Inner Mongolia is a good place to travel to. There is the beautiful scenery, pleasant songs and delicious food. Guests are treated ceremoniously. In a general way, if informed, they'll welcome guests by horse from the border. In the pastures there is an unwritten rule -- if guests come, recognized or not, herdsmen must provide the best food and water.
Mongolians call their milk food "baishi" or white food and their meat food "hongshi" or red food.
White food, made from cow's milk, sheep's milk and mare's milk, includes milk drinks and milk food, almost a dozen varieties. Mongolians don't eat a single meal without their white food. The most popular of which is milk tea, which is treated as a top grade beverage in Inner Mongolia. When guests come into a herdsmen's yurt, the first thing provided is milk tea. Milk tea is boiled using high quality brick tea, and added with fresh milk and a little bit of salt. The salty milk tea is fresh and fragrant. Other white foods include: cheese, milk skin, cream, milk curd, sour milk and fermented milk.
Red foods are mainly made from mutton, beef and sometimes camel meat. People in the pasture seldom eat pork. Mutton is the most popular meat there, which can be made to shouba rou (boiled mutton), kao quanyang (roasted whole sheep), kao yangtui (roasted mutton leg), kao yangpai (roasted mutton chop), mutton barbecue and instant-boiled mutton.
Shouba rou is the most popular red food in Inner Mongolia. Mongolians like mutton very much and they believe the mutton there is better than that in any other places, because the sheep drink mineral water and eat fresh grass other than man-made feed. The mutton used to cook shouba rou is the legs from newly-butchered sheep. It's easy to cook too: just put mutton in the boiling water, add a little salt, no other spices. The mutton shouldn't over-boil and eaters should eat the mutton before it cools. The leg is whole when brought to the table. And beside the whole leg there is a knife. Everybody cuts mutton from the leg and eats. The original fragrance of the mutton is kept.
When eating Mongolians don't forget alcohol -- people in Inner Mongolia mainly drink spirit or mare's milk wine. Sometimes they also drink beer or wine. The way to drink is special there: when guests have a meal, some beautiful girls in traditional costume stand beside the table and sing songs. And then they'll go to guests respectively, holding hada (white silk scarves which are token greetings in Inner Mongolia) in their hands and a little silver bowl with spirit in their right hands. The spirit can't be refused and must be "bottomed-up". If somebody refuses to drink, the singer will continue singing until the guests drink all the spirit in the little bowl.
According to Bao Haishan, head of the Inner Mongolian Overseas Publicity Office, in the grasslands the weather is very cold, so Mongolians think over the ways to keep temperatures up and drinking spirits is one of the ways. But now, with the opening and the development of the travel industry, the people in Inner Mongolia are beginning to learn how to respect others. Normally they'll tell the traveler: "It's cold at night, spirit will help, but drink as you like."
(China.org.cn by staff reporter Chen Lin, October 14, 2003)
