[Sca-cooks] Mongolian BBQ

[Philip & Susan Troy]

Also sprach Susan Fox-Davis:
>Yup, same thing.  "Stir Crazy" - great name!  I want to find out where to get
>one of those grills and bring it to wars.  It'd be the hip happening place to
>be, that's for sure!  But how "Mongolian" is it really?  How far back does the
>technique go?

I _think_ it is part of the cuisine of the area around Beijing
(excuse me, that's Peking or Bakping to us around here), and
traditionally associated with various nomadic groups of Northern and
Western China. In other words, I suspect that, even if it is not in
fact Mongolian, the Qing Dynasty Chinese probably thought it was, and
the Qing rulers were themselves originally Tartars.

The cooking method is fairly consistent with using the kind of fuel
in the kind of quantities you'd encounter in the desert, mostly
hot-but-quick burning plant growth, dried leaves, dried animal
droppings, etc. You'd want a cooking method that holds in the heat,
but also a food prep method that cooks quickly. (A utensil similar to
your average Mongolian Barbecue gizmo is sometimes used to bake
flatbreads in the Middle East, looking suspiciously like an inverted
wok over a fire -- the bread goes on top.)

Given that it is considered traditional to eat wheat breads and
noodles with "Mongolian Barbecue" (at least in the Far East; I can't
speak for the places in the US), accompany the meal with arrak or
vodka, and even, in northern China, I'm told, adopt a traditional
_pose_ while eating (you stand with one foot propped up on a stool,
kinda like the railing at a bar), it suggests nomadic origins in
Central Asia.

Adamantius