horses, you sell
>your own horses. You make kumiss, you sell kumiss. But you
>have to pay taxes."
>
>The Raspayevs make kumiss in the big yurt that serves as
>their living room and guesthouse. By the door stands a
>barrel-sized bag made of cowhide - a kumiss churn, with a
>well-worn stick jutting from the top.
>
>Making kumiss is a bit like making sourdough bread,
>Baktogul Raspayeva, the granddaughter, said: one needs a
>bit of starter, left in the bag from the last batch. From
>there, the recipe is straightforward enough: pour in some
>two-and-a-half gallons of horse milk; add maybe a
>half-gallon of water and some cow butter to keep the
>leather supple. Churn 500 times. Wait overnight, then
>repeat the whole process for four days.
>
>On the last evening, churn 5,000 times, until it begins to
>curdle. Voilá: kumiss, a watery white beverage flecked with
>brown bits of horse-milk fat. The taste is sour, but not
>unpleasant, with a tang reminiscent of a good pickle brine.
>
>
>Ordinary kumiss is about 10 percent alcohol, or roughly the
>strength of wine. But kumiss-making also produces a smaller
>quantity of fermented whey, a clear liquid that rises to
>the top and can be drawn off for separate enjoyment.
>
>The whey is way stronger - more than 30 percent alcohol,
>close to the punch of the Russian vodka, which is also
>drunk here.
>
>There is no legal age for consumption of kumiss. "Children
>begin with small quantities," said Baktogul Raspayeva.
>"Then after a while, they can drink it all day long."
>
>Should you have a hankering for fresh kumiss, take the main
>road south from Kyrgyzstan's capital, Bishkek, to the
>Teo-Ashoo Pass, about three hours by car. Head through the
>tunnel at the top of the mountain, and stop at the first
>two yurts on the other side.
>
>Mr. Raspayev will draw you a bowl of his best. Use it to
>wash down some of the clan's homemade horse sausage. For
>150 son, or about $3.25, he will happily sell you a kilo.
>
>"It's the best part of the horse," he said.
>
>
>http://www.nytimes.com/2002/07/19/international/19KYRG.html?ex=1028084967&ei=1&en=7857511be77f63ef
>
>
>
>For general information about NYTimes.com, write to
>help at nytimes.com.
>
>Copyright 2002 The New York Times Company