5 ms·

Qurt: The ancient road snack of Central Asian nomads

keiferski 6y ago
As you might expect, a lot of the traditional Mongolian cuisine is optimized for nomadic living. For example, they didn't really have beer, vodka, or wine, as they didn't have easy access to grain, potatoes, or grapes and didn't want to ferment liquids for months or years on end. Instead, they made alcoholic drinks from milk. > Kumis is a dairy product similar to kefir, but is produced from a liquid starter culture, in contrast to the solid kefir "grains". Because mare's milk contains more sugars than cow's or goat's milk, when fermented, kumis has a higher, though still mild, alcohol content compared to kefir. > Strictly speaking, kumis is in its own category of alcoholic drinks because it is made neither from fruit nor from grain. Technically, it is closer to wine than to beer because the fermentation occurs directly from sugars, as in wine (usually from fruit), as opposed to from starches (usually from grain) converted to sugars by mashing, as in beer. But in terms of experience and traditional manner of consumption, it is much more comparable to beer. It is even milder in alcoholic content than beer. > Traditionally, this fermentation took place in horse-hide containers, which might be left on the top of a yurt and turned over on occasion, or strapped to a saddle and joggled around over the course of a day's riding. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kumis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kumis
- ArkanExplorer 6y ago
  I'd also very highly recommend 'On Food and Cooking' which examines the science and history behind many common foods: https://www.amazon.com/Food-Cooking-Science-Lore-Kitchen/dp/0684800012 https://www.amazon.com/Food-Cooking-Science-Lore-Kitchen/dp/... By understanding the food science you can also become a better cook yourself.
simonebrunozzi 6y ago
I'm pissed off. At how privacy is handled by most sites. Should we consider banning, or flagging, websites on Hacker News submissions that offer a particularly painful, evil, approach to privacy? This is what you get from the evil folks that run Atlas Obscura's website: > Atlas Obscura and our trusted partners use technology such as cookies on our website to personalise ads, support social media features, and analyse our traffic. Please click below to consent to the use of this technology while browsing our site. To learn more or withdraw consent, please visit our cookie policy. > Accept "cookie policy" is a link, and from there, good luck trying to figure out how to NEGATE consent. Fuck this. Really.
- mistrial9 6y ago
  I support the cause, but the execution here is flawed. I have done professional museum work, creative writing 'zine illustration, and other cultural arts to try to make a living. This site and the people who publish it are not the ones to excoriate, or YNews the place to dramatically vent your own frustrations. Please adjust accordingly
  - simonebrunozzi 6y ago
    Thanks for your comment. Reading mine today (a day after I wrote it), I can see why it sounded harsher than it should have been.
- HDMI_Cable 6y ago
  At this point, I've just found it easier to block cookies and JS unless specifically needed. You get around all of these cookie warnings that shouldn't be there to begin with.
- literallycancer 6y ago
  Just block the consent dialog with the ublock element picker, they can't legally collect anything until you accept, that's why they make them so annoying.
- jtsiskin 6y ago
  I think it’s a pretty big stretch to call them “evil”. You can block cookies if you want. But wanting analytics on your site or ad revenue from your publications isn’t exactly “evil”
- numpad0 6y ago
  The cookie consent popup is for awareness only.
hirundo 6y ago
> Balls of qurt dissolved in water with flour and jerky made for quick camp dinners The article mentions that qurt is rich in protein, but the fat is key. Jerky is very lean, and lacking carbohydrate rich foods, needs to be supplemented with fat for energy to be sustainable. The American aboriginals added tallow to jerky for this purpose, creating pemmican. Apparently dairy foods weren't part of their culture. These foods are the closest thing we have to Tolkein's "lembas".
- NikolaeVarius 6y ago
  What. Lembas was nowhere neat pemmican. It was explicitly a form of bread, and most likely based on hardtack, that Tolkien would have been exposed to on the seas and while in service. Pemmican as a specific "thing" came from the Americas, but the concept of mixing dried meats/preserved dairy and fats is something that is common in history
  - Merad 6y ago
    Pretty sure that the GP is referring to the effectiveness of lembas. It's described as being extremely nutritious so that one bite can fill a man's stomach and keep him on the march all day. I'm fairly certain that Tolkien actually stated that lembas is a reference to the Eucharist. No doubt he had experience with hardtack, but IRL hardtack isn't really known for being nutritious or pleasant to eat.
    - Mediterraneo10 6y ago
      > I'm fairly certain that Tolkien actually stated that lembas is a reference to the Eucharist. I'd really want to see a cite for that. Tolkien was infamously hostile to any allegorical reading of The Lord of the Rings. Sometimes a fantasy epic is just a fantasy epic.
      - cynicalkane 6y ago
        Tolkien both claimed that LOTR was allegorical and that it wasn't. Probably he was using the common definition of allegory in one context and the literary definition in the other. When Tolkien said he disliked allegory, he meant he disliked literary works that map directly onto some external meaning that was necessary for understanding the story. He thought a story should stand on its own, and, further, it wasn't good writing to try to force a story into allegory rather than let it take its own direction. But we also know from his letters that he purposefully incorporated religious (specifically, Catholic) metaphors into LOTR, which most people would call allegory, including Tolkien on some occasions.
andybak 6y ago
Available on eBay: https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/323869829071 https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/323869829071
kk58 6y ago
I've had these , they taste like salty chalk
- tired-dev 6y ago
  While I admire the resourcefulness of the people who invented these sorts of foods, they aren't really the sort of thing most people like to eat when given alternatives, I think.
r29vzg2 6y ago
I had these in Uzbekistan, they sell them everywhere, and people suck on them like it’s chewing gum. They were not to my taste, very bitter and very salty.
hoseja 6y ago
Not saddle-jerky? Aw, man, I was really craving that horse sweat.
qiqing 6y ago
My coworker just told me it's her favorite. Apparently, if you like the flavor of kefir or salty lassi or parmesan chips or yogurt drops, you might also like these.
- AlotOfReading 6y ago
  They take some getting used to, but I absolutely loved them when I was working in central asia. I haven't been able to find a hookup back in the states though.
  - qiqing 6y ago
    I just ordered some from a few sources, and hopefully one of them is good. Found one on Amazon, one on Etsy, and one from Bonanza. They're supposed to have great shelf life, so I guess they are well suited for e-commerce. I felt like if I made them and didn't like them, I wouldn't know it was me screwing up the recipe or not.
- madaxe_again 6y ago
  Just be prepared for them to be hard - “as hard as iron slag” isn’t far off it - first time I had one I nearly broke a tooth - they have the consistency of concrete. Tasty, though. Great with a frosty beer after a day roasting in the steppes - which is where I first encountered them - mysterious spheres presented with a brew in dusty Aktobe.
wolfretcrap 6y ago
I ate this in Tibet or atleast that was very similar to this so I guess Chinese also have it?
- qiqing 6y ago
  My mom, who lives in Shanghai, orders 'nai pian' on taobao as one of her favorite snacks. Apparently it's yogurt chips (not yogurt balls) and it's very popular, and people generally think of it as being from Mongolia, but eat it like potato chips that happen to be keto.

As you might expect, a lot of the traditional Mongolian cuisine is optimized for nomadic living. For example, they didn't really have beer, vodka, or wine, as they didn't have easy access to grain, potatoes, or grapes and didn't want to ferment liquids for months or years on end. Instead, they made alcoholic drinks from milk. > Kumis is a dairy product similar to kefir, but is produced from a liquid starter culture, in contrast to the solid kefir "grains". Because mare's milk contains more sugars than cow's or goat's milk, when fermented, kumis has a higher, though still mild, alcohol content compared to kefir. > Strictly speaking, kumis is in its own category of alcoholic drinks because it is made neither from fruit nor from grain. Technically, it is closer to wine than to beer because the fermentation occurs directly from sugars, as in wine (usually from fruit), as opposed to from starches (usually from grain) converted to sugars by mashing, as in beer. But in terms of experience and traditional manner of consumption, it is much more comparable to beer. It is even milder in alcoholic content than beer. > Traditionally, this fermentation took place in horse-hide containers, which might be left on the top of a yurt and turned over on occasion, or strapped to a saddle and joggled around over the course of a day's riding. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kumis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kumis

ArkanExplorer 6y ago
I'd also very highly recommend 'On Food and Cooking' which examines the science and history behind many common foods: https://www.amazon.com/Food-Cooking-Science-Lore-Kitchen/dp/0684800012 https://www.amazon.com/Food-Cooking-Science-Lore-Kitchen/dp/... By understanding the food science you can also become a better cook yourself.

simonebrunozzi 6y ago

I'm pissed off. At how privacy is handled by most sites. Should we consider banning, or flagging, websites on Hacker News submissions that offer a particularly painful, evil, approach to privacy? This is what you get from the evil folks that run Atlas Obscura's website: > Atlas Obscura and our trusted partners use technology such as cookies on our website to personalise ads, support social media features, and analyse our traffic. Please click below to consent to the use of this technology while browsing our site. To learn more or withdraw consent, please visit our cookie policy. > Accept "cookie policy" is a link, and from there, good luck trying to figure out how to NEGATE consent. Fuck this. Really.

mistrial9 6y ago
I support the cause, but the execution here is flawed. I have done professional museum work, creative writing 'zine illustration, and other cultural arts to try to make a living. This site and the people who publish it are not the ones to excoriate, or YNews the place to dramatically vent your own frustrations. Please adjust accordingly
- simonebrunozzi 6y ago
  Thanks for your comment. Reading mine today (a day after I wrote it), I can see why it sounded harsher than it should have been.
HDMI_Cable 6y ago
At this point, I've just found it easier to block cookies and JS unless specifically needed. You get around all of these cookie warnings that shouldn't be there to begin with.
literallycancer 6y ago
Just block the consent dialog with the ublock element picker, they can't legally collect anything until you accept, that's why they make them so annoying.
jtsiskin 6y ago
I think it’s a pretty big stretch to call them “evil”. You can block cookies if you want. But wanting analytics on your site or ad revenue from your publications isn’t exactly “evil”
numpad0 6y ago
The cookie consent popup is for awareness only.

hirundo 6y ago

> Balls of qurt dissolved in water with flour and jerky made for quick camp dinners The article mentions that qurt is rich in protein, but the fat is key. Jerky is very lean, and lacking carbohydrate rich foods, needs to be supplemented with fat for energy to be sustainable. The American aboriginals added tallow to jerky for this purpose, creating pemmican. Apparently dairy foods weren't part of their culture. These foods are the closest thing we have to Tolkein's "lembas".

NikolaeVarius 6y ago
What. Lembas was nowhere neat pemmican. It was explicitly a form of bread, and most likely based on hardtack, that Tolkien would have been exposed to on the seas and while in service. Pemmican as a specific "thing" came from the Americas, but the concept of mixing dried meats/preserved dairy and fats is something that is common in history
- Merad 6y ago
  Pretty sure that the GP is referring to the effectiveness of lembas. It's described as being extremely nutritious so that one bite can fill a man's stomach and keep him on the march all day. I'm fairly certain that Tolkien actually stated that lembas is a reference to the Eucharist. No doubt he had experience with hardtack, but IRL hardtack isn't really known for being nutritious or pleasant to eat.
  - Mediterraneo10 6y ago
    > I'm fairly certain that Tolkien actually stated that lembas is a reference to the Eucharist. I'd really want to see a cite for that. Tolkien was infamously hostile to any allegorical reading of The Lord of the Rings. Sometimes a fantasy epic is just a fantasy epic.
    - cynicalkane 6y ago
      Tolkien both claimed that LOTR was allegorical and that it wasn't. Probably he was using the common definition of allegory in one context and the literary definition in the other. When Tolkien said he disliked allegory, he meant he disliked literary works that map directly onto some external meaning that was necessary for understanding the story. He thought a story should stand on its own, and, further, it wasn't good writing to try to force a story into allegory rather than let it take its own direction. But we also know from his letters that he purposefully incorporated religious (specifically, Catholic) metaphors into LOTR, which most people would call allegory, including Tolkien on some occasions.

andybak 6y ago

Available on eBay: https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/323869829071 https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/323869829071

kk58 6y ago

I've had these , they taste like salty chalk

tired-dev 6y ago
While I admire the resourcefulness of the people who invented these sorts of foods, they aren't really the sort of thing most people like to eat when given alternatives, I think.

r29vzg2 6y ago

I had these in Uzbekistan, they sell them everywhere, and people suck on them like it’s chewing gum. They were not to my taste, very bitter and very salty.

hoseja 6y ago

Not saddle-jerky? Aw, man, I was really craving that horse sweat.

qiqing 6y ago

My coworker just told me it's her favorite. Apparently, if you like the flavor of kefir or salty lassi or parmesan chips or yogurt drops, you might also like these.

AlotOfReading 6y ago
They take some getting used to, but I absolutely loved them when I was working in central asia. I haven't been able to find a hookup back in the states though.
- qiqing 6y ago
  I just ordered some from a few sources, and hopefully one of them is good. Found one on Amazon, one on Etsy, and one from Bonanza. They're supposed to have great shelf life, so I guess they are well suited for e-commerce. I felt like if I made them and didn't like them, I wouldn't know it was me screwing up the recipe or not.
madaxe_again 6y ago
Just be prepared for them to be hard - “as hard as iron slag” isn’t far off it - first time I had one I nearly broke a tooth - they have the consistency of concrete. Tasty, though. Great with a frosty beer after a day roasting in the steppes - which is where I first encountered them - mysterious spheres presented with a brew in dusty Aktobe.

wolfretcrap 6y ago

I ate this in Tibet or atleast that was very similar to this so I guess Chinese also have it?

qiqing 6y ago
My mom, who lives in Shanghai, orders 'nai pian' on taobao as one of her favorite snacks. Apparently it's yogurt chips (not yogurt balls) and it's very popular, and people generally think of it as being from Mongolia, but eat it like potato chips that happen to be keto.