In His Footsteps: Mongolia - What the Mongols Ate

Tracy · In His Footsteps: Mongolia - What the Mongols Ate

From http://www.westonaprice.org/ihf/mongolia.html

Some highlights:

"In autumn, when the grass is of poorest description, the sheep fatten wonderfully, and the fatter the better for the Mongol taste. They have a remarkable way of killing their sheep: they slit up the creature's stomach, thrust their hand in, and seize hold of the heart, squeezing it till the animal dies. No part of the slaughtered animal is wasted, but everything is eaten up with the utmost relish."

"Tea and milk constitute the chief food of the Mongols all the year round, but they are equally fond of mutton. The highest praise they can bestow on any food is to say that it is ‘as good as mutton.' Sheep, like camels, are sacred; indeed all their domestic animals are emblems of some good qualities. The favorite part is the tail, which is pure fat."

"The gluttony of this people exceeds all description. A Mongol will eat more than ten pounds of meat at one sitting, but some have been known to devour an average-sized sheep in twenty-four hours! On a journey, when provisions are economized, a leg of mutton is the ordinary daily ration for one man, and although he can live for days without food, yet, when once he gets it, he will eat enough for seven."

"On a winter's journey, when the frozen meat requires extra time for cooking, they eat it half raw, slicing off pieces from the surface, and returning it again to the pot."

"On special occasions they eat the flesh of goats and horses; beef rarely, and camels' flesh more rarely still. The lamas will touch none of this meat, but have no objection to carrion, particularly if the dead animal is at all fat. They do not habitually eat bread, but they will not refuse Chinese loaves, and sometimes bake wheaten cakes themselves. Near the Russian frontier they will even eat black bread, but further into the interior they do not know what it is, and those to whom we gave rusks, made of rye flour, to taste, remarked that there was nothing nice about such food as that, which only jarred the teeth."

For our next contest, I wanna be on the Mongol team ;)

Sol

wifezilla

Tracy

I love too that their hygeine was disgusting (at least as far as "civilized" folk are considered) but they were healthy and strong regardless. Germs are our friends :) Though I don't think I'd be going as far as the Mongols did, strapping meat to the underside of a camel and eating it, hair and dirt and all.

Cody

Ok, so this is only loosely related, but a Russian made movie called Mongol came out recently, about the life of Genghis Khan. It was really good.

Heather

Cody

I read that the mongols would milk their horses and make curd out of it, all while STILL RIDING THE HORSE!