With choices such as Jamaican Pork Chops, Chicken Pesto Pasta, and Meatloaf (not sure if it’s mom’s), the ordinary soldier can survive in the field for days – in style. Meals, Ready to Eat, or MREs, are the latest incarnation, albeit with somewhat more of an attempted epicurean flare, of a mobile meal for soldiers. With only a little water, out of a drab brown plastic package emerge a table, white cloth, pre-lit candles, tuxedo-clad server, and gourmet meal. Cheekiness aside, MREs do serve an important role in the supply chain of a modern army, at least supplying soldiers until a supply chain is available.
If it’s true what Napoleon said of armies traveling on their stomachs, how was it possible then that the Mongolians conquered more territory in 25 years than the Roman Empire conquered during its reign? In their rapid expansion across Asia beginning in the early part of the 1200s, the Mongolians utilized their own brand of an MRE: a brand that made this expansion largely possible, a brand that effectively negated the need for a supply chain.
Genghis Khan didn’t invent a menu for his soldiers; Mongolians were by culture predisposed to maintaining extended campaigns. Nomadic herding on the grasslands of Mongolia necessitated a mobile diet. As it does even for today’s Mongolians who live a traditional lifestyle, the primary focus of this diet revolved around herding animals: camels, goats, yaks, and horses. In addition to lean meat, these animals also provided dairy products upon which the Mongolians relied heavily.
According to Sarah Murray in her book, Moveable Feasts (St. Martin’s, 2007) the Mongolians developed highly advanced biochemical processes to produce a variety of dairy products, such as yogurt, cheese, butter, and dried curds. Many of these products are fermented to prolong shelf life. The Mongolians even produced a kind of hooch, airag, from fermented mare’s milk. She says that although many believe the “harnessing of these immensely complicated microbial cultures first occurred on the steppes of Central Asia…no one has so far explained how such advanced processes evolved in the hands of people with no access to scientific equipment or modern technology” (p.125). Whatever the case, the Mongolians had the knowledge, and they employed it in their military campaigns.
The armies simply took their diet on the road. Marco Polo, in his travels to Asia in the 13th century, reported that one staple of a Mongolian warrior was a paste made from boiled milk. And like the modern MRE, a little water would be added to a gourd containing a portion of the paste, and with a shake, shake, shake from his horse’s canter, he would have a frothy, nutritious meal for the long ride. Each Mongolian warrior traveled with at least three horses, predominantly mares, to lessen the stress and to provide a milk supply. If dairy products ran out, Polo noted that the warriors could live off the blood of his horses and “ride quite ten days’ marches without eating any cooked food and without lighting a fire.”
The Mongolian’s military prowess was characterized by lightning movements on horseback and deadly skill with their bows, which had a range 100 yards farther than the English longbow. Without their mobile food source, though, the impact of these military advantages would have been severely curtailed.
For more information on the history of world cuisines, check out:
Murray, Sarah. Moveable Feasts. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2007.
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