"Bob (this one)"wrote ...

>
> I hard a fanciful story about the origins of these pots with Mongols using
> their armored breastplates to cook meat that they killed in their travels.
> Only problem is that they didn't use metal armor. Oh, well. Shame to let
> facts get in the way of a good story.
>
> Pastorio

Some of the museumed Mongol armor has metal strips and pieces, but most
appears to be leather (and some "quilted" padding).

Can we trace "boiled leather" armor (at least the Central Asian varieties)
to a Mongol armor/kitchen connection?.

Recipe:

Take leather helm.
Fill with water avec herbes or a good meat stock.
Add heated stones to boiling (very carefully)
Use to cook thin strips of yak, camel, expended steeds, whatever veggies can
be looted from local pantries.

When cooking either camel or yak, hair should be removed before cooking, and
sold to passing textile manufacturers' agents. Horse hide should be
preserved for next year's armor crop.

Weren't the Mongols famous for cutting thin strips of meat (likely horse
since that was the larder which accompanied them) and curing/cooking it
between their saddles and the backs of their mounts (combining salt and low
controlled heat in a single process)?


Actually, one could link the "boiling in leather bags with heated stones"
practice common in a number of Amerindian cultures with their presumptive
original migration from Asia. The one factor with I've never been
adequately satisfied with common historical explanations? The
calamitous.cataclysmic moment in time somewhere in the wilds of Central Asia
which all of a sudden stimulated all those Amerindians to be to load up and
head East, while kicking off wave after wave after wave of others heading
West crashing against each other for "x" thousands of years. Europe came
out ahead with a grand blend of culinary traditions (although kimchi beats
sauerkraut) and all the Americas got was succotash and cornbread.


Drunk on fermented mares' milk....
(and still admiring the functionality of those kettledrum cooking
cauldrons....)

I remain,

TMO