Taiga Specialty · Reindeer Dairy
Tsaatan Reindeer Milk & Cheese
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The Tsaatan rarely slaughter their reindeer for meat at all — the animals are milked daily instead, and the household diet leans on the cheese, yogurt and butter made from that milk far more than on reindeer meat.
Female reindeer are milked twice a day by hand, and the rich, fatty milk is churned into butter, soured into yogurt, or pressed into a firm cheese. It's a food found only among the Tsaatan (Dukha) reindeer herders of Khövsgöl's remote northern taiga, one of the last reindeer-herding communities on Earth.
Why it's made this way: The Tsaatan's entire way of life depends on their reindeer herds for transport as much as food, so unlike the rest of Mongolia's horse- and yak-based dairy culture, their diet centers heavily on reindeer milk products rather than the meat.
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