[Sca-cooks] Any period Mongolian recipes out there?

Phil Troy / G. Tacitus Adamantius adamantius1 at verizon.net
Fri Aug 24 08:23:35 PDT 2007


On Aug 24, 2007, at 9:45 AM, KristiWhyKelly at aol.com wrote:

> No, I'm looking for Mongolian recipes.
>
> And the request was for rice or noodle dish.  And I was told by the
> requestor that _Soup_ was not a proper source for Mongolian  
> dishes.  So, if  I can find another period source I would be greatful.

The only thing I can think of is that your informant is drawing a  
distinction between the nomadic cookery of the Mongols, the whole  
kumiss-drinking, mare's-bloodletting lot of them ;-), and the court  
cookery of the Yuan dynasty... who were themselves Mongols. I mean,  
how much more Mongolian does it get than Kublai Khan? But if that's  
the distinction being drawn, I can see the point. On the other hand,  
if your informant about what is and isn't appropriate is sufficiently  
up on this rather obscure subject to make that claim, maybe they know  
about other Mongolian sources, apart from modern traditional  
Mongolian food.

My brother-in-law once attended a (for lack of a better term)  
barbecue in Mongolia, held by herdsmen using cooking methods hundreds  
of years old. The main dish was goat cooked in a milk can filled with  
heated stones, capped off and kicked around like a football for a few  
hours. Obviously this cooking method is very old and very  
traditional, but they were thrilled to find that my brother-in-law  
had a supply of American freeze-dried camper's entrees and soups,  
which he was glad to contribute and which they were glad to add to  
the milk can as "seasonings". Later in the evening the herdsmen  
suggested they all have a drink together, handed my brother-in-law a  
cup of something, and he asked something like, "What's this,  
kumiss?"  The herdsmen allowed as how kumiss wasn't bad, and they  
knew how to make it, but for preference, would take Russian vodka any  
time.

Sometimes traditions aren't very traditional...

Well, unfortunately, I'm not aware of a lot else, other than ASftQ,  
as a source for documentable period Mongolian recipes. You can get a  
very general sense of what they ate from sources like William of  
Rubrick. They probably weren't eating rice on the steppes, but they  
probably _were_ eating some form of wheat noodle or couscous-like  
processed grain food, probably in broth. There are also references to  
such noodle dishes in both Ni Tsan and ASftQ.

Adamantius

  



More information about the Sca-cooks mailing list