PREPARATIONS OF MILK, PARTICULARLY OF MARES' MILK, USED BY THE KALMUCK
TARTARS.

The ordinary drink of the Kalmucks, and which forms an essential part
of their food, consists of various preparations of the milk supplied by
their cattle. The mares yield milk as well as the cows; and, for several
reasons, they prefer the former. When fresh, this milk has a taste of
onions, which is very repulsive; but, in proportion as it sours, if the
operation is performed with cleanliness, it becomes more liquid than the
other, acquires an agreeable vinous taste, and neither forms cream nor
coagulates. In this state, it furnishes a wholesome and refreshing
drink, and which, when in sufficient quantity, froths in a remarkable
degree. The cow's milk, on the contrary, both on account of the cheesy
matter which it contains and its disagreeable taste, becomes unpleasant
to drink when it sours; and, in persons not accustomed to it, induces
colics and diarrhoeas, although the Kalmucks themselves experience no
inconvenience from it, unless they have neglected to boil it. This they
do, in the first place, and never use it until it has undergone this
operation, without which they would be exposed to the inconveniences
with which sour milk affects Europeans. In like manner, the Kalmucks
do not relish water that has not been boiled. Poor persons, to prevent
their being reduced to the necessity of drinking it pure, mix it with
their milk, in the proportion of a third part or half, in order to make
the most of the latter as a drink.

The milk is therefore heated as soon as it is withdrawn from the animal;
and, when warm, it is poured into a large skin bottle, with which the
poorest hut is furnished, and in which there is always a remnant of sour
milk sufficient to sour the new milk, after it has been stirred with a
stick kept for the purpose. Those bottles are never washed or cleaned: