TOliver wrote:
> "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.

Chocolate. Capsicum peppers. Llama steaks.

Pastorio

> Drunk on fermented mares' milk....
> (and still admiring the functionality of those kettledrum cooking
> cauldrons....)
>
> I remain,
>
> TMO
>
>