Meat & Veges

Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia
Sunday, November 22, 2009

Slowly, I am getting used to buying meat at the markets in UB. In the aisles, young men push by burdened under the weight of frozen animal carcasses. Beef, pork, and mutton in great huge slabs greet one on the counter tops --and hacking them up turns out to be real exercise.

But buying vegetables here presents another challenge.

I know enough Mongolian to be able to ask this question: "Chinese or Mongolian?" At this point in the season, one can't reasonably expect much to still be growing here in Mongolia. (Although there may be some vegetable greenhouses operating here from what I understand.)

So, if you want any variety of vegetables (i.e. peppers, cauliflower, broccoli, etc), it means Chinese vegetables. If you're any kind of an "organic" shopper, you're not going to be happy if you spend too much time thinking about what the Chinese might put on their vegetable to make them look so nice.

So, you choose: either no fresh vegetables for the rest of the winter or vegetables from who-knows-where in China covered with who-knows-what kind of pesticides.

Sometimes, you've just got to close your eyes and buy something.

And don't even talk about ones "carbon footprint" around here: except for meat and milk products, almost all food products are imported to Mongolia.