A few days ago, when I was looking at the pictures from the Naadam Festival (Наадам) 2023, I stopped at a picture of people drinking airag (айраг) and felt like writing about airag again. I should have done so a long time ago and sometimes I have already written smaller sections about the topic, but now I want to summarize what Airag actually is and why this mare's milk is so important in Mongolia. Airag is a UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage and this was celebrated at Naadam in 2015.
Let's first get to the term. In the West, fermented mare's milk is better known as kumis. The term comes from the Russian кумыс and from the Old Turkish or Turkish kımız. In both Kazakh and Kyrgyz it is called қымыз; and similarly in other Central Asian languages. Tuvan is slightly different: хымыс. Mongolian has its own term, as already mentioned: airag (айраг) [1]. *ajirag was reconstructed for Proto-Mongolian and aijirax was used in Middle Mongolian [2]. In some areas another term – tsegee – is documented [3]. However, I didn't find the term in Mongolian. It goes back to Willem van Rubroeck, a franciscan missionary who had written about his journey to the Mongol Empire in 1253. There he used „tsegee“ for kumis/airag and introduced the word to the West.
Even before I traveled to Central Asia for the first time, a friend of mine – who happened to be a Sinologist and a tour guide in Central Asia – told me that she was surprised at how good Tibetan butter tea could taste when she drank Kumis for the first time and I think that would have been in Kyrgyzstan. I also had my first kumis in Kyrgyzstan and I really enjoyed it. So how does fermented mare's milk taste and look like? Airag or Kumis is foamy, whitish, the taste is sour-sweet and refreshing. This comes from the bacteria and yeast fungi that produce kumis or airag from the mare's milk. Anyone who has ever drunk kefir (Кефир) can certainly imagine this slightly sour taste. Kefir is made from cow's milk. So why don't you use cow's milk but mare's milk? This is easily explained in that mare's milk contains more milk sugar (lactose) than cow's milk and is easier to ferment. Cow's milk is used to make aaruul (ааруул), which is often referred to as dried curd, but it is more boiled milk that is then dried. The mare's milk goes into a container at the entrance to the ger to ferment and the cow's milk goes into a pot on the stove to boil down. By the way, donkey milk or camel milk is also (rarely) used to make airag. And maybe my friend tasted old kumis, which might get a stingent, yeasty taste.
So Airag is a traditional traditional product. Why do you let mare's milk ferment? To make it more durable. In the past, the mare's milk was stored in leather bags which over time contained the appropriate bacteria and yeasts and fermentation took place continuously, because fresh milk was constantly poured into this bag, but also always taken out for drinking. So that fresh Airag was always available during this phase. Today the nomads use plastic containers for fermentation. But that works just as well. I had the opportunity to photograph a leather bag on the Naadam, this is the first picture.
I had already written in a blog post about providing Mongolians with vitamin C when they ate a traditional diet [4]. Meat hardly contains any vitamin C. Only the adrenal glands contain significant amounts of vitamin C. Most people are interested in the contents of alcohol in airag, which is 1-3%. I was interested if airag is a source for vitamin C. And yes it is. According to one source there are 15 mgs of vitamin C in 100 ml airag [5]. Another source from Kazakhstan measured 9.45 mgs in 100 ml [6]. So airag contributes to the supply of vitamin C in a tradiional Mongolian diet.
Airag is drunk at festivals, just like I experienced it at Naadam. If you visit a Ger of nomads, you may also be offered airag. I experienced that too. Airag is important for ceremonies. For example, blessing vehicles or wishing you a good trip, which I have already reported on before [7]. Or during a ritual for the laying of the foundation of a Gercamp [8]. However, the ritual had been changed a little. They should actually have used Airag, but they used cow's milk from the tetra pack instead because of availability. The ritual was certainly no less effective because of it, but it was a bit strange to see someone spilling milk in a certain circle from a tetrapak.
Why don't we have mare's milk in the West? Mares are not as easily to milk as cows or even sheep or goats. The mare only produces milk if the foal is suckling at the same time. I guess that this is not entirely compatible with the hygienic ideas of the modern world. What a pity! I really enjoyed the mare's milk / kumis / airag.
Links and Annotations:
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kumis and https://centralasia.media/news:1589503
[2] https://starlingdb.org/cgi-bin/etymology.cgi?single=1&basename=%2Fdata%2Falt%2Fmonget&text_number=1894&root=config
[3] https://journal.num.edu.mn/BusinessAndInnovation/article/view/2383
[4] https://rheumatologe.blogspot.com/2022/08/mongolia-where-do-mongols-get-their.html
[5] https://www.latequina.it/de/stutenmilch/composition-stutenmilch.html
[6] https://p.ayu.edu.kz/documents/3f92ae36-f011-42a6-90f3-1d1cc5f3b109_201008%20%D1%81%D0%BA%D0%BE%D0%BF%D1%83%D1%81%20%D0%A2%D0%B0%D0%BB%D1%85%D0%B0%D0%BD%D0%B1%D0%B0%D0%B5%D0%B2%D0%B0%202019.pdf
[7] Mongolia – a little ritual on departing from a Ger Camp https://rheumatologe.blogspot.com/2022/08/mongolia-little-ritual-on-departing.html
[8] A Ceremony at the Lakefront of Üüreg Nuur https://rheumatologe.blogspot.com/2023/07/a-ceremony-at-lakefront-of-uureg-nuur.html
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