Fw: Paul D. Buell on Tea Meal was: Fw: [Sca-cooks] Re: Sca-cooks digest, Vol 1 #2334 - 12 msgs

[Phil Troy/ G. Tacitus Adamantius]

>----- Original Message -----
>From: "Paul D. Buell" <>
>To: "Phlip" <phlip at 99main.com>
>Sent: Thursday, August 29, 2002 11:52 PM
>Subject: Re: Paul D. Buell on Tea Meal was: Fw: [Sca-cooks] Re: Sca-cooks
>digest, Vol 1 #2334 - 12 msgs
>  > I live in Washington State; no camels, except in the zoo. Well, maybe in
>>  Eastern Washington.
>>
>>  Cow and goat or ewe milk will not work very well. The needed sugar is
>mostly
>>  lacking in the milks. You need six lactating mares, by the way, to keep
>one
>>  nomad drinking in kumiss during the summer.
>>
>>  Milking mares, by the way, I am told is a LOT of work. Camels are even
>more
>>  fun since they are big and like to kick people in the head.
>>
>  > Paul

<snip>

>  > > > >  If its Mongol food the beverage choices
>>  > > > > would be a) kumiss, the preferred drink, b) a sharbat, probably
>>  > > > > non-alcoholic but fermented ones were served as well, use a
>Persian
>  > > > > recipe,

<snip>

>  > > > > > excellent. However, in general, no self-respecting Mongol during
>the
>>  > period
>>  > > > > would have been without his kumiss. That was THE prestige food. If
>>  you
>>  > can't
>>  > > >
>  > > > > > get horse kumiss, use camel.

Hello!

Thanks, Phlip, for the forward!

Bearing in mind that text wrapping and quote marks may have me
confused as to who is saying what, I was interested in the kumiss
conversation.

I seem to recall that someone (was it William of Rubrick?) stated
that the various Mongol groups were also quite fond of mead, drinking
it in enormous quantities. I wonder if perhaps this is a
mistranslated reference to sharbats (both being honey based, at least
in part, and both being [sometimes] fermented).

But it does make a certain amount of sense, the idea that wild honey
is something a nomadic culture would become accustomed to using in
this way.

As regards kumiss, it's true that cow's milk is weak in fermentable
sugars (lactose being a heavier sugar yeasts can't easily deal with,
which is why we can have things like milk stout) compared to other
milks, specifically that of mares. I also understood that kefir was
what you get when you use camel's milk. I've tried commercial kefir,
which is a lot like buttermilk or even thinned-down yogurt, but I
have no information on whether commercial kefir bears any resemblance
to the real stuff made on the steppes. I suppose the differences
could also be attributed to different microbes at work, in creating a
cultured yogurt-y product rather than a fermented, alcoholic beverage
made from camel's milk.

Adamantius, who once made a faux kumiss by adding maltose to cow's
milk, to get a product at least vaguely fitting the descriptions...