Winter is the time for warming and hearty meals. You can cook homemade goodies according to all the rules, as your grandmother did, on your own.

Especially for you, we have prepared a unique selection of recipes for Buryat dishes from the insides of a ram.

Recipe "Khotyn shuhan" (gastric blood)

Ingredients:

• stomach,
• blood,
• internal fat
• small intestine,
• a glass of water, salt,
• wooden knitting needle.

How to cook?

1. Cleanse and rinse the stomach.
2. Dilute the blood with 1 glass of water, salt.
3. Finely chop the inner fat and place in the stomach.
4. Pour some scoops of blood.
5. Pierce the "neck" of the stomach with a wooden knitting needle, use the small intestine to tightly wrap the pin with a figure eight.
6. Cook.

IMPORTANT! Do not fill your stomach completely with blood, or it will burst during cooking. For the same reason, it is worth letting the air out of it after the filling.

Blood sausage "Hotorgoin shuhan"

Ingredients:

• colon,
• blood,
• wooden knitting needle, funnel, thread.

How to cook?

1. Rinse the large intestine thoroughly.
2. Pressing one end of the intestine with your fingers, and inserting a funnel into the other, pour in blood so that there is little room left. The blood clots can be pushed into the neck of the funnel with a wooden knitting needle.
3. Let the air out to prevent the intestines from bursting during cooking.
4. Cook.

Ereelzhe liver sausage

Ingredients:

• liver,
• colon,
• internal fat from the kidneys,
• onion,
• a thread.

How to cook?

1. Chop the liver and internal fat finely, mix with chopped onions.
2. Fill the colon with the filling.
3. Tie the ends of the intestine with a strong thread.
4. Cook.

"Khoshkhonog"

Ingredients:

• internal fat
• diaphragm,
• the remainder of the colon,
• peritoneum.

How to cook?

1. Cut the internal fat, diaphragm and peritoneum with ribbons and place in the large intestine parallel to each other.
2. Cook.

"Oryomog"

Ingredients:

• lungs,
• peritoneum,
• internal fat
• small intestine (for strapping).

How to cook?

1. Cut everything except the small intestine into ribbons.
2. Tie the connected tapes together with the small intestine.
3. Cook.

Liver in a shirt

Ingredients:

• liver,
• internal fat.

How to cook?

1. Cut the liver into small cubes.
2. Cut the internal fat into squares - these will be "envelopes" for the liver.
3. Wrap the liver in fat, you can add salt to the liver before "packing".
4. Bake in the oven.

Usually, all the insides are cooked at once in one saucepan and boiled for 20 to 30 minutes. There is no need to salt them during cooking. But before you submerge the entrails in the water, place the meat for the carver on the bottom. He did a good job butchering the ram. This is a sign of reverence and respect for his work.

It is better to serve the insides of the ram with boiled potatoes, fresh onions and herbs. Eat tastier while it's hot! If desired, the dishes can be salted with meals. Bon Appetit!

Advice

• Before slaughtering, the ram must be laid on its back so that its eyes look to the sky.
• Wash and warm your hands in warm water before entering the ram's abdominal cavity with your hand.
• It is necessary to cut the urethra through a straw - according to popular belief, this will surely bring fertility to the flock next year.
• During cutting, it is important not to break the bones of the ram, but to cut them strictly according to the cartilage.
• When removing the insides, try not to puncture the gallbladder, otherwise the meat will become bitter.

The dishes were prepared:

the chef of the "Shenehen AMTA" cafe: Sengel (Smolina st., 77),

miner, carver: Soyol Zurmyde.

A lot of delicious dishes can be prepared from lamb. What unusual recipes do you know? Which ones would you like to know more about? Send your questions on the topic and recipes with photos to [email protected] site... The most interesting of them will be published in the "Home" section!

The traditional cuisine of Buryatia is an example of how geographic location and lifestyle can influence gastronomic preferences. It is rich in dairy, flour, meat products and hearty dishes that helped to survive in harsh climatic conditions. It is impossible to stay hungry in Buryatia - you just need to know what exactly Buryat cuisine is famous for.

Main dishes of traditional Buryat cuisine

In modern Buryatia, local cuisine has been assimilated with Russian. But the inhabitants of the republic are faithful to their traditions and do not forget about their favorite dishes. Far beyond the borders of Buryatia are known booze(or poses) - something in between manti and dumplings. Minced meat is placed in dough and buuza is molded in a shape reminiscent of nomad yurts. The right buuz is made from a mixture of ground beef and pork and steamed. It is important to add onion and fat, then the dish will turn out juicy. Although minced meat was used as a filling earlier, this option is also found in local establishments. In order not to burn yourself, at first it is customary to bite the buuza, pour the broth into a spoon and drink it.

The Buryats have hearty and easy-to-cook soups on the table. In the national cuisine cafe you can try soup with homemade noodles and lamb. Broth is boiled on lamb buhler, which is seasoned with fresh herbs when serving. Buryats are especially fond of horse meat dishes. This meat is considered to be organic and healthier than other types. Horse meat is fried with noodles and garlic, they make sausage from it. Dairy products are equally important. They are not only added to baked goods, but also placed on the table during every meal. Homemade cheese worth trying huruud and airkhan- cottage cheese of dry consistency.

For a long time, the Buryats have included by-products in their diet. They are nutritious, inexpensive, and a substitute for meat. For example, shish kebabs are made from lamb liver. This is not only tasty, but also a healing dish - it allows you to replenish the reserves of magnesium and phosphorus.

It is impossible not to try the Buryat version of pilaf. For him, they take at first glance the usual ingredients: meat, garlic, rice and onions. But there are two important points: all products are laid out in layers and a generous portion of butter is added. Thanks to this cooking method Buryat pilaf it turns out friable, the meat in it is juicy.

Buryat traditional pastries and desserts

Of the many types of Buryat baked goods, the following stands out huushuur... This is a flatbread with minced meat, which is fried until crusty. It resembles a pear in shape, and whites in taste. For sweets you need to leave boows- sweet pieces of dough shaped like an ear and deep fried. Sometimes they are sprinkled with powdered sugar or poured with condensed milk. Another popular dessert may seem unusual and even strange. it urme- a delicacy from bird cherry, cookies, sour cream and sugar. It is eaten both warm and slightly frozen.

Buryat drinks

Milk is used as a popular drink tarasun with a peculiar taste. After one distillation, a low-alcohol drink is obtained, after a second distillation, a stronger version is obtained. Being big lovers of dairy products, Buryats drink yogurt, koumiss, a local variety of kefir - such drinks can be tasted in any city of Buryatia.

Nevertheless, the Buryats consider tea to be the main national drink. It is worth trying green tea with the addition of ghee and milk, which perfectly tones and restores strength. It has long been customary to treat guests with tea with milk. Sometimes salt is added to the drink and tea is served with unleavened yeast cakes.

We live. Perhaps it will be a series of articles. But the first one will be about the Buryat national cuisine. If you are going to come to our republic, then it will be useful for you to find out where you can have a tasty and satisfying meal. And most importantly, what to eat and how much it will cost.

In order to properly enjoy the whole gamut of taste and aesthetic sensations, one should try, for the first time, Buryat cuisine in a yurt. Today we decided to have lunch in such a yurt-diner. A cafe usually consists of two or three yurts placed side by side. In one yurt they cook, in another / others take orders and have tables. If the yurt is small, then you will find small chairs and tables made in the national style:

If the yurt is larger, then the tables and chairs are of a more familiar size:

Since winter temperatures in Buryatia often drop below -30, there is usually a stove in the center of the yurt:

The most famous and beloved by many tourists dish is "buuza" (they are also called "poses"). The price for one pose varies from 25 to 35 rubles, depending on the size and location of the cafe. Buuza is minced meat wrapped in a dough in a special way. Despite the seeming simplicity, few can properly cook buuz. There are several recipes for making buuz. The recipe mainly differs in the method of mincing meat for minced meat and the percentage of different types of meat. According to legend, a properly prepared buuza should have 33 pinches. It is customary to eat buuza with your hands.


Less known to tourists, but no less important in Buryat cuisine, is the traditional soup with homemade noodles. The broth is cooked from finely chopped beef, to which homemade noodles are added. This is a simple, but very tasty and nutritious dish. It looks a bit like a dish from Southeast Asia, but apart from salt there are no spices at all. The average price is 60-100 rubles per serving.

In Buryatia, it is customary to eat simple boiled meat with broth. This dish is called - bukhler (perhaps a more correct spelling is bukhleor or bukheler). Prepared with beef or lamb. Large potatoes are sometimes added to it, but in the original, there should be nothing but meat. The most delicious "cafe" bukhler is served in a roadside diner in the village. Bar Mukhorshibirsky area. The price of a portion varies from 80 to 150 rubles, depending on the portion size and the meat used for cooking. Lamb buchler is more expensive.


In regular Buryat cafes, bukhler is served with a board for cutting meat.

Another popular dish is sharbin. Fried tortilla with minced meat inside. This is not quite a Buryat dish, rather a Mongolian one, appeared 10-15 years ago and now occupies an honorable place in the menu of Buryat cafes. The cost of one flat cake is 40-50 rubles.

For dessert, standard pancakes and Buryat pastries - boovs - are offered. Boova are deep-fried pieces of yeast dough. They are usually served with condensed milk. The price is 20-30 rubles per serving.

It may seem to you that the Buryat cuisine is very fatty and high in calories, and it is. But there's nothing you can do about it, when winter lasts six months a year, you can't do without such food.

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Since ancient times, the Buryats have been hunters, fishermen and, of course, cattle breeders. This determined the character of their national cuisine. All Buryat cuisine is built around meat - horse meat, lamb and beef. Buryats put very little onion and spices in their dishes. In addition, they dislike very spicy and salty foods. They prefer noodles as a side dish.

Poses (boozy)

This dish is related to mantas and khinkali, but has its own characteristics.

Minced meat is prepared for them from several types of meat. The dough is suitable for ordinary dumplings. A lump of minced meat is wrapped in a dough cake. A hole should be left on top so that the poses are repeated in the shape of the yurt. It is believed that the most correct poses have 33 tucks in the upper part. Steamed.

Another distinctive feature of this dish is that a lot of broth is stored inside each pose, which must be drunk by slightly biting the dough on the side. Only after that everything else is eaten.

Buchler

This is a very simple dish, which is considered to be a soup, although in fact it is more of a broth. A solid piece of lamb needs to be boiled in water for a long time. Moreover, the meat must be with a bone.

When the broth is ready, it is removed from the heat and the meat is removed from it. And only then raw onions and salt are added to it. Seasonings can be added to taste. It is necessary to eat a booze hot, otherwise the fat will solidify and it will be tasteless.

Sliced ​​meat with noodles

Horse meat should be finely chopped into cubes. Then the meat is fried until tender in butter along with finely chopped onions. Spices can be added towards the end of cooking.

Ready meat is mixed with hot boiled homemade noodles and served.

Borso

This is usually prepared in winter. The beef is cut into long strips and hung in the shade. Moreover, the meat should be blown by the wind. By the spring, the meat dries up and turns white. Borso is ready.

Dried meat weighs very little, has a very long shelf life, but at the same time retains the taste and all the nutritional value. Once upon a time this dish was indispensable for the Buryats leading a nomadic lifestyle. But when they settled in the cities, the dish began to be forgotten. Borso is now experiencing a second heyday in the form of meat snacks.

Salamat

This is milk porridge. Sour cream is put on fire and brought to a boil. Then, slowly, stirring, pour flour into it. When a ruddy crust forms on the sides and at the bottom of the pan, the salamat is ready. This porridge is eaten only warm.

Salted tea

Many Turkic and Mongolian peoples drink tea with salt. The Buryats also have their own version.

We need green tiled tea. It is lightly fried and put in boiling water. When the tea is brewed, it is strained and a little milk, butter and salt are added.

The historically established food system of the nomads of Central Asia, which include the Buryats, is built on a strict balance of meat (and various dishes made from meat and blood) and dairy products, supplemented in a small amount by plant products (wild and cultivated cereals and vegetables), as well as products of hunting and fishing, which, however, were not always available and far from all groups of the nomadic population.

The ratio between the consumed amount of meat and dairy products depended on the season of the nomads' economic year. And there were only two of them: summer and winter. The first lasted from April to October, covering a six-month period from the time of calving of cattle until the end of milking. In the diet of this period, dairy products played a leading role, flour products were second, and only meat was in third place. The winter diet, which was more substantial, included primarily meat of livestock, various types of cheeses and butter prepared in the summer, and flour products (Ethnography of Nutrition ... 1981, pp. 122-123).

With small local deviations, this food structure can be extended to all nomads of the region under consideration.

Meat and meat dishes... As already mentioned in the section "Cattle breeding" (Chapter 3), the Buryats raised the following types of cattle: horses, small ruminants (sheep, goats), cattle (including yaks and sarlaks - a cross between a yak and a cow), camels. For different groups of Buryats, the composition of the herd varied somewhat depending on the geographic zone, climate, condition of pastures, etc. Meat of all types of livestock was eaten, but mutton was considered the most prestigious among the Buryats, as well as among the Mongols. She was preferred both on weekdays and at festive feasts and ritual ceremonies. The next most important place was occupied by beef and horse meat.

Meat (boiled and fried), blood (occasionally raw, but more often boiled), entrails (raw, boiled, fried), in extreme situations - dzut and as a result - mass deaths of livestock - bones, hooves, carrion ... The meat was eaten mainly in boiled form, it was not cooked for long, in large whole pieces (bucheleer), considering that only slightly cooked meat retains all its useful properties. The degree of readiness of the meat was determined by the quality of the broth. The meat was not salted during cooking, but a sauce was made from the broth to it, thickly salted, seasoned, if possible, with garlic, onion, and pepper.

All the ways to fry and bake meat known to the nomads of Eurasia go back to the cattle breeding, hunting HKT of the forest-steppe zone. The most popular of them are the following: 1) baking carcasses with hot stones thrown through the neck into the abdominal cavity of the animal; 2) frying on coals or ash in a pit covered with earth or heaped with stones, on which a fire is made; 3) roasting carcasses on a spit over a fire. For such cooking, they usually used unpeeled carcasses of roe deer, wild boars, mountain goats, elk, large marmots of the Eurasian steppes - tarbagans. Unlike the Mongols who continue to count boodog tarbagan delicacy (Zhukovskaya. 2002. S. 150-151), the Buryats have not eaten it for a long time.

During the hunting period of the life of the Buryat society after the end of the winter round-up hunting zegete aba, having performed a sacrifice ritual for the "masters of the taiga", that is, the patron spirits of animals, they divided the killed animals between the clans, whose representatives participated in the hunt, ate part of the meat at a joint feast, and took the rest home as supplies for the winter (Khangalov. 1958.T. I. S. 71). After the cattle-breeding type of economy began to prevail among the Buryats, meat for the winter was harvested in the fall, slaughtering the number of heads of livestock necessary for feeding the family with the onset of cold weather. These reserves, like livestock intended for slaughter, were called uuse.

One family needed the meat of two cows and one horse for the winter. For this purpose, an old horse, which was no longer very suitable for the farm, was also chosen from the herd of barnyard cows. An average family lived on this amount of meat all winter, and in the spring, in March, another animal was slaughtered, which was specially fed with hay and watered with water salted with natural salt. khuzhir (Galdanova. 1992.S. 78).

During the slaughter of cattle, each family tried to treat its neighbors, relatives, who helped to do this, with fresh meat. For this purpose, the ribs, the posterior cervical vertebra, the fatty rectum, and the heart were cooked. But beef, pork and lamb liver was considered especially tasty: it was eaten raw, frozen or roasted on the coals of a campfire in a fatty film. (Tugutov. 1957.S. 84). The liver of the Zakamensk Buryats was sometimes cooked (Galdanova. 1992.S. 80).

Favorite common Buryat dish - minced mutton giblets zurme. The finely cut peritoneum, small intestines, scar, fat were wrapped with a thin intestinal film, the resulting tourniquet was boiled, laid out on the table and treated to everyone.

Favorite foods included dalan - horse fat, arbin - abdominal fat, four fingers thick, gadar- back fat, two fingers thick, hard; dotor- internal fat, the horse has a lot of it, they filled the intestines, which were then boiled. All four types of fat were eaten frozen, dotor sometimes mixed with barley or rye flour. In the winter cold, horse fat maintained the heat resistance of the body.

There are a lot of varieties of sausages known to different groups of Buryats. The outer shell of sausages was always the guts, which were washed well before stuffing them with minced meat. We will try to list several possible options for minced meat for making sausages: 1) minced meat from the brain of a bull, mixed with finely chopped pieces of beef (getehetey mehan); cooked in meat broth, served hot and cold, often used as a supply of food on a long journey; 2) minced meat from a mixture of pieces of pork with curdled fresh blood (ereelzhe); 3) a lamb stomach filled with blood and boiled in broth (hottoy shuhan); 4) the lamb or beef colon is turned inside out, the layer of fat covering it from the outside becomes a filling: after boiling, a sausage with a white fat filling is obtained (sagaan myakhan, khoshkhonog); 5) a mixture of finely chopped beef and lamb with the addition of wild onions, pepper and, if the meat is lean, then fat or brain; it is filled in the intestine, boiled in broth, served on the table, cut into thick pieces (khiime) (Tugutov. 1957.S. 84-85).

Most often, sausages made from intestines and various types of minced meat and blood were eaten immediately or within days after cooking, but they could be stored frozen for a long time and were quite suitable as reserves for the winter.

Cured and deep-fried meat was also stored well. In the summer they were dried in the sun, in the fall and winter - in the smoke of the hearth, in a well-ventilated room. The meat was carefully cut from the bones, cut into thin strips, well-dried it became hard (borso) and it could be stored for years. Fresh meat was fried in its own juice until the liquid disappeared, then fried by adding fat; the cooled meat was laid out in leather bags (thinhen), in them, the meat retained its nutritional value, did not spoil, in them they took it with them on the road (Galdanova. 1992.S. 81-82).

However, the so-called "meat flour" was no less popular type of meat reserves. The meat was fried in cauldrons in small pieces until black, the resulting lumps were ground into flour. In this form, it remained for a long time, was transportable, it was stored up, going on a long journey. (Tugutov. 1957.S. 85).

Blood deserves special attention as a food product. First of all, it should be said about the use of "living blood", that is, the blood of living animals. It is known for its use by Mongol nomads in the Middle Ages. Marco Polo, for example, writes that every warrior of the Mongolian army in the XIII century. could have for his personal needs up to 18 horses, whose blood during the campaigns often served as food for the Mongol warriors (Zhukovskaya. 1988.S. 71-72). "Living" blood for this purpose was obtained as follows. The animal was tied up, pushed to the ground, cut the veins near the neck and drained the blood into some vessel, and sometimes they simply pressed their lips to the incision and drank directly from it. It is painless for the animal, no more than 500 g of blood can be taken from it at a time, after which, after a couple of days, it restored this loss. This dose was enough for a one-time "meal". As a travel food, blood was extremely convenient in that it did not require any special transportation or special preparation. As doctors note, it is tasty from a gastronomic and healthy from a medical point of view. (Ekvall. 1963.S. 145-146).

M.N. Khangalov mentions a similar method of obtaining blood from Buryats, and the blood from a vein was decanted not only from horses, but also from cattle. However, the collected blood was not drunk raw, but boiled in a cauldron and ate (Khangalov. 1958.T. I. S. 209). Probably, in extreme conditions, the Buryats, like the Mongols, drank fresh raw blood directly from the incision, but no one remembers this anymore. In the literature, there is evidence only of blood sausages and other dishes, which contain "boiled blood".

Interesting are the notes of G.R. Galdanova about the use of horse blood by the Zakamensk Buryats. They discerned white blood in horses (shabai) and regular red blood (shuhan). It was believed that horses of light color have "white", light blood without clots and the sausage from it turns out to be especially tasty. On the contrary, there are many clots in the red blood. To make the sausage out of it tastier, salt, dried onions, garlic were added, and the clots were given to the dogs. (Galdanova. 1992.S. 80).

The insides of animals (heart, kidneys, liver, lungs, testicles) were also used as an independent dish: they were served boiled along with meat. Eating each of them among the Buryats, as well as among the Mongols, was considered as an enhancement of the corresponding properties of human nature: the eaten heart increased courage, the liver - strength, testicles - sexual potency, etc. The horse's liver and kidneys were eaten by those who killed it. Beef and lamb hearts were divided in half and given to children (Tugutov. 1957.S. 79).

A few words should be said about the theory of the so-called ritual rejection of pork by the nomads. The Mongols really did not eat pork, but not because they felt any religious disgust towards it (neither shamanism nor Buddhism contain any prescriptions on this score). The explanation for this is very simple: the pig is not adapted to a nomadic lifestyle, cannot eat all year round on pasture, and it has never been part of a herd of nomads in Eurasia. It was not eaten simply because it was not there. The Mongols always ate wild boars killed in the hunt with great pleasure. A pig appeared in Transbaikalia with the arrival of the Russians and gradually settled Buryat farms began to acquire it. They made soups from pork, learned to salt lard (Tugutov. 1957.S. 86).

Milk and dairy products... The second, no less important than meat, nutritional component of the nomadic population of Central Asia was dairy products. Milk of all types of livestock was used for their production: cows, yaks, sheep, goats, mares. All nomads had a different attitude to the milk of various animals and, accordingly, to its most rational use. For example, yak milk was appreciated for its very high fat content (10-12%), due to which it was possible to obtain the largest amount of butter from it (Ethnography of Nutrition ... 1981, p. 124). Cow, goat and sheep milk was used mainly for the preparation of dairy products designed for both long-term storage (butter, hard cheese, dried cottage cheese) and unsuitable for it (foam, soft cheese, curdled milk). Sheep and cow milk was added to the tea. This was called whitening the tea. Mare's milk was used only for the production of kumis.

Both Mongols and Buryats, with a shortage of milk, used a mixture of milk from different types of animals to make dairy products. At the same time, for both of them, mixing the milk of cattle and small ruminants was considered normal and the products from this mixture were high quality.

All dairy products produced in the Buryat nomadic economy are divided into two main groups: perishable and long-term storage. The first is cream (susgee), foams (urme), curdled milk (tarag), unleavened cheese (huruud) and non-alcoholic milk drinks. They were used as food as they were made.

The daily food consumption in the summer and fall, while the cows were milked, included tarag. It was done like this: milk was boiled, when it cooled down to about 20-23 °, sourdough was poured into it (gurelge)- 2-3 tablespoons of old tarag, which were previously diluted in warm milk. Then the vessel with fermented milk was placed in a relatively warm place, but not in the sun, after 3-4 hours the milk curdled and turned into yogurt. Before use, it was shaken and the resulting serum was decanted. If the tarrag turned out to be too thick, it was bred with boiled milk, and sometimes raw, if they were sure that the cattle did not suffer from any disease.

If there was no sourdough, then first they made it: bread was crumbled into a cauldron with cooled boiled milk, silver objects (spoons, cups) were lowered, they waited until the milk curdled, some part was poured into a special vessel and turned into sourdough for future use, the resulting tarrag was drunk ... Usually, in such a situation, it turned out to be liquid and bitter. The second portion of the sourdough from the first was already better, but only from the third or fourth time the sourdough turned out as it should, and the whole subsequent tarag, made on it was of high quality. However, if you ferment milk that is not sufficiently cooled or, on the contrary, too cooled, tarrag also turned out to be bitter and liquid, and even the best leaven did not save him (Khangalov. 1958. T. I. S. 232-233).

For long-term storage and annually harvested for the winter products include butter and several varieties of dried cottage cheese. The nomads of Eurasia know two main methods of obtaining oil: overheating and churning. Ghee is more appreciated in the household, as it is stored better and longer. It is obtained by melting foams and their subsequent fermentation in vessels from the stomachs of small and cattle or in the intestines of cattle, which are very spacious, despite their relatively small volume. Vessels made from the stomachs of goats and sheep (guzee), intended for long-term storage and fermentation of products, were thoroughly washed, sometimes even soaked in kumis with salt. Subject to all the rules of processing and storage in the dark, the canned product could not only be stored in this package for a year or more (7-year-old oil was very valuable), but also improve its nutritional properties during this time. The practical experience of nomads in this area is still the object of keen interest from various companies involved in the production of canned dairy products.

Buryats know two varieties of ghee: more fatty, yellow in color and less fatty, white. Sugar, flour, cottage cheese, sometimes even berries were often added to such white butter to increase its nutritional value. (Galdanova. 1992.S. 83-84). Butter was obtained by churning cream settled in raw milk. It was stored worse than ghee, and did not play a special role in the economy. Tea, soups were filled with oil, mixed with lamb fat and pieces of unleavened dough were cooked in it. (boorsog), and sometimes they ate "pure" if the body felt a lack of fat.

The Buryats also know one more type of oil - the so-called "bone" oil, obtained from bones crushed and crushed into small crumbs containing bone marrow. The cereals were boiled for a long time in a cauldron until bone oil floated to the surface. It was collected in a special vessel, eaten as a healing agent, and also used in the processing of hides to lubricate the flesh. (Galdanova. 1992.S. 82).

Various types of dried cottage cheese, stored for the winter, differed in taste and color: the one that was obtained by boiling the strained yogurt had a white color with a bluish tinge, while boiling the whey it was slightly reddish. Both tasted sour. When filtering a mixture of whey and cottage cheese remaining after distilling vodka, a fine cottage cheese powder was obtained, tasteless and white (aarsa).

To aarsa turned out to be of high quality, in the tub where it was stored, daily it was necessary to add the curd mass (bozo), remaining after distillation of vodka. A good farm harvested 15-16 tubs of aarsa for the winter. It was nutritious, in winter it was poured with water, flour was added, cooked over low heat, stirring thoroughly. Sometimes grains of barley or wild buckwheat were added. And if you pour milk over the aarsu and boil until the liquid evaporates, a curd mass will remain (aaryuul). If it is dried in the sun and in the hearth, then it will be stored for a long time. They ate it soaked in hot tea (Galdanova. 1992.S. 76).

The most delicious dairy dishes are dried foams and cream melted over a fire, fried with flour (salamat, zɵɵhei). Salamat was considered and is still considered a ritual dish, it is sacrificed during many shamanic rituals.

It was also prepared on the occasion of the arrival of guests, thereby showing them honor and respect, and for various festive celebrations of the family, clan and general level. Salamat was credited with the ability to "predict" the outcome of the case about which it was cooked: if butter was released from boiling cream quickly and appeared on the surface during the preparation of salamat, it was a "happy" omen, then everything will be fine, everything will be good. Otherwise, the usual flour porridge was obtained. If during the preparation of salamat a stranger entered the house who had nothing to do with the upcoming event or ceremony, he should immediately leave, because salamat could not work, which was a bad omen. It was impossible to cook salamat, going on a long journey (Galdanova. 1992.S. 84-85).

Milk drinks... First, a few words about whole milk.

Of particular interest is the question of the consumption of whole unprocessed milk by nomads. Written evidence about this is conflicting. So, about the Mongols of the XIII century. Plano Carpini writes that they drank mare, sheep, cow and camel milk (Journey ... 1957, p. 36), making no difference between them, and Guillaume Rubruck (Journey ... 1957, pp. 95-98), Zhao Hong (Meng-da ... 1975, p. 69) and Kirakos Gandzaketsi (Kirakos. 1976, p. 172) speak only of koumiss. In the "Secret Legend" sour milk and kumis are mentioned, and in Rashid-ad-din - kumis and goat's milk, and the consumption of the latter is seen as a symbol of poverty (Rashid ad-din, 1952. T. I, book. 1.P. 80, 91, PO). The Russian ambassador Vasily Tyumenets, who visited the Altyn-khans in Western Mongolia in 1615, mentions "cow's milk" and "wine from kumiz" (Ethnography of nutrition ... 1981.S. 126).

Researchers working in Mongolia in the 20th century testify to the limited consumption of whole milk. As a rule, milk is given to children to drink, but often not so much in a "pure" form as mixed with various types of cottage cheese. Adults rarely drink it, mainly during ritual ceremonies: they treat the guest of honor with a cup of milk, greet the bride with milk and sprinkle the yurt of the newlyweds during the wedding ceremony. On the first day of the New Year, all adults and children drink a cup of milk, etc. (Ethnography of Nutrition ... 1981, pp. 126-127). Buryats were given whole milk only to children (Galdanova. 1982.S. 76).

You should not look for the reasons for the limited consumption of milk by nomads in the "theory of lactase deficiency", according to which a significant percentage of the entire adult population of the world suffers to some extent from the indigestibility of fresh milk, and can only eat sour dairy products (McCraken. 1971.S. 481-482). Nomads who have been raising dairy cattle and consuming milk products for centuries are clearly the least affected. Most likely the reasons for this are the following. Firstly, the milk yield of nomadic cattle, grazing all year round, has always been not so great. Secondly, the overwhelming amount of milk had to be processed into fermented milk products, which are absorbed by the body better than whole milk, and form a food supply for the winter. Thirdly, in the conditions of the Central Asian heat, milk quickly turned sour and became unsuitable for food, so the nomads recognized only artificially fermented milk.

With the advent of tea, all the free supply of fresh milk was used to make tea with milk. They drank tea many times a day, and this consumed almost all the milk that the family could afford to drink fresh. Thus, the question of milk is solved quite simply: when there was a lot of it, it was drunk in its "pure" form, and the bulk of herders almost never had much of it. Hence the restrictions on the consumption of whole milk. They drank it preferably boiled, and only sometimes - for medicinal purposes - fresh mare's milk.

On the Buryat farm, the abundance of dairy food began in the month of May, when the cattle ate fresh grass on pastures after a hungry winter. The first few days after calving, the cows milked colostrum (uurag). It was considered very useful after winter vitamin deficiency; cakes were kneaded on it and fed to children and weakened old people. As soon as the cows began to milk with milk of normal fat content, women began to process milk in order to obtain butter, foam, cheese, cottage cheese, kurungi - fermented milk drink, which remains after the butter is extracted from fermented milk by churning. Kurunga further used as a basis for the production of vodka by distillation.

Tea with milk, fat tail and fried flour.

All drinks of the traditional Buryat food system are also associated with milk. The most popular of these is milk tea. (suutei sai). Tea among the Buryats, like among the Mongols, appeared in the late 16th - early 17th centuries, it was brought from China, exchanged for cattle, leather and wool. Mainly, the nomads were in demand for coarse green tea, which was a mixture of chopped leaves and small branches of a tea bush. It was pressed into two-kilogram "bricks" and called "brick tea".

It was brewed directly in cast-iron cauldrons, standing on the fire, milk (cow, yach, sheep) was added to the boiling brewed tea, boiled for a few more minutes, stirring thoroughly. Then the cauldron was removed from the fire, the tea was poured into a special vessel dombo or large metal teapots, from which each was poured into his own dish. Drinking tea without milk was considered blasphemy, an omen of the imminent impoverishment of the family, the loss of its main wealth - cattle. (Galdanova. 1992.S. 76).

Often, in addition to milk, tea was added to butter, salt (to restore the salt balance in the body, which is disturbed due to profuse sweating in the summer in extreme heat), fried barley flour, lightly fried lamb fat tail fat, sheep bone marrow, crushed and fried jerky - all this dramatically increased its nutritional value. Tea with barley flour diluted in it, with the addition of meat ingredients already looked like a mixture of soup with porridge, eating three or four bowls of such a "drink" could be energized for the whole day. Tea was also served with different types of dried cottage cheese, unleavened flat cakes, pieces of dough fried in boiling fat. (boorsog).

Finely ground black long tea, also imported from China, appeared in the urban environment from the middle of the 19th century, first among the Russian population, then among the Buryats. It is traditionally also drunk with milk, but without fatty fat and dried meat. In addition to the imported slab tea, all nomads knew its wild-growing substitutes. As such, the Buryats used the leaves of the burnet (hudeng), rosehip leaves and flowers, fireweed (Russians call him Ivan-tea, and Buryats call him ulaan jargan), as well as growths on the trunk and root of a birch (chaga).

Fermented milk drinks: kurunga and koumiss. The second most important milk drink known to all groups of Buryats is the already mentioned kurunga (khurenge). Non-greasy (because the oil knocked down by hand or by a separator has already been removed from it), slightly sourish, it perfectly quenches thirst in the summer heat. The initial product for it is cow's milk, the remains of cottage cheese, a small amount of old kurunga, whey, rennet, bread crust, etc. were used as a starter culture. (Ethnography of nutrition ... 1981, p. 128).

Got worldwide fame koumiss - a drink made from fermented mare's milk. Koumiss (kymyz) - Turkic word. Mongolian-speaking peoples call this drink differently: Buryats - segee, guunei airag; Mongols - ayrag, guniy ayrag, tsegeen; Western Mongols - chigen. The literature about kumis, its preparation, medical properties, history of its origin and distribution has many hundreds of names and covers all the nomads of Eurasia who know this drink.

The first historical evidence of kumys is the "History" of Herodotus (5th century BC), where it is mentioned as a specific drink made by the Scythians (Herodotus. 1972). Plano Carpini, Rubruk, Marco Polo, travelers and diplomats of later eras wrote about kumis among the Mongols - everyone who had to deal with it.

It is now generally known that kumis has certain antibiotic properties that can help heal lung and gastrointestinal diseases, restore the strength of an exhausted body after prolonged malnutrition - all this has been established by modern medicine. However, these qualities have long been known to the nomads of the Eurasian steppes, who knew perfectly well from centuries of experience how kumis (especially the first one obtained immediately after the start of milking of mares) restores the strength of the body, weakened by a half-starved winter, what life-giving power it has for the elderly, youth, children. This drink plays an important role in the culture of the Mongols and Buryats, and not only as a food product. He is a kind of festive, sacred symbol of the nomadic lifestyle. (Zhukovskaya. 1988.S. 75-76; Culinary traditions of the world. 2003.S. 106-107).

Mongols and Buryats fermented mare's milk fresh, never boiled. A small amount of old koumiss is considered the best leaven. The fermentation element also retains the milk protein that has settled in the form of a curd mass on the walls of the vessels from under the kumis. If fresh mare's milk is poured into such a vessel, it will begin to ferment without any additional fermentation.

Kumis is best kept in large leather skins made from whole bovine skins. The time required for fermentation (from several hours to 3-5 days) depends on the regularity of shaking and not so much on the quantity as on the consistency of the milk: the fatty and thicker ferments longer. Ready-made kumis is poured into smaller vessels and drunk, and fresh milk is constantly poured into the wineskins after each milking of the mares. This process lasts continuously until the end of the kumis season in the fall, although in some places it was prepared in winter as well. The alcohol content of kumis is 1.5-3 °, however, there are known ways to enhance its intoxicating properties: for example, Kazakhs use the root of the aconite plant for this, Western Mongols use juniper, blue barley, black unsalted tea, sea buckthorn berries.

The nomads of the Eurasian steppes have long known the medicinal properties of fermented milk products: ayrak cleansed the stomach and intestines; tarrag improved sleep; milk healed diseases of the throat, lungs, colds, urinary incontinence; ghee of three years ago, when rubbed into the body, relieved inflammation; kurungoi before the revolution, syphilis was treated and in general it was considered superior in its healing qualities to lemon (Daribazarova. 2001.S. 36).

Milk vodka... The strongest alcoholic drink made from milk is milk vodka (archi, tarasun), obtained by distillation. Initial products for distillation - sour milk, kurunga and less often koumiss. The equipment and technology for the distillation of sour milk into vodka is sufficiently universal throughout Eurasia and has been described many times in the literature. (Burdukov. 1936, p. 124; Vyatkin. 1969.S. 204-205; Potapov. 1969.S. 171; Tugutov. 1957, p. 86; Khangalov. 1958. T. I. S. 242-245). Mongols know 5 degrees of distillation of vodka (archi; arz; horz; sharz; dun), the strength scale of which increases from 9-1G to 50 °. Buryats usually stop at archi(or tarasune - this name is used by Western Buryats), because all subsequent distillations require a lot of milk. To obtain a stronger drink, the resulting after the first sublimation is poured into the kettle with kurunga. archi or tarasun and a second distillation is performed. This drink is already more purified from fusel oils and stronger. It happens, but very rarely, that a double tarasun is driven from a pure tarasun of the first distillation - then a very strong alcoholic drink is obtained (Khangalov. 1958.T. I. S. 245).

Plant food in the food system of nomads, in comparison with meat and dairy, it was insignificant in quantity, but necessary. She replenished in the human body its needs for vegetable protein and starch. Initially, all plant food was obtained only through gathering. The nomads collected, procured and stored wild cereals, onions, garlic, berries, mushrooms, and aromatic herbs for future use. Sulkhir, camel and other herbs were ground in mortars into coarse flour, fried with butter and added to tea. Rhizomes of the mountaineer viviparous, cinquefoil, lily bulbs (sarana) and others were dried and added as a seasoning to meat or kneaded into dairy products. Black and red wild currants, gooseberries, strawberries, raspberries, sea buckthorn, bird cherry, fruits of wild apple trees - everything was eaten fresh, dried, canned, and sometimes added to dairy products.

In the steppes and forests of Transbaikalia, several types of wild onions and garlic grow: wild field onions (mandihan), it was harvested in bags, cut, dried, stored in birch bark tubs, filled with meat soups; flat-feather Chinese bow, less preferred; wild garlic (hondino), it grew on the rocks and therefore it was not easy to collect it, its bulbs did not require special processing, they did not need to be salted or dried, they were perfectly stored anyway; it tastes spicier than ordinary garlic, it was used in the preparation of meat dishes, soups, sausages, etc. The ramson, due to its unpleasant smell, became the object of collection a little later, under the influence of the Russian population, who harvested it in large quantities for themselves and for sale to factory settlements.

The roots of wild buckwheat were harvested in large quantities, which in fact is not buckwheat at all, but a viviparous mountaineer (maeher). Two types of it were known: khusa maeher(ram buckwheat) and ulaan mekheer(red buckwheat). The first had large bluish roots with snow-white sweet pulp. They were collected in the spring, when the ground had just cleared from under the snow, using a stick with an iron tip; the roots of red buckwheat, on the contrary, were harvested in the fall, and not by themselves, but by ravaging mouse holes and taking from the mice the reserves of these roots already produced by them. The roots were dried, pounded in a mortar, winnowed, added to soups and other foods. The resulting flour was fried and used to make zamba, cooked salamat, baked cakes in the ashes of the hearth (Galdanova. 1992.S. 85).

Strawberries, blueberries, lingonberries were harvested in the appropriate seasons of the year, usually eaten fresh, sometimes dried, kneaded into dairy products. Over time, under the influence of the Russians, they learned how to make jam. The collection of pine nuts in the taiga areas first arose for their own consumption, but from the middle of the 19th century. took a commercial character. It is curious that even now, in the post-perestroika time, many villages far from the centers of economic development of the Republic of Buryatia live almost exclusively on subsistence farming - products of domestic livestock and personal garden, and all the money they can earn only from the sale of pine nuts collected in the taiga , mushrooms, berries.

Influence of the food model of sedentary neighbors on the food culture of the Buryats... With the annexation of Buryatia to Russia and the appearance of the Russian population in Cisbaikalia and Transbaikalia, the food model of the Buryats began to change gradually, but significantly. Plow agriculture, truck farming, fishing entered their life and economy, and, accordingly, the products of these types of economic activities entered the food ration. Rye, wheat, barley grown on processed arable land, flour, which was obtained from these cereals, led to the emergence of baking, first from unleavened, and then from sauerkraut dough. From unleavened dough, rye and barley cakes were baked in the ashes of a hearth or fire, noodles were made for dressing meat soups, a casing for donuts with meat filling (poses, from the whale. bao-jie), which were steamed in special steamers.

Poses deserve special attention, since they are a classic example of a marginal dish that appeared at the junction of two cultures - nomadic cattle-breeding Mongolian and sedentary agricultural Chinese. From the first it contains meat, from the second - dough. Judging by the name (translated from Chinese it means a pampushka or a pie with vegetable or meat filling) and the manufacturing technology in a special multi-layer steamer, completely uncharacteristic of the nomadic world, this dish, of course, appeared in China, but it came to Buryatia from Mongolia. It is curious that the Chinese, the Mongols, and the Buryats consider him "theirs". And it is, indeed, "their own" to all of them, differing only in the nuances of the preparation. Chinese donuts have a thicker layer of dough, less meat, more vegetables and spices added to the meat. In Mongolian and Buryat, on the contrary, the dough is thinner, there is more meat (preferably a mixture of different types - lamb, beef, and sometimes the meat of wild animals - gazelle, elk) with onions or wild-growing garlic and caraway seeds. Poses in modern Buryatia - a home and restaurant dish, everyday and on the occasion of the arrival of guests, New Year's and official banquet - in a word, suitable for all occasions, and almost everyone knows how and love to cook it (Zhukovskaya. 2002.S. 135-154).

From fermented dough they learned to bake "Russian bread" in the oven, bake shangi - cheesecakes with cottage cheese, berries, potatoes. In the sedentary Buryat farms, they quickly appreciated the advantage of their own gardens, planted potatoes, cucumbers, tomatoes, onions, carrots - all this by the 19th century. has become a constant part of the diet. Berry bushes (raspberries, gooseberries, black currants) also appeared after vegetables. What the villagers collected in the steppe, in the forest, in the taiga, continuing and developing the ancient traditions of gathering, the city dwellers grew in their own gardens, in the suburbs, in their dachas, partially supplying their products to the city market.

A few words about fish and fish food. Nomads always ate it reluctantly. Basically, in extreme conditions (death of livestock due to dzuta, epidemics, loss of livestock as a result of enemy raids, etc.). Sometimes, trying to explain this, they appeal to the norms of Buddhist morality, which forbids killing living beings. This is incorrect, since there is no fundamental difference between "live fish" and "live cattle", and the latter was, as is evident from the above, the basis of the food of the nomadic population. There was simply no tradition of catching, cooking and eating fish. And as soon as it appeared, and this happened again with the appearance of the Russian population in South Siberia, the Buryats quickly mastered such fishing tackle as a spear, a prison, nets (the latter, however, were used only for commercial fishing on large rivers). Usually the fish was boiled, draining the broth, or baked over charcoal, but not fried. We caught grayling, lenok, pike, eventually mastered winter fishing through an ice-hole. The rivers and lakes of Buryatia abounded in fish, and there has never been a predatory senseless extermination of it down to the fry, which is characteristic of our time.

Religious prohibitions applied only to one fish - burbot. He was considered the totemic progenitor of the Ekhirites, one of the four sub-ethnoses, of which the Buryat people formed. (Manzhigeev. 1978.S. 105). Memories of this have been preserved in folklore: Ehirit eeren gutar esege eriin gaba ekhe(added: "Echirit, with a father of a variegated burbot, a mother - a coastal crack") (Khadahne. 1926, p. 32; Zhukovskaya. 1980.S. 97). G.R. Galdanova sees in the ban on fishing and eating burbot echoes of a special cult that existed among the Khurkhut clan, whose descendants still live in Zakamensky, Tunkinsky and Okinsky districts of Buryatia (Galdanova. 1992.S. 89). Nevertheless, burbots were still caught, its large, tasty liver was especially appreciated, it was fried in a pan and eaten.

Currently, the most popular fish in Buryatia is the Baikal fish, known far beyond the borders of Russia. It is eaten fried, boiled, smoked and salted. The latter is distinguished by a special piquancy, as it has a specific smell, the so-called "omul with a smell", which is especially appreciated by connoisseurs and lovers of this product.

In conclusion, it should be said that food was divided into everyday and festive. Among the festive occasions for the feast were the New Year (Sagaalgan)- the borderline of the end of the old and the beginning of the new economic year, weddings, the arrival of a guest - a friend, relative, and sometimes just a random traveler.

The main festive dish is boiled meat, but treating it with it was a very complicated process, regulated by the ancient rules of etiquette. A piece of meat, which was treated to a guest, depended on his age, degree of relationship with the owner of the house, gender, social status. The most honorable dish among most groups of Buryats was lamb, and among the Zakamensk Buryats - a horse's head (tɵɵlei). This dish was just honorable, not edible. Before boiling, the head was carefully burned on the fire, then scraped out, and after boiling, five cuts were made - one on the forehead, two behind the ears, and two on the sides of the muzzle. When they began to eat, the guest, to whom the head was brought, tore off a piece of skin from all the incised places and threw them into the fire of the hearth. And if the feast took place in the air, then simply in the sky. Among the Agin Buryats, this was considered as a sacrifice to the spirits of their ancestors and the "mistress" of the hearth. Next in terms of importance were the following pieces: tibia of the front and hind legs, scapula, brisket. A stranger, that is, a representative of a foreign family, was served an ulna. Incorrect distribution of the cuts of meat was considered an insult. If there were no cuts on the head of the animal served to the distinguished guest, he could refuse to accept it. During important feasts, all etiquette rules for the distribution of "nominal" pieces must have been followed. For this purpose, they even hired a special person who had to be distinguished by dexterity, ingenuity, knowledge of the genealogy of all those present, customs and traditions. This position was very responsible (Galdanova. 1992.S. 90).

Milk was considered a festive food. Every morning, women sacrificed freshly milked milk to the spirits of their ancestors, the spirits of the earth and the area where they live, sprinkling it with a special sacrificial spoon with 9 indentations (sasal). Many holidays began with libation of milk, with treating all those present with the "white" sacred food - dairy products (sagaan edeen).

In modern post-perestroika Russia, national culinary traditions are largely leveled out. In any region, you can buy or, at worst, if you really want to, order and receive any finished product or semi-finished product and cook yourself whatever you want. Or you can go to any restaurant with national - Turkish, Mexican, Chinese, Japanese or other cuisine so recently exotic for a Russian and try any dish for the sake of curiosity. However, the national food traditions that have developed over the centuries in the conditions of the emerging culinary diversity do not die out, but continue to live, although the economic and cultural basis that gave rise to them has also undergone changes and is not at all similar to the original one.