Mongolian food – carbs, yoghurt, and fat

Home-cooked Mongolian food is usually a mix of different carbohydrates. I haven’t eaten fruit in the past 2 weeks. On the first day at my host family I ate grapes, peaches, and an apple. Since then – no fruit. But then again, that may be my fault as well. I’m too nervous/scared to ask/tell my host family what I would prefer to eat. I just eat what they put in front of me. If I don’t like something, then I just don’t eat a lot of it – silently indicating that I don’t like the food. However, I haven’t come across any dish that I dislike enough not to eat a good portion of it. Here’s what I’ve eaten within the past few days:

Yesterday:

• Breakfast – “The usual” 2.5 pieces of white bread spread with opom and sugar
• Lunch – Noodle dish with a few pieces of meat and fat; water from my distiller
• Dinner – Boiled eggs with green onion; water from my distiller
• After dinner snack – Yogurt, 1 piece of white bread with opom
• Before bed – A glass of warm milk

The day before:

• Breakfast – MN “French Toast” – Eggs & green onion fried around bread; Instant coffee
• Lunch – Rice soup; water from my distiller
• Dinner – 2 pieces of white bread with butter and jam; Noodle soup
• After dinner snack – Yogurt

The day before the day before:

• Breakfast – MN “French Toast – w/o the green onions
• Lunch – Rice dish with a few pieces of meat
• Dinner – Rice soup; a piece of MN chocolate

My favorite Mongolian food: fresh yogurt and opom

From what I’ve experienced, Mongolian food is usually served hot, if not near boiling. My family thinks I’m funny for drinking room temperature water in my Nalgene bottle at every meal. My host family claims that cold water makes me tired; I have to disagree. Typical Mongolian foods are:

• Hosher – Like an American hot pocket, with meat, fat, and various vegetables
• Boat – Like a dumpling, but much bigger. Most have meat and fat inside. Boats can be found in soup or standing alone. Bagh 1 had a boat-making dinner last night. Check out my boat:

Photo of boats made by Americans

• Soup – Flour soup, noodle soup, rice soup
• Fried … - Fried potatoes, fried vegetables, fried rice, fried noodles
• Fresh yogurt! – My favorite. My mom buys fresh cow milk from a neighbor, then makes her own yogurt – so good! Mongolians put sugar or jam in yogurt. It is delicious plain, or with sugar and/or jam.
• Opom – A spread that is made from cows’ milk. I think opom is the stage after yogurt, more curdled. Another one of my favorites. My mom makes opom fresh, too.
• Arriel – Not sure how to describe it – it is hardened yogurt -> opom -> arriel
• Candy – A candy bowl is offered to guests, it’s polite to take some
• Meat fat – it’s a special food here. many people like to eat it
• Many more… I’m sure I’m forgetting, I’ll fill you in later

Check out Flickr for more photos of MN food.

In Ulaanbaatar (the capitol), I can get a wide variety of foods at restaurants and grocery stores – but who knows when I will ever travel there. Plus, the Western food will be well out of my Peace Corps budget. Even if I was in UB, I probably wouldn’t be able to afford the Western food. Also, in larger aimag centres there is a wide variety of food. When I’m in Darkhan next week, I’ll be filling up on non-carb-y food and spicy food.

Many business centres that employ Peace Corps business and health volunteers have begun to emphasize growing new and different crops in MN. Vegetables like broccoli, lettuce, etc… have been newly recognized in MN as vegetables. Along with the introduction of new veggies – new recipes and health classes have been offered. The seeds originally come from America and the MN farmers buy them. However, now MNs have begun seeding their own plants.

Last night Bagh 1 had a dinner get-together at Zaneta’s house. Instead of language class in the afternoon, we took a trip to the market with our language teachers. We made our own boat recipe, created a budget for the ingredients, went to the market, and bought everything – talking in MN! It was fun. We went to Zaneta’s house to make 100+ boats, which took over 3.5 hours. We had a boat feast! We made 3 different types of boats: meat, veggie, and rice.

Check out Flickr to see photos from the boat-making party.

Making a Mongolian traditional dish: boats

I guess the MN food posting isn’t that interesting to you, or is it? What do you want to know about MN? I’ll try to post more interesting things that I’ve learned within my cross-cultural class. The next post will showcase a few Mongolian political cartoons.