Saddle Provision (öl-bög, the Mongol trail food)
Borts, the Dried Meat of Horsemen
TravelDocumented🧂 🍄moyen30 min + 8 h drying
Fine strips of beef air-dried until hard as wood, then shredded. They are chewed as is while riding, or rehydrated in a boiling broth to make a nourishing soup at night in the middle of the steppes.
Why this dish? On the Silk Road, between Hormuz and Shangdu, Marco Polo shared the everyday fare of Mongol horsemen: meat dried in the wind and sun, reduced to shreds, which a warrior carried for weeks and diluted in hot water come evening.
Know, you who read me, that in the great plains of the Khan I saw the riders carry neither pot nor bread. They sliced beef as thin as thread, left it in the wind until it was dry and light, and a single such piece fed ten men for many days. In the evening, they cast it into hot water, and behold a soup for those who had nothing. Believe me, never was provision wiser for one who roams the world as I have roamed.
Ingredients
- •Lean beef — a quarter (base to dry)
- •Salt — by hand (preservation)
How it was made : Mongol borts was made without fire: strips were hung under the saddle or in the yurt, and the cold, dry wind of the steppe did the work. A whole carcass fit into a cattle bladder and fed a rider for an entire campaign.
Sources : Marco Polo, *The Description of the World* (The Book of Marvels) · William of Rubruck, *Itinerarium* (travel account among the Mongols, 13th c.)