Got (Horse) Milk?

As interesting as the city of UB is, I found one thing more interesting.  When my tour guide failed to interest me in horseback riding or camel riding, she became desperate to fill my time.  Finally she offered, “Would you like to visit a traditional Mongolian Family?”

Would I?  Of course!

We immediately turned off the main road into Terelj National Park.  We take a peaceful lane into a beautiful valley.  We drive through a quietly feeding herd of Yak and pull up to a ger with a large, strong Mongolian man standing outside.  He recognizes the guide, and after a few words we are taken inside the ger.

The wife comes in and magically produces first three shot stools, and then tree clean ceramic bowls.  From a 30-gal barrel covered by a cloth she ladles each bowl full of beautiful white milk.  

I immediately take a sip and discover a clean delicious taste with just a hint of zing.  My guide explains that this is a specialy Mongolian beverage made by fermenting the milk.   This particular batch is still in the early stages of fermentation, so it is not as acrid as it will become when finished.

Despite her explanation, I still enjoy the clean taste.  Then it strikes me, this milk is “cleaner” tasting than ususal milk.

“This isn’t cow’s milk is it?”, I ask.

“No, it’s horse milk.”

Hmmm, I should have known.  Horses are the prize animal in the Mongolian outback.  Think of Genhis (Chingis here) Khan and his Mongol Hordes riding horses into battle.

“How does one milk a horse?” I wonder to myself.  

“Why don’t we drink horse milk, or goat milk, or other kinds of milk in the USA?”  The taste is good and the unusual has appeal, and we have plenty of horses, whose milk is no doubt going to waste feeding young colts.

Of course there are likely some economic problems with marketing commercial horse milk, but there are also problems of custom and tradition here.

“We’ve never done it before.”  “We don’t do that here.”   “That’s just weird.”  “Why would we want to change what we have always done?”  “Our milk is just fine as it is, why change?”

Wow, that sounds like a conversation in a church deacon’s meeting doesn’t it?

Jesus scolded some church leadears in Matthew 15: 1Then some Pharisees and teachers of the law came to Jesus from Jerusalem and asked, 2“Why do your disciples break the tradition of the elders? They don’t wash their hands before they eat!”

3Jesus replied, “And why do you break the command of God for the sake of your tradition? 4For God said, ‘Honor your father and mother’^a and ‘Anyone who curses his father or mother must be put to death.’^b 5But you say that if a man says to his father or mother, ‘Whatever help you might otherwise have received from me is a gift devoted to God,’ 6he is not to ‘honor his father^c’ with it. Thus you nullify the word of God for the sake of your tradition.

Which brings up the question, in what ways do we (I) “nullify the word of God for the sake of your (my) tradition.”

Most of us are guilty, we just do it in different ways.   “They said to Him, "Lord, we want our eyes to be opened."  Matt 20:33