This is Randi Hacker with another Postcard from Asia from the KU Center for East Asian Studies.

Our hi tech world is so smug about how it’s cramming more and more stuff into smaller and smaller spaces. Well, here in Mongolia, this is nothing new. Mongolian nomads have been doing it for centuries only instead of storing and carrying, say, 1000 songs in a tiny iPod, they have been storing and carrying 1000 pounds of beef in a tiny pouch. The meat is freeze dried between late November and March in barns across the steppes. The result is борц or winter food. борц is dried to such an extreme that it is practically powder, a powder that preserves all the flavor and nutrition of a whole cow without the weight. Nomads use just a pinch to flavor a hearty beef noodle soup that sustains them through the cold months. You might call it cow concentrate. Just add water!

From the Center for East Asian Studies, this is Randi Hacker. Wish you were here.