Tsagaan Sar Part II

In the years I lived in Mongolia, I only experienced Tsagaan Sar a couple of times since it often coincided with an annual conference I had to attend in Thailand. Thus, I'm not an authority on the holiday, merely an observer.

Tsagaan Sar is technically a three day holiday plus a "Tsagaan Sar" eve of sorts. From what I have heard the length of actual celebration is directly proportional to how urban/rural your location is. Thus, in UB your holiday might only last a couple days, in the deep countryside you might receive visitors for a week or a month. The official date for Tsagaan Sar is often chosen by the lamas based upon the lunar calendar. Some years they agree, and some years they don't and the President tries to resolve the issue. At any rate, it is hard to be certain of the correct dates until as little as a month beforehand.

Tsagaan Sar is the start of a new year and a special importance is placed on new things. One of my students once told me that it is common for families to try and purchase something new for their home. Also, if time and finances permit, new dels (traditional Mongolian clothing) will be sewn and worn for the celebration of Tsagaan Sar.



The grandpa in this picture is wearing an everyday sort of del. Some fancier ones are made of silk, or sometimes leather.

It seems that a large percentage of Mongolian women dislike this holiday because of the insane amount of preparation it requires. Because this holiday revolves around visiting and greeting friends and family, and because lots and lots of buuz (and salad) will be served, each family must be prepared.



Some families must make as many as 3000 buuz (which they prepare ahead of time and keep frozen on their balcony if the weather stays cold enough). The norm is probably between 500-1000 buuz per family. Also, when visitors come to your home, you give them small gifts: shampoo, socks, money, etc; this also requires advanced preparation. At each and every house you visit, you are expected to eat.



In addition to buuz and various salads, some families have a sheep back (boiled?) on the table for you to nibble on.



Also on the table is usually a carefully stacked pile of special "bread" as well as sugar cubes and candy. I have been told that the sweets place on it should be white. As evidenced by the two thermoses on the table, there is always plenty of milk tea to drink.

Odds and Ends...

First things first: We managed to find fresh lemongrass and galangal (Siamese ginger). Yay!

What have we been doing besides hunting for Thai produce? We've been doing a little renovation on our soon-to-be home:

Before

Now

There is plenty more work to be done, but at least we've made some visible progress. We are both job hunting though, and the actual procuring of employment might slow the apartment progress... until then, it's full steam ahead!

A Bit of Culture Shock...

The chances are that this year will be fraught with episodes, small and large, of reverse culture shock. It's pretty much a given when you've spent seven years living and working in a foreign, very foreign, country. It's unpredictable and wily and likely to sneak up on you in the middle of a conversation or in the aisles of your local grocery store. In fact, it's such a devious and insidious thing that you usually don't realize what is causing your confusion/watering eyes/sharp response/fill in the blank...

Case in point: Yesterday I was at the store. Exciting, eh? I wanted to find some seasonings for cooking, particularly for making Thai food. I have to tell you something shocking: it was easier to do this in MONGOLIA. That's right; here, in the USA (the "land of plenty" as people sometimes say) the only thing I found was "Thai seasoning" which, when I turned it over to read the ingredients, claimed to be made mostly of "chili peppers & other seasonings". How is one to know if it contains the Thai staples of Kaffir lime, lemon grass, or galangal? What exactly is Thai about "& other seasonings", and why do I have to pay $5 to find out? I just wanted some comfort food in the form of Tom Ka Gai (chicken and coconut soup). Anyway... it wasn't exactly rational of me to be upset at the seasonings aisle, but I was. Blame it on culture shock.

Maybe I should try to make some Mongolian tsuivan instead. Fewer seasonings involved. Now I'll cheer up and post some wedding pictures.

Thing #7

What's not to love about these fruit and food posters you find in most kitchens?

Thing #3

It's fun to buy butter by the kilo in a plastic bag... but what's even more fun is asking to taste it first. Rancid butter is a no-no!

Happy Thanksgiving

I decided that Thanksgiving was the perfect time to start posting again, and since Thanksgiving is always on a Thursday (those of you needing a little practice with “th” pronunciation and those of you who can never remember when Thanksgiving really is, repeat after me: Thanksgiving is always on the fourth Thursday of the eleventh month.) I thought a Thursday Thirteen would also be appropriate. So here you go—Thirteen things that I’m thankful for here in Mongolia…
1. Snow on Monday and Wednesday this week, but not Tuesday. If it had snowed Tuesday I wouldn’t have been able to fly home from the aimag where I’d been teaching a seminar. This way I get the beauty of the snow without the messed up travel plans.
2. I’m thankful that I just had the opportunity to visit my friends and students in the town I used to live in.
3. My apartment, in spite of the over abundance of carpets (more than seven in the living room alone—on the walls, on the furniture, on the floor…) and despite the fact that the only thing coming out of the taps this time of year is liquid ice…which brings me to point number three.
4. I’m thankful for boil-coils and for hot water in the radiators. For those of you residing in countries and cities with hot tap water, I’d better acquaint you with boil-coils. They look like this and are basically an exposed heating coil. Not only do they heat your bath water to an acceptable temperature, but they also can give you an adrenaline rush as you flirt with electrocution (should you forget to unplug it before testing the water temperature).
5. The jar of peanut butter in my fridge and the Girl Scout cookies on my table. Yum! Plus, one can justify eating lots of foods like this in the winter in the name of “keeping warm”!
6. Layers of clothing and my cozy down coat… Even though the layers and coat make me feel decidedly unglamorous, they do keep me comfortably warm.
7. As much as I dislike the cold and the winter, I’m thankful for it because it makes things like spotting the first green blade of grass in May so very exciting.
8. I know I’ve talked about scotch tape before, but I just want to say again how much I use it! It works as an art supply, it works for fixing things, it works for putting up stuff in the classroom, it works for taping things to students foreheads, it works for picking up cat fur off the carpet… Yes, I am thankful for the abundance and cheapness of scotch in this country.
9. Students who are eager to learn are another thing I’m thankful for. I’ve had classes with people who didn’t really want to be there, and so I know how special it is that my students this year want to learn and are eager to participate.
10. Teammates and co-workers who have welcomed me and accepted me here in my new town. Not only that, but they like to have fun and can be silly. Case in point: the “occasion elephants”.
These lovely candle holders were given to two of my coworkers as gifts last year…and now we make sure that they show up at all of our special team occasions. Isn’t tradition great?
11. A playmate for Tom my cat: For five years, Tom was only ever in contact with people, and as a result developed a rather skewed view of himself. Here in our new place, he has two cats in close proximity that he can hang out with. He pretends that he hates playing with others, but then I see him get a gleam in his eye as he eggs his fellow felines on.
12. Good nights of sleep—with my down comforter. Self-explanatory.
13. Fun Thanksgiving celebrations with students, that of course includes the Thanksgiving tradition of gift giving. Our festivities were complete with the reading of Thanksgiving essays, a play, and lots and lots of yummy food.
13.5 Mongolian potato salad. Yum! (available in abundant quantities at the festivities mentioned in point 13.)

Khuushuur-muushuur

One question that I get asked a lot by both Americans in the States, and by Mongolians, is about what I eat in Mongolia. Inevitably this is followed by, “Can you cook Mongolian food?” If you say yes, and then your Mongolian friends may ask you to help them cook some buuz or huushuur, or other such meat and dough dish, at which point, they’ll realize that you cook at about the level of a Mongolian seven year-old (because you lack the dough rolling and pinching skills that people here seem to be born with). Case in point: Phil’s Mongolia-shaped huushuur— which, although it looks nothing like a Mongolian’s huushuur, is great for teaching geography.(Key cities have been labled for your benefit.)


If you say no, that you can’t make Mongolian food, you cause your Mongolian friends to worry because they are likely to think that if you can’t make Mongolian food, you obviously can’t cook, which means that you must be starving! I’ve had to reassure many people that I can indeed cook noodles and soup and meat.

Making Spaghetti

I discovered that I could make spaghetti when I was in college, so it was ironic that today, while I was making spaghetti, Danielle told me I looked like a college girl. Perhaps it was the super high ponytail (necessitated by an unfortunate overly layered haircut) Or perhaps it was the Wheaton sweatshirt (necessitated by my notoriously messy spaghetti making. I actually got the sweatshirt right here in Mongolia from another Wheaton grad.) Who knows…

Anyway, as I was cooking the aforementioned spaghetti, while apparently looking like a college student (yes, I think I’ve finally hit the age where I take that as a compliment) I was thinking about how many places my ingredients came from. Tomato paste from Italy, oil and bay leaves from Russia, Garlic from China, Onions from Mongolia, the ground meat (horse, because it is the cheapest, that we ground ourselves) from right here in our province. Other seasonings had to be brought from UB, Thailand, China, and the States. The pasta we’ll eat with the sauce came from Italy but was originally meant to be sold in Japan (all the ingredients and instructions on the back are in Japanese and not the usual four or five other languages). What’s in your spaghetti?

A Random Assortment...

Olympics: There was actually a Mongolian news crew present at the 2006 Olympics in Italy. In fact, there were probably more Mongolians present there to report on the events rather than participate in the sports. This time around the Mongolian athletes didn’t do so well (in the biathlon, I think, or maybe it was cross-country skiing), but we’ll be back in ’08 with some excellent wrestlers, I’m sure! Back to the news crew… It was really fun to see them interview athletes in both Russian and English (of course it was then loosely dubbed over in Mongolian). I particularly enjoyed the commentary about various athletes because it gave me lots of practice with numbers—height, weight, birthday, etc.

Olympics (academic): Not a big fan. I may or may not delve more into this topic at a later date. At present I need to finish writing a test for the (secondary school) English Olympics, which will be held this coming week in my town.

Nephews: Maybe I’m biased, but I really think that my nephew is actually getting cuter as he ages—and he was a cute baby to start with! I cannot wait to hang out with the monkey this summer.


Milk: I find it strange that in the land of meat and dairy products I had to go to seven stores today before I found milk. Seven!

Lights and Leakage: I finally replaced light bulbs and put the light fixtures in our bathroom back in place today. New year’s morning we’d woken up to find water dripping out of the light fixtures that are in the drop ceiling in our bathroom. This time it wasn’t even the result of the people upstairs flooding their bathroom—rather it was due to warm weather and melting snow. On January first. In Mongolia. (Have I mentioned that the weather has been strange this year?) Unfortunately, the people who live below us are also having light fixture issues. It seems to be a yearly occurrence that while we are in Thailand, our apartment will have some plumbing issue and will flood the apartment below us. Last year our kitchen sink decided to back up and over flow—even though it hadn’t been used in a month. This year a pipe in our bathroom decided to develop a hole and become a geyser. Needless to say, the people downstairs don’t like us much—even though none of the water leakage has actually been our fault.

You might be in Mongolia if...11-20

(1-10 can be found in a previous post)

11. You associate the word “Olympics” with academic test giving.
12. You think bell peppers, cucumbers, and tomatoes are exotic vegetables. (And just in case anyone out there is feeling persnickety—I am well aware that the tomato is technically a fruit.)
13. You know that the difference between “beefshteak” and “cutlet” is the presence or absence of a fried egg on top.
14. Spring is now your least favorite season.
15. You had a choice of watching the 2006 Olympics in Russian, Chinese, or Mongolian.
16. You are well acquainted with the “Numa Numa” song. (Of course, I’ve heard that it was #1 in 27 other countries, too…I think it is actually by a Romanian group.)
17. You can buy music in the food section of your market—perhaps even from the same counter that sells “sausage”.
18. All big events in your town take place at the Wrestling Palace… Or, for that matter, if your town even has a Wrestling Palace.
19. You don’t live in Japan yet, on a regular basis, you can watch sumo wrestling on TV.
20. When reading and writing in English you mix g’s and d’s, p’s and r’s, y’s and u’s, H’s and n’s, B’s and v’s.

You might be in Mongolia if...

1. You have a picture of Chinggis Khan (Genghis Khan) on your wall.
2. You slip up and call your cell phone a “hand phone” when speaking in English.
3. You guard your peanut butter with your life.
4. It got dark today before 5pm.
5. You’ve seen a camel cart on the street in the last two days.
6. You consider 32 degrees Fahrenheit (0 degrees Celsius) to be warm for this time of year.
7. You think that pink, blue, or green walls and orange floors are normal.
8. The appearance of or lack of hot water determines when you bathe.
9. You have a collection of graph-paper notebooks, used for a wide range of things, that sport covers ranging from Harry Potter to Korean stars to cars to wildlife.
10. You are disappointed at the warm winter weather because it means you can’t use your balcony as a walk-in freezer.

Thankful for food...

There are some areas in which I’ve become a stickler for tradition—one of them is Thanksgiving food. Thanksgiving, in my mind, is embodied by family and food; I can’t have the family since the Pacific Ocean and a lot of land separate us, so I better have the food! Since Thanksgiving is this week I thought I'd tell you about our menu--which we'll be enjoying Saturday since Thursday is a normal work day in this part of the world...

Chicken Legs: It would be near impossible to find a turkey here so we settle for the nearly equally rare chicken legs. This is my first year to have to cook them; I’m a bit nervous!

Cranberry Sauce: Sent across the Pacific by special request, it helps complete the holiday.

Fruit Salad: When I was a kid we always had a fruit salad that included coconut and baby marshmallows; over the past few years here I’ve stumbled upon a canned fruit mix that, when mixed with yogurt, marshmallows, and coconut (the latter two being from the States) makes quite a good substitute for the salad of my childhood.

Green Bean Casserole: For some bizarre reason, the past few years we’ve been able to buy canned green beans in one of the stores here in town. Cream of mushroom “whatever you happen to have on hand” soup is really easy to make from scratch, and my parents have been so kind as to send the necessary fried onions for the top. Yum! This year, although we’ve already got the onions, we haven’t yet been able to find green beans. There is one other place in town I can check—otherwise we’ll have to fill the casserole with something else!

Green Salad: This one is a bit less normal—the only green leafy thing here is cabbage, so sometimes we settle for a tray of veggies (cucumber, bell peppers—if they are being sold at the market, carrots)

Jello Salad: A nod to the mid-westerners in our crew; it’s a tasty mix of jello and fruit.

Mashed potatoes: not a problem since potatoes are so abundant here.

Rolls: Of course they have to be made from scratch here, but when you live in a place like Mongolia, you learn how to do things like that…

Stuffing: It could be made from scratch but the lovely mix my parents sent tastes so good!

And for dessert we’ll have Pumpkin and Apple pies. Yum!

So you see, we manage to be fairly traditional even out in the middle of Mongolia.

P.S. You'll all be relieved, I'm sure, to hear that the trial run for cooking chicken went smoothly and was delicious! (Okay, so it really was just another excuse to eat valuable chicken...but it was still good!) AND, drum roll please, on my hundredth lap around town I finally found green beans; so we get to have our lovely casserole tomorrow after all.

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.

A little more about food

Having grown up in California, I love fruit and vegetables. In my town in Mongolia, I can buy potatoes, carrots, turnips, beets, cabbage, onions, garlic, and, on occasion, tomatoes and cucumbers. Apples can be bought year-round and at three or four points in the year I can get kiwis, bananas, grapes, mandarins and nectarines. I would say, that aside from my family, and from basic lifestyle changes, the thing I miss the most is variety in food. If I decide that I want a lettuce salad, I'm out of luck. If I decide that I want Mexican food, I have to make it with whatever resources I can find. It is a challenge, but it can also be fun. Living in Mongolia has done wonders for my cooking skills!

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.