Obsession

I'm sure that some of you wonder why food is such a hot topic on Peace Corps Volunteer's blogs. Why do we always talk about what we eat when there are so many other interesting things we are experiencing in Mongolia?
I will tell you.
If you have read any other PCV in Mongolia's blog, you will find that they are nearly all centered around food. What we eat, what we can't eat, how we cook, whether or not we have a refrigerator.
We are living in a totally foreign world, trying to learn a really hard language and doing our best to avoid any major cultural faux paus, and all we can talk about is food? My friend Cady and I were discussing this very topic in detail one day over google chat (yes, we both work 40 hours a week with not a whole lot to do yet, so when our internet connections are both working we inevitably have strange and varied conversations). We came to the conclusion that the heart of our obsession lies in the fact that food is one of the few things we have any sort of control over in our lives. We have reverted back to infancy; our basic needs have become very important. Finding food, trying to stay warm and seeking human companionship have taken center stage in our lives. We don't control the heating in our apartments. Unless you live in a ger, you don't get to decide when to turn it on or how hot or cold it gets. Even in a ger you only have marginal control. It's pretty much either HOT or COLD. We struggle to find meaningful relationships with people other than our fellow PCV's (who are a lot like summer camp friends. Solid friendships form at the speed of light, but just talking to each other is not really what Peace Corps considers integrating into our community). We also spend A LOT of time thinking about, shopping for and preparing food. Part of this is just the way of life in Mongolia, but another part has to do with our situations over the summer.
During training we were at the mercy of our host families. We didn't decide what we ate or when we ate it. We were introduced to some truly wonderful Mongolian food which we have come to love, but we were also forced into eating things we would really rather not. There is no polite way to refuse food in Mongolia. No one ASKS you to eat, they order you to. A plate is set in front of you, accompanied by the words "eed, eed," which is the command form of the verb "to eat." So you eat, and hope that bad things don't happen later.
Toward the end of training we all fantasized about the day we would be able to cook our own food, when we would be able to ensure that knifes and cutting boards are actually washed, and leftovers are refrigerated (maybe). Now that day has come, and we are all in a bit of a state of shock as to how much time and effort is necessary. First you have to decide what you want to eat. And then you have to think about whether or not you can actually find the ingredients for your desired meal (or what creative substitutions you can make, such as using camel hump in the place of bacon, as called for in one recipe in our PCV cookbook). After deciding what you need to buy you have to go in search of it. Shopping in Mongolia is nothing like shopping in America. You can't go to the super Wal-Mart and buy everything you need plus a bunch of stuff you don't. You have to go to the market, one or both of the two "supermarkets" and random delguurs to find what you need. And, frequently, you simply can't find what you want. Mongolians also don't normally do the whole weekly mass-acquisition of food that we do in America. They usually buy in small quantities several times a week. The reason for this is not to ensure fresher veggies, as one would think. The vegetables available are root veggies, and it doesn't matter a whole lot when you buy them. They have probably been sitting in a burlap bag for at least a week, if not more, anyway. It has to do with one's ability to carry things. Most Mongolian's don't own cars, and taxis are expensive. So it's pretty much a "take what you can carry" kind of system.
Once you haul your food home, and are now REALLY hungry, you must prepare it. There is no such thing as the instant frozen meal in Mongolia. Everything you eat you slave over. It is also necessary to be either very creative or plan ahead well. The market where vegetables are sold closes around 5 or 6 pm and may or may not be open during the weekend. You can't really find vegetables anywhere else in town. I find this to be especially frustrating. I work until 6 pm, and sometimes the market isn't open on the weekend. Or maybe it is open at varying hours, but it's a good 15 minute walk from my apartment, and it's not like hours are posted. I ran into an interesting dilemma last weekend. Several other PCVs were in town visiting, and we were trying to decide what to make for dinner. I had cabbage, potatoes, a couple carrots and garlic. I also had some dried tofu. (The tofu is an interesting story, I can't get fresh tofu, but I recently learned that there is dried tofu at the supermarket by my apartment. It looks exactly like pork rinds, and the package even says meat on it in giant letters. But it also says soy meat. Luckily Natalie was here to assure me it wasn't pork rinds) We tossed around ideas of what to make, anything from a cabbage stir-fry to soup. The night before I had made tortillas and we made vegetable fajitas with some seasoning my Mom sent me (Thanks Mom!!!!). The tortillas were really good, and we decided we wanted to make them again. So then it became a matter of figuring out how to include them in something we made with what we had. Eventually we decided we would attempt a sort of cabbage-based fajita. I was out of fajita seasoning, so we used taco seasoning instead. It really is amazing the things you can come up with out of necessity. We fried the potatoes like french fries, and then stir-fried everything else with the taco seasoning and mixed it all together. We even had some hot peppers that Fahd had brought from his site, one of his clients grows them and Fahd is pretty much the only consumer of them. We all decided it was a success, and though we never would have thought that cabbage would be a good base for a fajita, I might actually make that recipe again.
Not only are we obsessed with food in general, we are also all completely obsessed with American food. We dream about it, we salivate over it, and we spend a ridiculous amount of time trying to figure out how to make something that sort of resembles it with what we have. We only just got here, and already a good portion of our conversations with each other go along the lines of:

"I would kill for some Taco Bell nachos right now."
"STOP! Don't make me think about what I can't have!"
"Yeah, but wouldn't a Jimmy John's sandwich just be soooo good right now?"
"Any kind of sandwich would be good right now. *sigh* We have two more years before we will see such things."
"True, but only a couple of months before we are in UB, and we can have a CHEESEBURGER!"

You would think that in this part of the world we would have really interesting spices and flavors from China. Unfortunately, that is not the case. This is partially due to the lack of infrastructure in Mongolia. In UB you can actually find just about anything you are looking for. A jar of peanut butter may cost $14, but it's there. But if you are anywhere off the paved road (yes, that is singular) or rail line, your variety drops significantly in relation to the distance you are from UB. Another factor in the lack of variety is that Mongolians just aren't that interested in eating different things. A wide variety of vegetables can be grown here. In Darkhan some vegetable farmers are growing broccoli, corn, Brussels sprouts, okra and squash (thanks to a previous CED PCV). But they have a really hard time selling it. Mongolians don't know what to do with such things. Cady is the new CED PCV there, and it is now her job to figure out how to market these "exotic vegetables."
I know that reading about what food we eat may not strike you as the most interesting or informative thing we could post in our blogs. But to truly understand what life as a PCV in Mongolia is like, you have to appreciate our obsession with food. It is true that probably a ridiculous portion of our blogs and emails contain stories of what we can and cannot buy, what we cook and what we eat. But some of us are learning to cook for ourselves for the first time in our lives, and most of us are being hit with the realization of how much work it actually takes to feed yourself when you aren't in America where you can go to any number of fast food restaurants, buy pre-packaged meals, or go visit your parents when you want a good home-cooked meal.