Mongolian cuisine

Mongolian cuisine refers to the local culinary traditions of Mongolia and Mongolian styled dishes. The extreme continental climate has affected the traditional diet, so the Mongolian cuisine primarily consists of dairy products, meat, and animal fats. Use of vegetables and spices are limited. Due to geographic proximity and deep historic ties with China and Russia, Mongolian cuisine is also influenced by Chinese and Russian cuisine.

Features

The nomads of Mongolia sustain their lives directly from the products of domesticated animals such as cattle, horses, camels, yaks, sheep, and goats, as well as game. Meat is either cooked, used as an ingredient for soups and dumplings (buuz, khuushuur, bansh, manti), or dried for winter (borts). The Mongolian diet includes a large proportion of animal fat which is necessary for the Mongols to withstand the cold winters and their hard work. Winter temperatures are as low as −40 °C (−40 °F) and outdoor work requires sufficient energy reserves. Milk and cream are used to make a variety of beverages, as well as cheese and similar products.

Mongolian

Mongolian primarily means "of or pertaining Mongolia", a landlocked country in East and Central Asia that borders Russia to the north and People's Republic of China to the south, east and west.

Mongolian may also refer to:

See also

Ara

Ara or ara may refer to:

Mongolian barbecue

Mongolian barbecue (Chinese: 蒙古烤肉; pinyin: Měnggǔ kǎoròu) is a stir fried dish that was developed in Taiwanese restaurants in the 1970s. Meat and vegetables are cooked on large, round, solid iron griddles at temperatures of up to 300 °C (572 °F). Despite its name, the cuisine is not Mongolian, and is only very loosely related to barbecue.

Origins

Although Mongolian barbecue first appeared in Taipei in 1951, the stir-frying of meats on a large, open surface is supposed to evoke Mongolian foods and Mongolian traditions. The preparation can also derive from Japanese-style teppanyaki, which was popular in Taiwan at the time. The very first Mongolian Barbecue restaurant (Genghis Khan Mongolian BBQ) was opened in 1976, and was located in downtown Taipei, Taiwan. As Mongolian Barbecue became more popular, it was successfully introduced to the West.

American restaurants, such as HuHot Mongolian Grill and BD's Mongolian Grill, claim that soldiers of the Mongol Empire gathered large quantities of meats, prepared them with their swords and cooked them on their overturned shields over a large fire. A German restaurant chain with the same concept claims that the Mongolian soldiers cooked their meals on a heated stone.

Cuisine

A cuisine (/kwɪˈziːn/ kwi-ZEEN; from French [kɥizin], in turn from Latin coquere "to cook") is a style of cooking characterized by distinctive ingredients, techniques and dishes, and usually associated with a specific culture or geographic region. A cuisine is primarily influenced by the ingredients that are available locally or through trade. Religious food laws, such as Hindu, Islamic and Jewish dietary laws, can also exercise a strong influence on cuisine. Regional food preparation traditions, customs and ingredients often combine to create dishes unique to a particular region.

Factors that affect a cuisine

Some of the elements that have an influence on a region's cuisine include the area's climate, which in large measure determines the native foods that are available, the economic conditions, which affect trade and can affect food distribution, imports and exports, and religiousness or sumptuary laws, under which certain foods and food preparations are required or proscribed.

Climate also affects the supply of fuel for cooking; a common Chinese food preparation method was cutting food into small pieces to cook foods quickly and conserve scarce firewood and charcoal. Foods preserved for winter consumption by smoking, curing, and pickling have remained significant in world cuisines for their altered gustatory properties even when these preserving techniques are no longer strictly necessary to the maintenance of an adequate food supply.