Dairying and cheesemaking originated in the Fertile Crescent during the early Neolithic and then spread widely throughout Southwest Asia and Europe. Rennet coagulated cheesemaking became a key preservation strategy for milk in these regions. A different form of dairying, based on nomadic and semi-nomadic herding, and a different form of milk preservation based on the production of dried acid coagulated and acid-heat coagulated cheeses, developed on the Eurasian steppe and is still practiced in Mongolia today. This work seeks to reconstruct the migration and evolution of dairying and cheesemaking practices from their Neolithic origin in Southwest Asia to Mongolia, and to establish the role that rapid climate change events played in this process.
Survival in a Climate of Change: The Origins and Evolution of Nomadic Dairying in Mongolia
Paul S. Kindstedt is Professor of Food Science at the University of Vermont (UVM). He previously served as Co-Director of the Vermont Institute for Artisan Cheese and Associate Director of the Northeast Dairy Foods Research Center at UVM. He has authored two books, Cheese and Culture: A History of Cheese and Its Place in Western Civilization and American Farmstead Cheese: The Complete Guide to Making and Selling Artisan Cheeses.
Tsetsgee Ser-Od is Honorable Professor of the Institute of Technology, former National Secretary of Mongolia at the International Dairy Federation, member of the Dairy Board, and founder of Suunbilegdel LLC, which produces cheese from yak milk. Since graduating from the Moscow Technological Institute of Meat and Dairy Products in 1982, she has been working in the food sector, particularly in the dairy subsector.
Paul S. Kindstedt, Tsetsgee Ser-Od; Survival in a Climate of Change: The Origins and Evolution of Nomadic Dairying in Mongolia. Gastronomica 1 August 2019; 19 (3): 20–28. doi: https://doi.org/10.1525/gfc.2019.19.3.20
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University of California Press