Five months ago my sister was in Kazakhstan and sent me an email with a particular quote that made me laugh with fascination: “Horse milk tastes like sausage… Weird”.
Today I received an email from a Kazakh reader who saw that post and generously offered some more information on horse milk. I love getting email like this. Here’s the message I received from “Galym”:
“Hey Charlie! I just came across your note about the Horse Milk in Kazakhstan. Well believe me, it doesn’t taste like sausage. I don’t know what your sister was drinking. Sometimes in restaurants in big cities, they mix it with a lot of water just to make it more profitable. The real horse milk, not mixed with anything, is usually really expensive. The thing is that the people in big cities don’t really know the true taste of horse milk. And one more thing: “Kumys” is the Russian pronunciation of the drink. We kazakhs call it QYMYZ! I don’t know if I wrote it correctly in Latin though. Q is for strong K, Y is for more open i. I hope this helps. Anyway, thanks for your interest in my country! You are always welcome to visit Kazakhstan!”
Now I know what I must do: travel to Kazakhstan and seek out horse milk.