Meat and Milk

Like much of Mongolian culture, Mongolian food reflects the nomadic and herding lifestyle which is still common today. In terms of food this means mainly 2 things-meat and milk. Mongolians love meat-mutton and beef is the most common. I have been served mutton with rice mixed with mutton as a side dish and soup of potatoes and mutton. Milk curd, yogurt, fermented mares milk, milk tea, and milk candies were all offered to me in shows of overwhelming hospitality in my host family, the middle school I visited, and the herding families the students interviewed as part of the student newspaper.


There are also a few fire and ice type “Mongolian BBQ” restaurants where you put your meat, veggies, noodles, and sauce, in a bowl and bring it up to a big circular grill. I tried horse at one of these. I also literally screamed (not my proudest moment) when I lifted the top of a buffest tray to find an entire goat head staring at me.



When we stayed at the Nairmandal children’s camp we ate mainly Korean breakfast because we were with Korean teachers. This was mainly rice, kim chi, eggs, and cured meat. In a very kind effort to serve something the Americans would like they also served cocoa puffs-and this made me very happy.

That's the goat head!