Britain and Mongolia: Cuisine Cousins

One of the first things I was told about Mongolia practically warned about, in fact was the food. Mongolian cuisine is heavily based on animal products, with seemingly endless varieties of meat and dairy, but not much else.

Of course this is completely understandable from a historical perspective, since the nomadic lifestyle required animal fat to survive harsh winters on the steppe, and food derived from a family's herd was often the only reliable food source. But how would a Briton used to eating a variety of fresh fruit and vegetables react to this diet?One of my first office lunches was tumsnii huchmal, though I didn't know the name of it at that point.

When it arrived, I could only stare at it in surprise it looked exactly like shepherd's pie, a layer of mashed potato over cooked mince, which is a very standard British dish, with. It turns out that tumsnii huchmal differs only slightly from shepherd's pie, the biggest difference being that any vegetables are served on the side, rather than cooked in with the meat and potatoes.

Other than the regional variations in the specific meat used, the differences seemed minute.A traditional dietThe historical similarities between Mongolian and British cuisine are actually quite striking.

Both countries traditionally use meat in their meals sausages, steak and kidney pie and a Sunday roast are, after all, some of the most renowned English dishes and limit the use of spices or strongly-flavoured sauces, preferring to enhance the taste of the existing food rather than create entirely new flavours on the plate. Britain has become accustomed to a variety of fruit and vegetables in recent decades, especially among concerns about health and a public campaign to eat five pieces of fruit or vegetable per day, but a few hundred years ago, vegetables were considered unimportant in meals, definitely inferior to meat.

In both countries the dairy component of the diet has also historically been significant, even though Britain is more inclined towards cheese while Mongolia has dried curds and a variety of milk-based drinks. Overall, while Mongolian cuisine is undoubtedly different to that of the British, I feel that the differences are actually far less stark than they might originally seem.

Shepherd's pie, a classic English dish similar to tumsnii huchmalStyle vs. substanceBoth British and Mongolian cuisines have a reputation for being limited and unappetising.

The definition of 'appetising', however, is...