Mongolian food

As I see it there are three categories of food in Mongolia: (1) meat, (2) white foods (literal translation from the Mongolian, meaning dairy products) and (3) Russian-inspired food. These don't stay totally separate and do intersect from dish to dish.

(1) Meat.

Mongolians love meat. They love their animals but they have no problem eating them. The more fat, the better. The younger generation is starting to move away from fat a bit but they may just be telling me this to make me feel at ease when I pick the fat out.

I've asked students many times "What's your favourite food?" and inevitably the answer is buuz (steamed meat dumplings). Buuz is considered the national food and is a special occasion and any occasion food. A variation on buuz is huushuur. It's a deep-fried flat meat pancake. Think beavertail with meat inside. In canteens at lunch, I often see students and workers downing several huushuurs for lunch. Another lunch favourite is tsuivan; homemade noodles mixed with bits of carrots and cabbage and sprinkled with meat.

Meat is omnipresent in basically any dish in Mongolia. Even the salads have sausage bits. In cheaper canteens, there won't be as much meat in a dish such as tsuivan but there's still some.

(2) White foods.

These comprise of snacky things like dried milk curds and crusty butter and of the national drinks: salty milk tea and airag (fermented mare's milk). I love the tea but I could do without the mare's milk. Just recently, I tried a drink I had been avoiding for a while now: aarts. They call it a yogourt drink but it's not as pleasant as that. Think dry milk curds (some of you got to try those when you saw me in November) in hot water and mixed until the texture is fairly even but grainy. Yummy!

A popular meal is salty milk tea served in a bowl with meat dumplings. White foods are especially popular in the summer.

(3) Russian-inspired foods.

Mongolians took some Russian meals and ingredients and made it their own. They have their own version of shepherd's pie usually served with a bit of salad and a well-shaped hill of rice or two. Another popular meal is a ground beef patty topped with a fried egg and some brown sauce (with sides of salad and rice). Goulash (or gouliash in Mongolian) is an all-meat stew which often features on the menus here. Ketchup, mayonnaise and pickles abound.

Where are the vegetables??

Vegetables here come in the form of salads and carrot bits strewn about in the food. When I say salad I don't mean the green lettuce kind. I mean grated carrot or coleslaw or potato salad. Most salads are drowned in mayonnaise.

Prices (CDN$)

In a cheap lunch canteen, buuz are about 15 cents a piece. Huushuurs are 20 to 25 cents. A small plate of tsuivan is 55 cents and rarely do the meals go above $1.00. Salty milk tea is 10 cents a cup.

In other more swank places, the prices do go above the dollar mark.

The verdict

I've come to like most of the Mongolian food. It's comfort food really. But, I could do with a few more vegetables.