Visiting Herders and Observing Traditional Mongolian Cheese Making

Summer snaps on  in Mongolia as freezing temperatures and wind of April and May swap out with warm weather and rain.  A dry drab landscape transforms into lush grassland almost overnight in Mid-June.  Livestock animals are everywhere.  As you drive into the countryside you see hundreds of sheep, goats, horses, and cows, and the occasional cluster of Yaks in highlands and Bactrian Camels in southern desert regions.

While driving along with my coworkers one day we pulled up unannounced at the Ger of some people we had never met before.  After their dogs calmed down they invited us in and to my immense pleasure they were in the midst of processing milk.  They were boiling that days milk to be made into Urum the next day.  hot milk is frothed then left to sit and separate overnight, the Cream combining with the foam into a skin.  Then the skimmed milk they had used the day before was made into Byslag, a fresh cheese formed into a rough square in cheesecloth and pressed between boards with a rock on top.  The whey is then made into Eezgii which is ricotta that has small bits of dried meat added and is cooked until the whey evaporates, then dehydrated.

This was the experience I wanted to have in Mongolia, and I was shocked by how easy it was to obtain.  We tasted the best tarag (yogurt) I have had, extremely tart with a drinkable texture.  The Urum was similar to clotted cream, and delicious.  The byslag was pretty bland as it is unsalted.  The cheese making traditions in this country are very utilitarian, they are methods of preserving the bounty of summer grass in forms that will get people through the cold harsh winter.  What is unique and inspiring here is the complete lack of industrial practices and products.  No DVI starter cultures, no rennet, no bulk tanks or sanitizer.  There is an old way of doing things that is preserved here and it is a very unique place to study cheese and dairy in that regard.