Make Do

The Borat movie opens in about a week. Suddenly information about Kazakhstan abounds in the media. For people like me who consider the movie a spoof, this recent flood of info comes as a shock. Except in bigger cities, Kazakh food seems uniquely, horribly different. Kazakh natives eat mostly meat and they prefer portions which in the USA would never even make it into the grocery store. For example the head of a sheep, especially the brain. Another appreciated item; fried camel offal. Huh? Offal? Here you go: offal is the viscera and trimmings of a butchered animal often considered inedible by humans. We're talking ears, noses, guts, genitals, organs, eyeballs, etc. Fried camel offal. Well, now. Here, for example, is a camel kidney looking like, like, like...a camel kidney.

These people eat the animals they have, which are horses, camels and sheep. They eat dairy products derived from horse, sheep, and camel milk. Without refrigeration anywhere along the way. And they sluice down their meals with vodka, which, the more you think about it, makes perfect sense. Women, the offal of the human race in that part of the world, drink tea, must face mealtime stone sober. Sentenced to a stretch in Kazakhstan, I, certainly, would lose weight. An Asian nation as one big spa, you might say.

On the one hand, it's admirable that Kazakhs do not sit around pining for fruit and vegetables, but make do with what they have...which is meat. On the other hand, oy.