Starving in Mongolia

The Lonely Planet says that if you are lucky you may get to try 'boodog'. I didn't try it, but just watching Butar endulge did not make me feel lucky.

Boodog is roasted marmot (roasted whole that is from the inside out with hot rocks) and marmots are in season. We saw marmots hanging dead off the sides of the saddles of the herders that came by our camp sites. (In Mongolia, everyone will come by your campsite.) The herders came to sit and stare. It didn't matter if we were eating, sleeping, brushing our teeth or just staring at them staring at us. They dismounted their horses, plopped themselves down in the grass, crossed their legs and settled in.

When they came with the boodog, Butar was smacking his lips. Here was his chance to finally indulge. We had been a bit concerned about Butar up until this point. He seemed to eat more like a bird and less like the chubby Mongolian that he was. I was beginning to worry that the belly he so often showed off would lose some of it's grandeur.

But now that we had left the Gobi, he could return to his former eating habits. No more ramen noodle soups and cofee chased by a tin of oily fish. Here, he could drink airaig (fermented mares milk) from the children selling it on the roadside. He could eat goat yogurt, sharp cheese and as much boiled mutton at the local guanzes (canteens) as his belly desired. And, for that special treat, he could have boodog.

I made the untimely mistake of walking back to the van at the exact moment that the herder was slicing the roasted critter open. He romoved the rocks and poured the contents of the insides into Butar's waiting mug. It was all a greasy mess and I left before the beast could be divided amoungst them.

Like the Russians, the Mongolians have the misguided notion that without meat (and high fat) we will starve. Being a vegetarian in Mongolia isn't the easiest thing, but we aren't starving. We did go into a state of vegetable hybernation as there were no vegetables to eat outside of UB - unless you count pickles and jars of pickled carrots.

John somehow convinced himself that the Mongolian made 'Spring Biscuits' made of flour, sugar, egg and water were nutrionally complete if he lathered them with peanut butter. We began dooling out our egg cookies (2 a day) and calling them protein. We quickly realized that losing weight was inevatable and John was glad I convinced him to take pants with an elastic wasteband.

To combat the problem of food on our trip away from the capital, we brought everything we could with us in the van. We were surprised how long a cucumber can actually stand up to the rigors of the road and the heat of the Gobi. But supplies did eventually dwindle, we began rationing, and many nights we went to bed with growling stomachs. I anxiously awaited our visit to Tsetserleg, an aimag captial that the guide book said had a large stock of food at that market and that in reality boasted no more than most cities we had seen (chocolate, oil, rice, candy and cookies - and of course John's now favorite, Spring Biscuits).

Butar, who was in his own kind of vegetable hibernation (read: he never eats them), seemed to get bigger as we got smaller. The morning after the boodog feast saw Butar knawing a little marmot leg. He kept the rest of the meal in a yellow plastic bag near his feet.

Eventually the boodog was fully consumed and our trip was nearing its end. Back in UB we would feast again at Indian restaurants, German bakeries, Italian pizzarias. I would sink my teeth into an apple, and salivate at the peeling of a banana. Butar would most likely take another group of travellers out, maybe back to the Gobi and have to be content with ramen noodles and coffee. But somewhere there would be another boodog waiting.