Warning: semi-graphic content do not read if you love horses!

Horse intestines have a variety of textures--chewy, squishy, tough, tender...it all depends upon what part of the intestine you are eating and how it was prepared. The flavor is a little gamey but not bad

As for the white blood sausage...I was so puzzled when my student told me what they were that I asked her repeatedly to explain how they were made. What she told me is that when left for a certain amount of time, horse blood separates: red and white. The white portion is then put into a cleaned out portion of the intestines and boiled or steamed (I'm unsure which she meant). It has a smooth, gelatinous texture and a mild flavor. The most difficult thing about eating WB sausage is the fact that it is what it is.

Eating unusual foods is part of life when you live in a foreign country. At home I can cook what I want (provided I can come up with the ingredients) when I go to someone's home I need to eat what they serve me or risk offending them.

I haven't come across any desserts here that are genuinely Mongolian, however they have adopted some things from other countries. There is now an abundance of hard candy in Mongolia, and people here will often serve store-bought cakes (perhaps brought from the capital or Russia a week before) for special occasions. I am dreaming of the day that someone learns to make a moist chocolate cake with good frosting. In the meantime, cake, for me, is something that nightmares are made of.

Food

The two main ingredients of food in Mongolia are meat and dough. There is an abundance of meat in Mongolia, although in recent years the price has been increasing. The type of meat that you can buy varies from place to place. In my town we can buy beef, mutton (sheep meat), some goat, and horse. In some parts of Mongolia you can buy camel and yak meat, too. The dough is simply made from flour and water. A variety of Mongolian foods are made with meat and dough (and occasional other ingredients).


Buuz, the kind of dumpling shown above (with a pickled salad), are made of meat, fat, onion, a little salt, and a little water wrapped in dough and then steamed.


Bansh, above, contain the same ingredients as buuz, but they are smaller and are pinched differently. Bansh are generally cooked in soup.

If you used the same ingredients again but made the dumpling flatter (sort of like a quesadilla) and fried it, it would be called huushuur. If you cut up the dough like fat noodles and stirfried some meat and root vegetables (carrots, turnips, potatoes) and then cooked it all together, it would be called Tsuivan. Tsuivan is my absolute favorite Mongolian food and is best when topped with a slightly spicy Russian ketchup.

Mongolians also eat a lot of soup, although, I should warn you that even vegetable soup in Mongolia must contain meat or it wouldn't be considered a real meal. Rice stirfried with meat and some root veggies is also a common meal.


Some of the different ethnic groups in Mongolia have different foods as well. One of my friends, who is a Buriat, served me this meal of horse intestines, white blood sausage, and beet salad.

Altargana

Welcome to Altargana, the Buriat version of Naadam (a Mongolian festival held every July). As for Altargana, the story goes that about 12 years ago, some Buriats from Mongolia, Russian, and China got together and, seeing a need for more interaction and celebration between the Buriats scattered across the region, it was decided that they should have a festival every two years. And, because the Nadaam festival of Mongolia is such a smashing success, and because Buriats and Mongolians are very closely related and so presumably have very similar athletic traditons, it was decided that Altargana would consist of the same three "Manly Sports" as Nadaam: Archery, wrestling, and horse-racing. It should be pointed out that women or girls may participate in two of the three "Manly Sports". These archers were marching in the opening parade of Altargana. They are wearing traditional Buriat clothing, which has some distinct differences from the traditional clothing of most other Mongolian tribes.