Kyrgyzstan
Snow-kissed mountains painted green with grasses, trees, and shrubs. Horses, sheep, and goats roaming. Nomads’ tents and yurts, rivers, and deep aquamarine lakes. Amidst this beauty, we dine in a run-down truck-stop restaurant.
“I need to eat,” Andrew says. “My blood sugar level’s crashing.”
After yesterday’s Imodium diet, Team Dinosaur is tired and grumpy. We order manty and pilaf. Beside us, thugged-out twentysomethings watch porn on their fancy cell phones.
The manty are oversteamed, old, and greasy, as is the pilaf. It’s topped by crunchy meat of questionable origin. Is it goat? Sheep? Horse? The sullen waitress ignores our inquiries, which is probably best.
After lunch we continue cruising through the mountainous region. Nomadic tents increase in frequency and clusters, most fronted by makeshift stands selling kumis (fermented horse milk) cured in animal skins. I need not experience that acrid, bubbly brew again.
What interests me more are pinkie-size bricks that appear to be made out of the stuff that’s inside malted milk balls. I walk up to a woman wearing a vibrant purple dress and a green headband. Her front four teeth are fake, which she demonstrates by disconcertingly sliding them around her mouth while talking.
She tries to sell me a bowl of milky liquid, which looks suspiciously like the sour goat milk I despise. But I do buy several bricks for five soms (less than a penny).
“Moo?” I ask. Thankfully, animal sounds are universal. I’m guessing it’s milk curds.
The woman nods. “Aaruul.”
Mims and I take a bite of one brick. It’s as dry as chalk and tastes like sour Parmesan.
“All the moisture has been sucked from my mouth,” Mims says.
Wow! The translation job on that Mongolian tourism website you linked is pretty remarkable.
“Airag is Mongolian traditional drink. Rural people making summer time in it. 1000-3000 times bit it in cow’ skin bag. (leader bag) Mongolian people used to airag in Naadam festival, wedding, New year and others. Some people can drink 2-3 letre one sit. Airag has included 7-8% of alcohol. So you will drink a lot of airag maybe you hang over. Airag is Mongolian respect and safely drink so you never to spit and drop it outside.”
It’s oddly touching that they care enough about luring western travelers that they’d go to the trouble of translating all that stuff into [terrible] English.
You really should have added this quote, from your linked page,,,;)
“Aaruul: specialist believe that aaruul is one of the factors responsible for the Mongol’s strong and healthy teeth. Aaruul is curdled milk, dehydrated and thoroughly dried in the air and sun. The remarkable thing is that there is practically no limit to it’s slowly life.”
It’s really an acquired taste, so it probably won’t make much difference to MOngl Ralliers, but I must say that Autumn is the season for airag (kumis) and freshly made stuff in an open container in a nomad’s yurt in season is million times better than the store bought stuff that comes in a bottle (airag is highly unstable so the shelf life is very short, and they probably add preservatives and water to the commercial stuff) – the difference is like between good and bad wine. The best stuff though no money can buy – nomads usually save it for themselves or honorable guests, so you have to earn friendship and respect for the best airag out there.
Re: aaruul, there are sour and hard kinds and there are sweet and soft ones, shapes and tastes vary from region to region…
I just joined in on the adventures here and am fascinated. Keep the comments coming…and thanks!
Your lead sums up my experience in Kyrgyzstan well. The country is staggeringly beautiful but it’s hardly a culinary destination. That said, I was amazed with how willing the Kyrgyz people shared their food when they have so little. Here’s the link to a story I wrote with photos from Osh and Jalalabad. I didn’t get to try aaruul, but I did get the opportunity to dine with the Kyrgyz. What an experience!
http://angelasfoodlove.blogspot.com/
I’m new to posting on Chow and didn’t realize that posting a link to a story I wrote on the same topic was prohibited. Is there any way to delete postings? Sorry!
Angela