**The Evolution of Mongolian Cuisine**

Mongolia's culinary landscape is undergoing a significant transformation, with aromatics and seasonings becoming increasingly popular in modern cooking techniques. This shift towards more contemporary methods is largely attributed to the country's democratization in 1991, which led to a surge in exposure to global cuisines. As Mongolia becomes more open to international influences, its traditional cuisine is evolving to incorporate new flavors and ingredients.

The use of aromatics and seasonings is a relatively modern development in Mongolian cooking. When asked about this change, the respondent noted that 20 years ago, such practices were unheard of. However, as the country transitioned from communism to democracy, citizens began to explore global cuisines and adopt new cooking techniques. This shift has resulted in a younger generation of cooks who are eager to experiment with flavors and ingredients.

The technique used in Mongolian Barbecue is reminiscent of traditional pot sticker cooking methods. By searing the bottom of the meat and then steaming it, cooks achieve a perfect balance of flavor and tenderness. The use of hot rock also adds an exciting element to the dish, imparting a smoky flavor that enhances the natural taste of the ingredients.

**The Role of Technique in Cooking**

When asked about the importance of technique in cooking, the respondent emphasized its significance. "Look at Korean budy jigay with Spam and goofy ramen noodles – it's one of the most delicious casseres you'll ever have." This highlights the crucial role that technical skills play in creating a dish that is both flavorful and enjoyable.

The respondent also shared their personal experience with playing music, specifically metal, which inspired them to start a band. They noted that Mongolian society was heavily influenced by communist propaganda during its time under Soviet control. However, with the collapse of the Soviet Union, Mongolia began to open up to global influences, including hip-hop, graffiti, and metal.

This cultural shift is seen as a key factor in Mongolia's rapid modernization. Unlike other countries where globalization has led to the erasure of local identity, Mongolians are able to integrate new ideas while retaining their cultural heritage. The respondent noted that this transition is happening with the entire nation, rather than being imposed from outside.

**The Importance of Preserving Traditional Culture**

As Mongolia continues to grow and modernize, there is a growing concern about preserving its traditional culture. The respondent expressed sadness at the thought of Mongolian nomadic culture going extinct. They acknowledged the significant progress that has been made in recent years but emphasized the importance of maintaining the country's unique identity.

The use of River Rock in cooking is an excellent example of this approach. By incorporating elements of traditional cuisine into modern dishes, cooks are able to preserve the essence of Mongolian culture while still experimenting with new flavors and techniques. This balance between tradition and innovation is key to Mongolia's continued growth without losing its values and heritage.

**The Respondent's Experience**

The respondent shared their personal experience cooking hor hog in a van during a road trip. They noted that the lamb was initially funky due to being left in the trunk of the car for several hours, but the River Rock added a smoky flavor that transformed the dish. This anecdote highlights the importance of technique and ingredients in creating memorable culinary experiences.

The respondent's appreciation for Mongolian cuisine is evident in their enthusiasm for traditional dishes like hor hog. By focusing on the quality of ingredients and cooking techniques, cooks are able to create authentic and delicious meals that showcase the best of Mongolian cuisine.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enof all the places we've been Mongolian people greatest people of all the food we've eaten hands down the hottest hottest trash on the planet is in Mongolia be the dejos crust we may need to work on there's a olive and Peach in there now you know I was always like man wonder why Tony hasn't come to Mongolia yet it's definitely like if your jail was serving pizza and then you poured your fruit cocktail on top of your jail pizza that's what it would tastes like please Mongolia show me you could cook I'm getting mine yo so I'm here with you already know ugie our Mongolian fixer and his friend Eric ER era nice to meet you Erica and uh Erica is the leader the the chingis Khan of his band all ton rap it's a Mongolian Paul C band what does he do in the band uh it plays uh musical instrument called Ying all right insert still image of Ying thank you jar today we're going to go out like out of town and uh have some picnic and cook Mongolian Hot hook okay which is like you know like Mongolian barbecue and yeah a lot of meat and we're this mid Market okay so we're going to eat some some dope all right I'm ready oh my God this what is the smell Market oh my God oh my God remember that time I told you the hot spring smelled like Avan divine's butthole this this my G is AA divides but hole yo this is the inside of Ava divine's butthole that fell out adal is for experts y'all be careful that ass will fall out on you when your host of your show just himself in the Mongolian airport and wiped his ass with socks and woke up with food poisoning the next seed should not be in the Mongolian Meat Market what what's what's looking good to us did we get Lamb with a lamb leg because we're going to cook it's lamb so L awesome it looks good it's organic what does organic meat like no hormones no antibiotics it's real it's just lamb all natural flies love it too this oh my God the meat looks good but why is there fresh I know it's fresh but damn it's so it's fine it just it looks worse than it is cool yo you know the kid is always the first one to defend things culturally but scientifically you cannot argue that refrigerating this meat not eating next to this meat like maybe not having the door open for flies to come in on this meat would not make it more sanitary in a healthier situation and that the meat would last longer but what we're seeing is it works in this Society people come here they buy meat every day they have more FL in their systems their immune systems can handle this I can't I'm dying out here but ooie says I'm going to be all right I'm going to try this wh hog and hopefully I go home with my socks on today yo so what we saw in the parking lot was a lot of the meat is being slaughtered and brought here by whether it's Farmers or just families who have horses goats Lambs they're coming out of cars and straight into the market and it's a crazy scene to watch people bring meat in through like the trunks of their Hyundai in 90° heat today that Meats in there and then go straight into the market ooie saying all the meat is fresh but in a lot of ways you kind of playing Mongolian roulette picking out this meat here yo so we on the outskirts of Ulan Batar right now the hotel Mongolia hosts a huge outdoor music festival called playtime and this is basically Mongolian Bushwick how long have you been hosting this concert uh been like a working as an official host of Play sign for the last uh 6 years damn my band is called profits and um and we play metal but this year we're not playing because like I'm busy working with you guys Shameless plug profit No Lie man when I see tents at a concert I just get bugged out and get flashbacks from bonaroo cuz at bonaroo man everybody smells like snaggle puss it's just like trapped in this one Campground where no one showered for 5 days you w for there there's definitely some eligible Mongolian beef curtain in this situation I'm looking around and it's like the metal style I mean damn Mongolians was born looking like 80s metal bands like son you you came out you came out the womb like this chenas Khan original Metal Head yo so y'all seen playtime but the storm is coming so we got to bounce right quick how old is the restaurant it opened to like 3 or 4 years ago oh that's it yeah is it kind of is it the first of its kind in Mongolia yeah yeah I mean what you guys are seeing here this is like the first modern like Japanese sushi restaurant you know like you went to a lot of Japanese sushi restaurants or Korean barbecue restaurants in the 80s and '90s and they served proper traditional authentic just Delicious Japanese food or Korean food and it have like private rooms and it was almost like a dojo that you walked into you took your shoes off the servers would wear kimonos and you'd sit down on the pillow and you'd eat and things like that this restaurant's doing the same thing I saw the VIP room is like a G right so you could go eat in the G and it's not gimmicky that's just how people still eat here what we're doing now is we got the lamb that we got from the market earlier today that's literally been sitting in the trunk while we were at play time getting up to current outdoor temperatures of 91 to 92° so it's just it's ready to go right now we wanted to get this lamb in the danger zone and now we're ready to make warhog you know this is a very TR dish like in the west you know they people call it like Mongolian like barbecue like well this is like yeah this is actual Mongolian Barbecue it is it so Mongolian Barbecue is not actually garlic sauce on a no no FL top no no baby corn yeah so adding vegetables and things like that is that like a new innovation did it used to just just be straight lamb meat yeah it used to be like straight lamb so this is a very modern thing to actually have aromatics and seasonings for cooking Mongolian food how long ago did this actually start to develop 20 years yeah when Mongolia became a democratic country after the Democratic revolution in 1991 that's interesting and you know I've been making fun of Mongolian food along the way but this is a very young culinary culture and it's just coming around no baby corn no baby corn I always like the baby corn or the chain in my Mongolian Barbecue this technique is is very interesting and you wouldn't think but it's very similar to the technique that cooks pot stickers when you cook pot stickers you get a hard sear on the bottom of the pot sticker but then you put a lid on top of it so it's cooking the pot sticker from the bottom and steaming the top so the meat is going to have a nice sear from the pieces that touch the Rock and it's also have the flavor from that burning from touching hot rock but it's also going to be tender from the steam you have the pressure that's cooking it you have the steam that's cooking it and you have the contact with hot rock that's cooking it yeah three-way gang bang this generation of cooks is always talking about ingredients ingredients spices they're so focused on things they see like study abroad but I'm telling you the thing to pay attention to is technique look at like Korean budy jigay with Spam and like goofy ramen noodles is one of the most delicious casseres you'll ever have you can make anything delicious if you have technique yo ooie so what do you think for you when you started play dat and things like that you started your metal band profit what is it that got you to do that what inspired you well mongola was a communist country you in those days like because of the this communist propaganda you know people like my parents they couldn't listen like to B to The Rolling Stones to Pink Floyd and those songs and they would just secretly listen to them after 99 uh the Soviet Union collapsed and uh so the transition from communism to democracy started that's when we get like more exposure to to the rest of the world and it was you know big change actually like in the early 90s the first tape that I bought like panta cannibal cors you know I was like oh wow that's what the hell is this you know like this is like the cool I've ever listened to in a way what I really like is that your country is transitioning but it's transitioning with all Mongolians it's not somebody like Russians or Chinese came in took you guys over and forced you to transition hip-hop comes here and graffiti comes here and metal comes here and your Festival came here and I have a hunch that the reason why this transition is going so well is because it's happening with Mongolians right like we get upset in America when let's say a black neighborhood gets gentrified and it modernizes but not at the pace not with the identity and not with the values of the residents that are currently there Mongolia you talk to the graffiti artists you talk to the metal kids they're integrating and they're growing and your entire economy and everything is growing but never detached from who you are you guys never forget that I would really hate to see you know like our this Mongolian nomatic culture go extinct I would really hate that and I think that Alon R in a way is a you know like one of the best examples you know this connection between the Mongolian tradition and then modern world yeah this traditional music was the modern rock music yeah crack nice the main event that's the hor hog I'm going to risk my life for you guys look how tender this is this hor hog looks delicious I'm just still concerned about that time in the van so you can see here there's some Char on parts of the beef other parts of the beef were cooked by Steam and when I smell this there's no Funk on the lamb at all that River Rock just sizzling directly onto that meat brought so much flavor and it's kind of taken the edge off that natural musk that the lamb has and this lamb was literally sitting in the trunk of a car for 5 hours in desert heat that's how funky this was when I came in here and the river rock did the job so what do you think ugie you were right man the tenderness and that flavor of that por hog best I've ever had hands down hands down best lamb dish I've ever had so Mongolians know ain't no such things as halfway Cooks next up on Fresh Off The Boat how do you think is the most efficient and positive way for Mongolia to grow without losing its identity and values now you have a people with money and power ruling the country and that's that can turn Olyof all the places we've been Mongolian people greatest people of all the food we've eaten hands down the hottest hottest trash on the planet is in Mongolia be the dejos crust we may need to work on there's a olive and Peach in there now you know I was always like man wonder why Tony hasn't come to Mongolia yet it's definitely like if your jail was serving pizza and then you poured your fruit cocktail on top of your jail pizza that's what it would tastes like please Mongolia show me you could cook I'm getting mine yo so I'm here with you already know ugie our Mongolian fixer and his friend Eric ER era nice to meet you Erica and uh Erica is the leader the the chingis Khan of his band all ton rap it's a Mongolian Paul C band what does he do in the band uh it plays uh musical instrument called Ying all right insert still image of Ying thank you jar today we're going to go out like out of town and uh have some picnic and cook Mongolian Hot hook okay which is like you know like Mongolian barbecue and yeah a lot of meat and we're this mid Market okay so we're going to eat some some dope all right I'm ready oh my God this what is the smell Market oh my God oh my God remember that time I told you the hot spring smelled like Avan divine's butthole this this my G is AA divides but hole yo this is the inside of Ava divine's butthole that fell out adal is for experts y'all be careful that ass will fall out on you when your host of your show just himself in the Mongolian airport and wiped his ass with socks and woke up with food poisoning the next seed should not be in the Mongolian Meat Market what what's what's looking good to us did we get Lamb with a lamb leg because we're going to cook it's lamb so L awesome it looks good it's organic what does organic meat like no hormones no antibiotics it's real it's just lamb all natural flies love it too this oh my God the meat looks good but why is there fresh I know it's fresh but damn it's so it's fine it just it looks worse than it is cool yo you know the kid is always the first one to defend things culturally but scientifically you cannot argue that refrigerating this meat not eating next to this meat like maybe not having the door open for flies to come in on this meat would not make it more sanitary in a healthier situation and that the meat would last longer but what we're seeing is it works in this Society people come here they buy meat every day they have more FL in their systems their immune systems can handle this I can't I'm dying out here but ooie says I'm going to be all right I'm going to try this wh hog and hopefully I go home with my socks on today yo so what we saw in the parking lot was a lot of the meat is being slaughtered and brought here by whether it's Farmers or just families who have horses goats Lambs they're coming out of cars and straight into the market and it's a crazy scene to watch people bring meat in through like the trunks of their Hyundai in 90° heat today that Meats in there and then go straight into the market ooie saying all the meat is fresh but in a lot of ways you kind of playing Mongolian roulette picking out this meat here yo so we on the outskirts of Ulan Batar right now the hotel Mongolia hosts a huge outdoor music festival called playtime and this is basically Mongolian Bushwick how long have you been hosting this concert uh been like a working as an official host of Play sign for the last uh 6 years damn my band is called profits and um and we play metal but this year we're not playing because like I'm busy working with you guys Shameless plug profit No Lie man when I see tents at a concert I just get bugged out and get flashbacks from bonaroo cuz at bonaroo man everybody smells like snaggle puss it's just like trapped in this one Campground where no one showered for 5 days you w for there there's definitely some eligible Mongolian beef curtain in this situation I'm looking around and it's like the metal style I mean damn Mongolians was born looking like 80s metal bands like son you you came out you came out the womb like this chenas Khan original Metal Head yo so y'all seen playtime but the storm is coming so we got to bounce right quick how old is the restaurant it opened to like 3 or 4 years ago oh that's it yeah is it kind of is it the first of its kind in Mongolia yeah yeah I mean what you guys are seeing here this is like the first modern like Japanese sushi restaurant you know like you went to a lot of Japanese sushi restaurants or Korean barbecue restaurants in the 80s and '90s and they served proper traditional authentic just Delicious Japanese food or Korean food and it have like private rooms and it was almost like a dojo that you walked into you took your shoes off the servers would wear kimonos and you'd sit down on the pillow and you'd eat and things like that this restaurant's doing the same thing I saw the VIP room is like a G right so you could go eat in the G and it's not gimmicky that's just how people still eat here what we're doing now is we got the lamb that we got from the market earlier today that's literally been sitting in the trunk while we were at play time getting up to current outdoor temperatures of 91 to 92° so it's just it's ready to go right now we wanted to get this lamb in the danger zone and now we're ready to make warhog you know this is a very TR dish like in the west you know they people call it like Mongolian like barbecue like well this is like yeah this is actual Mongolian Barbecue it is it so Mongolian Barbecue is not actually garlic sauce on a no no FL top no no baby corn yeah so adding vegetables and things like that is that like a new innovation did it used to just just be straight lamb meat yeah it used to be like straight lamb so this is a very modern thing to actually have aromatics and seasonings for cooking Mongolian food how long ago did this actually start to develop 20 years yeah when Mongolia became a democratic country after the Democratic revolution in 1991 that's interesting and you know I've been making fun of Mongolian food along the way but this is a very young culinary culture and it's just coming around no baby corn no baby corn I always like the baby corn or the chain in my Mongolian Barbecue this technique is is very interesting and you wouldn't think but it's very similar to the technique that cooks pot stickers when you cook pot stickers you get a hard sear on the bottom of the pot sticker but then you put a lid on top of it so it's cooking the pot sticker from the bottom and steaming the top so the meat is going to have a nice sear from the pieces that touch the Rock and it's also have the flavor from that burning from touching hot rock but it's also going to be tender from the steam you have the pressure that's cooking it you have the steam that's cooking it and you have the contact with hot rock that's cooking it yeah three-way gang bang this generation of cooks is always talking about ingredients ingredients spices they're so focused on things they see like study abroad but I'm telling you the thing to pay attention to is technique look at like Korean budy jigay with Spam and like goofy ramen noodles is one of the most delicious casseres you'll ever have you can make anything delicious if you have technique yo ooie so what do you think for you when you started play dat and things like that you started your metal band profit what is it that got you to do that what inspired you well mongola was a communist country you in those days like because of the this communist propaganda you know people like my parents they couldn't listen like to B to The Rolling Stones to Pink Floyd and those songs and they would just secretly listen to them after 99 uh the Soviet Union collapsed and uh so the transition from communism to democracy started that's when we get like more exposure to to the rest of the world and it was you know big change actually like in the early 90s the first tape that I bought like panta cannibal cors you know I was like oh wow that's what the hell is this you know like this is like the cool I've ever listened to in a way what I really like is that your country is transitioning but it's transitioning with all Mongolians it's not somebody like Russians or Chinese came in took you guys over and forced you to transition hip-hop comes here and graffiti comes here and metal comes here and your Festival came here and I have a hunch that the reason why this transition is going so well is because it's happening with Mongolians right like we get upset in America when let's say a black neighborhood gets gentrified and it modernizes but not at the pace not with the identity and not with the values of the residents that are currently there Mongolia you talk to the graffiti artists you talk to the metal kids they're integrating and they're growing and your entire economy and everything is growing but never detached from who you are you guys never forget that I would really hate to see you know like our this Mongolian nomatic culture go extinct I would really hate that and I think that Alon R in a way is a you know like one of the best examples you know this connection between the Mongolian tradition and then modern world yeah this traditional music was the modern rock music yeah crack nice the main event that's the hor hog I'm going to risk my life for you guys look how tender this is this hor hog looks delicious I'm just still concerned about that time in the van so you can see here there's some Char on parts of the beef other parts of the beef were cooked by Steam and when I smell this there's no Funk on the lamb at all that River Rock just sizzling directly onto that meat brought so much flavor and it's kind of taken the edge off that natural musk that the lamb has and this lamb was literally sitting in the trunk of a car for 5 hours in desert heat that's how funky this was when I came in here and the river rock did the job so what do you think ugie you were right man the tenderness and that flavor of that por hog best I've ever had hands down hands down best lamb dish I've ever had so Mongolians know ain't no such things as halfway Cooks next up on Fresh Off The Boat how do you think is the most efficient and positive way for Mongolia to grow without losing its identity and values now you have a people with money and power ruling the country and that's that can turn Oly\n"