Cuisine of Kyrgyzstan

Video Transcript

The Kyrgyz and Kazahks also very much enjoy horse, which many Americans would find offensive to eat horse. And I was a bit off-put by it at first also. The horse steak is actually very good—very tasty actually. But they also like extremely fatty sausage made out of horse fat, and that on the other hand is not so palatable to me anyway. The other thing that Kyrgyz enjoy—I don't know about the Kazakhs so much because most of my experience being with the Kyrgyz—is fermented mare's milk called 'kymyz,' and that again is not very palatable.<br><br>The way they make it is they take milk from the mare and set it in a leather container, and set it out in the hot sun for hours and hours until it ferments. And then they serve it straight from the leather cask. So it's extremely sour, and oh by the way, it's warm—I mean to the point of being hot—so no, not a big fan of kymyz.

In this video, a U.S. Army civilian employee discusses the cuisine in Kyrgyzstan.