Mongolian restaurant?

[stormsdotter.livejournal.com]

I've got a very strange request, so please bear with me. I'm writing an alternate history novel, and my heroes have just been captured by the Huns. I'm trying to avoid the Writer Stereotype of having my Heroes end up eating Stew seasoned with Spices.

I'd like to find a restaurant that serves traditional Mongolian food, and get a sense of what the Huns might have eaten. Can anyone recommend such a restaurant, preferably close to Davis or otherwise on the T?

Thanks very much!

Comments

[ron_newman]

I thought the Huns were from Central Asia, not Mongolia?

[inahandbasket]

Yeah... you're not going to find that.
Google is your friend: http://www.eyewitnesstohistory.com/attila.htm

[stormsdotter.livejournal.com]

Researching them has been incredibly frustrating, since they did not have a written language and most of what was written down was the Romans panicking over being defeated in battle.

There's some evidence linking the Huns to the Mongolians, just not very much. One of the History Professors I took to lunch flat out said that almost nothing was written, and I could pretty much make up whatever I wanted.

[rufinia.livejournal.com]

AHA.

Here is the most commonly used book for historical Mongolian cooking (actual historical, not made up historical). I've been trying to google for like FIVE WHOLE MINUTES because I remembered only part of the title.

http://www.brill.nl/default.aspx?partid=210&pid=34012

Not exactly what you're looking for, but in the neighborhood.

[stormsdotter.livejournal.com]

Oh, neat! Thank you for sharing, I will have to see if any college libraries pick that up!

[sophiaserpentia.livejournal.com]

HOLLIS says there are two copies of this books in the Harvard library system; perhaps there is a way to view it via Interlibrary Loan.

[badseed1980.livejournal.com]

I've seen a lot of stuff about the Huns eating raw meat that they tenderized by riding with it under their saddles. They apparently raised horses for food and milk as well as for riding, and also ate wild game and roots.

[greyling.livejournal.com]

I spent a little while camping in yurts in inner Mongolia a couple years ago. If you'd like me to expound on what I was fed, I'd be happy to share.

[stormsdotter.livejournal.com]

I may have to politely ask friends who went to Harvard to look into that for me; the only Harvard library that allows public access is their Architectural Library, which I frequented while I was at the BAC.

[stormsdotter.livejournal.com]

I would love that! Could I possibly treat you to coffee at some point and hear all about it?

[ron_newman]

The book is also in the Boston College library, though that probably isn't much help either.

[ron_newman]

One of the two Harvard copies is in the Schlesinger Library which is open to all -- though the summer hours may not be very convenient for you. The book is for in-library use only.

[sophiaserpentia.livejournal.com]

Actually, that may be of more use to OP, since the Boston College library is open to the public (http://www.bc.edu/libraries/about/services/circinfo.html). Harvard libraries are only accessible to folks with a Harvard ID. The OP can view the book at BC's library there and photocopy whatever is needed.

[ron_newman]

One of the two Harvard libraries with this book (Schlesinger) is open to the public. But only weekdays 9:30 - 5 during the summer.

[greyling.livejournal.com]

Sure, we could do that. I'm busy most evenings this week, but I'm free this weekend. Alternatively, we could grab a coffee some afternoon. Take your pick!

[etain.livejournal.com]

I've spent a lot of time looking for a Mongolian restaurant in the area--I can never get the suu te tsea right myself--wrong kind of tea, wrong kind of milk, among other things.

The Tartars (there are Volga Tartars, and one theory on the Huns has origin stories around the Volga) did do the whole raw meat under the saddle to tenderize it thing.

But that's historical. So if you want to link the Huns to the Mongols, have them eat like modern(ish) Mongols, and talk about food, what do you want to know? Standard daily diet, foods eaten while traveling, special occasion stuff?

Stew is actually a good bet, believe it or not. Har schol is sort of one of the most basic foods in terms of construction literally just about being meat and water. (Har meaning black and schol meaning soup, so literally black soup.) I'm told it's best with sheep, but horse and goat are awfully common. If they were slaughtering their own animals, they'd use the intestines in a broth. It wouldn't have spices, really. It might have onions. Salt is big. But these are modern interpretations, I don't know how historically accurate they are.

If it's summer, and you're discussing Mongolian food, you can't discount aerig, which is fermented mare's milk. In theory you can make it out of other stuff, but camel aerig is practically as thick as yoghurt and, let's be honest here, mare aerig is the best.

Botseg (all of the terms are my own transliterations because I can't remember what the standard ones are right now--I'm so sorry) are these little pastry like things that are used for travel. They're good with oros, which is like this creamy buttery stuff.

So umm, yeah. Where are you setting it exactly? That would affect what sort of plants would grow there and what non-meat options would be in their diet.

[tastyanagram.livejournal.com]

You might also be able to get a portion of this or all of this through interlibrary loan at your public library or another library you are affiliated with, though there will probably be a fee.

[koshmom.livejournal.com]

I used to go to a Mongolian Restaurant in DC years ago. They used a wok the size of the one in Fire and Ice, and food was basically the same as Fire and Ice (i.e. all you can eat, you bring food to the wok and they cook it for you and give it back to you). When that restaurant in DC closed, a friend of mine bought the wok (yes, he had money to spare) and installed it in a pit in his backyard. He said when he cooked on it, he had to do it in colder weather, and it took most of the day to heat up, then most of the night to cool down.

So, you might want to consider a big, flat or concave rock or metallic (check the era) surface, with a large bonfire underneath it. Wok would be somewhere between knee and thigh level. Bitesized slabs o'meat, cooked quickly upon the rock. Use oversized chopsticks to flip the meat. The wok is big enough that the cook would have to lean over the surface to reach stuff near the center, but not too far a lean.

It would truely piss off the Mongols in your story if your Heroes cracked the wok, which would be a very difficult deed to accomplish. That wok my friend had was nigh on indestructible.

If I recall, drinks were of the "lassi" type, or yogurt based. But this is my memory talking, I can't recall 20 some years ago with too much clarity.

[gruene.livejournal.com]

Mongolian BBQ is *NOT* Mongolian food. It does not remotely resemble Mongolian food. It was invented in Taiwan and given that name to make it sound more exotic.

[gruene.livejournal.com]

Actual Mongolian food is most likely impossible to get in Boston area. The one place you could go to is Little Q in Quincy to get a taste of Hot Pot, which is a cuisine that is popular in Inner Mongolia but not eaten in Mongolia itself. (Inner Mongolia is part of China and the Mongolians there are sinicized to some extent.)

etain's description of Mongolian food is the most accurate. Mongolians eat meat and dairy and little else. Only one vegetable was eaten in Mongolia historically. The word for it is "vegetable" (though nowadays it is called "Mongolian vegetable" instead). It's a sort of scallion like onion.

Tea is also a big part of Mongolian culture. It has been imported from China for centuries. They make it differently than the Chinese do though, brewing it in milk and sometimes putting in things like cheese or little bits of meat.

[zmgmeister.livejournal.com]

The Huns, or the Mongols?

You might want to look at the cuisines of nations that claim ancestry from the Huns or other groups from beyond the Volga. For Europe, Hungary, Bulgaria, Ukraine ( for Crimean Tatar ), and Kalmykia come to mind.

Central Asia, obviously. Try Kyrgyzstan. There's a historical divide where the Kyrgyz thought of themelves as the nomadic herdsmen and the Uzbeks the farmers.

If you do see your Huns as being more Eastern, besides Mongolia you can look at foods of Manchuria, Xinjiang, and Tibet.

[syntheticnature.livejournal.com]

Actually the Tozzer library (anthropology) does too, not that this necessarily helps you right now.

[sonofabish.livejournal.com]

I suggest hunting down a yak and gnawing on it. Should be a reasonable approximation. And if you're feeling like an ambitious Hun after a day of rape, pillage, and destruction, you can even cook it up.

[davelew.livejournal.com]

There aren't many wild yak in New England, so hunting might be difficult (and probably not T-accessible). OTOH, I've seen packaged yak meat at both Savenor's in Cambridge and at the new butcher in Arlington. It's tasty meat, like beef but with a little more flavor.

[milan27.livejournal.com]

Little Q in Quincy closed, they have a new location in Arlington near the Capitol Theater on Mass Ave.

[gruene.livejournal.com]

Thanks for letting me know. That's actually much more convenient than the Quincy location.

[real-green-tea.livejournal.com]

House of Tibet Kitchen, Teele Sq (on Holland st) was selling many dishes with yak meat for a time actually. Not sure if they are still serving these.

[ron_newman]

Disappointingly, I've read that Yak & Yeti in Ball Square doesn't serve yak.

[bombardiette.livejournal.com]

Andrew Zimmern recently did a Bizarre Foods Mongolia. It's on Comcast On Demand right now.