The oldest drink of mankind smells like wormwood and freedom. He came to us from the vast steppes, from the nomads who quenched his thirst, and also considered him a panacea for many diseases and a sacred product.
It's about a drink called koumiss. What is it and what does it look like? This is a sour-milk substance of a whitish color, foamy. It is made from mare’s milk using microscopic yeast, acidophilus and Bulgarian bacillus. The cooking technology is brilliantly simple, but rather laborious. First you need to get mare's milk. Since the udder is very small, the horse is milked every hour. All the milk yield is poured into a special cylindrical tank with a narrow top. It is covered with a lid with a hole: then a pole (whisk) is inserted there, which ends with a cross. As a rule, a little koumiss from the preliminary batch remains at the bottom of such a vessel. It becomes leaven. Fresh mare's milk is constantly added there, and then the mixture is knocked down. This must be done periodically, for several hours in a row for a couple of days. That's how they get koumiss. His recipe, of course, may vary. Sometimes when whipping in a drink, add fresh cream, salty horse fat to increase fat content and improve palatability. The barrel for making a drink is completely empty every 2-3 weeks. It is lubricated from the inside with oil and smoked with branches of meadowsweet. This provides the final product with its characteristic organoleptic qualities.
So, koumiss. What is it, we have already figured out. And what does it taste like? It is a refreshing drink, sweet and sour, vibrant. It is not stored for long, and it is practically impossible to cook it on an industrial scale. Thus, what can sometimes be found in a store cannot be called a koumiss. A real drink, seasoned in accordance with all the rules and traditions, can be very intoxicating or, conversely, soothing. Depends on the quality of the sourdough and the duration of exposure, what will be the koumiss.
What kind of drink is this, every student familiar with history will tell you. It was known to the Mongols and Kazakhs in the Copper-Stone Age, as evidenced by archaeological finds. And the first written mention of him is found in Herodotus, the father of history. He wrote that the Scythians carefully guarded the recipe for making a special sour-milk drink. Koumiss is also described in the Ipatiev Chronicle, in the stories of Guillaume de Rubruk.
Let's take a look at the koumiss from a medical point of view. What is this This is a drink with a rich composition that contains lactic, pantothenic, folic acid, amino acids, thiamine, cyanocobalamin, riboflavin, carbon dioxide, biotin, ethyl alcohol, vitamin C, macro- and microelements. This is a surprisingly useful product, which is indicated for various diseases. He practically has no contraindications. You can not use it for people with acute gastrointestinal diseases and allergies to dairy products.
How to drink koumiss? As you wish! It quenches thirst, tones, refreshes. And it is also widely used in cosmetologists and traditional medicine, in the treatment of animal diseases. Bon Appetit!