Mongol Food, Cooking and Meals

Food in the united Mongol Empire of 1206 to about 1260 depended on herds, agricultural supplies and the work of people who processed and served them. William of Rubruck travelled in the western domains ruled by Batu, then travelled east to Möngke Khan’s court at Karakorum in present-day Mongolia, reaching the capital in 1254. His account describes pastoral food preparation, winter provisions at a court camp and the elaborate service of drinks in the capital.

These settings show how milk and meat could be turned into stored foods, how millet reached rulers and poorer consumers by different routes, and how court hospitality depended on attendants and supplies. The account also records the simple ration issued to Rubruck’s own small party, a contrast with ceremonial meals and the ruler’s stores.

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Meat, portions and stored provisions

Rubruck describes meat being cut into narrow strips and hung in sun and wind to dry. He says people used the flesh of animals that had died, including oxen and horses, and kept dried meat for winter. Horse intestines were made into sausages eaten fresh. The strips became a portable store without salt.

At a meal, a sheep could be cut finely, placed in a dish with salt and water, and served in mouthfuls to a large company. Rubruck says one sheep might feed fifty or even a hundred people, while the host first selected the piece he wanted. When a host gave a guest a particular piece, that person kept it for themselves, carried leftovers away or entrusted them to a servant. A small square bag, which Rubruck calls a captargac, held saved meat and bones for later eating.

Milking mares and making fermented drink

To milk mares, workers tied the foals of selected mares to a long rope between stakes. The mares stayed beside their foals; if one resisted, a handler let the foal suck briefly before the milker took its place. Fresh mare’s milk was collected in a large skin or bottle and beaten sharply with a hollow-ended stick. Rubruck says it began to bubble and sour, and workers continued churning until they extracted butter. Rubruck calls the drink cosmos, now commonly rendered as kumis or kumiss; he describes a clear liquid for lords and thicker material for enslaved people.

Milk also moved through an imperial supply system. Rubruck reports that thirty men stationed a day’s journey from Batu’s camp each sent milk from one hundred mares daily, a total he gives as three thousand mares. He also says milk was due at a lord’s ordu, or mobile court, every third day. This example shows that a ruler’s drink depended on organized herding and repeated deliveries as well as household production.

Turning cow’s milk into winter stores

Rubruck describes a separate process for cow’s milk. Workers first extracted butter, then boiled it until dry and stored it in sheep paunches, which preserved it for winter. They let the remaining milk sour strongly, boiled it until it curdled, then dried the curds in the sun. He calls the hard dried curd gruit. In winter, when fresh milk was scarce, people put the curd in a skin with water and churned it vigorously until it dissolved into a sour drink.

Millet, exchange and a winter ration

Animal foods did not supply everything. Rubruck writes that great lords had villages in the south that sent millet and flour for winter. Poorer people obtained these foods by trading sheep and pelts. Grain therefore reached a ruler’s establishment through control of agricultural settlements, while people without that access exchanged livestock products for it.

One winter ration illustrates how meat and grain could be cooked together. Rubruck says three members of his party were given one thin sheep for six days, a daily bowl of millet and a quart of millet mead. They borrowed a kettle and tripod to cook the meat, then boiled the millet in its broth. Rubruck says the portion would have been enough for the three, but hungry people pushed in as soon as they saw the meal being prepared and had to be fed with them. The shared cooking vessel turned the liquid left by the meat into another part of the meal. Rubruck also describes other simple meals provided by a Christian monk: millet with butter, dough boiled in water with butter, and sour milk with unleavened bread, cooked over cattle or horse dung.

Court drinks and the silver tree

At Möngke’s court in 1254, Rubruck saw winter drinks including wine, rice mead, honey mead and clarified mare’s milk. At the palace in Karakorum, the Parisian goldsmith Guillaume Boucher made a silver tree for serving them. Four conduits ran through the tree to separate bowls; silver lions at its roots poured mare’s milk. A cellar held the other drinks, and attendants filled the correct conduits when the head butler called for service. A hidden man blew through a pipe so that an angel on top of the tree sounded a trumpet. The butlers then carried the bowls to the assembled court.

At a feast in January 1254, rice mead, red wine and cosmos were served. Möngke’s first wife knelt with a full cup to ask a blessing as priests sang; the meal included mutton followed by large carp, served without bread or salt. This episode connects food and drink with ceremony in the court household.

The device joined storage, skilled metalwork and coordinated service in a ceremonial setting. Rubruck says Möngke held two large drinking feasts at the palace each year; at the summer gathering, nobles travelled from as far as two months away and received robes and gifts. The drinks and their presentation were part of an event that displayed the ruler’s reach and capacity to provision a gathering.

Cooking fuel, service and unequal access

Cooking depended on fuel as well as food. Rubruck describes his party arriving after dark and being unable to gather ox or horse dung because they could not see it; wood was rare on the route. At Möngke’s dwelling he saw cattle dung burning in a central grate. For his party’s winter meal, court attendants supplied fuel and lent cooking equipment; the experience shows how a traveler’s access depended on court provisioning.

Rubruck also records labor behind household supplies: women milked cows, made butter and dried curds, drove carts, moved dwellings, and sewed skins and clothes. Men cared for horses, milked mares, churned mare’s milk, prepared its containers and loaded camels; both men and women cared for sheep and goats. Food work thus connected animal care to processing, cooking, storage and service.