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|
 A bottle and glass of kumis | |
| Type | Dairy product |
|---|---|
| Main ingredients | Mare milk |
Kumis (/ˈkuːmɪs/ KOO-mis, rarely /ˈkʌmɪs/ KUM-is), alternatively spelled coumis or kumyz,[a] also known as airag (/ˈaɪræɡ/ EYE-rag),[b] is a traditional fermented dairy product made from mare milk. The drink is important to the peoples of the Central and East Asian steppes, of Turkic and Mongolic origin: Kazakhs, Bashkirs, Kalmyks, Kyrgyz, Mongols, and Yakuts.[1] Kumis was historically consumed by the Khitans, Jurchens, Hungarians, and Han Chinese of North China as well.[2]
Kumis is a dairy product similar to kefir, but is produced from a liquid starter culture, in contrast to the solid kefir "grains". Because mare's milk contains more sugars than cow's or goat's milk, when fermented, kumis has a higher, though still mild, alcohol content compared to kefir.
Even in the areas of the world where kumis is popular today, mare's milk remains a very limited commodity. Industrial-scale production, therefore, generally uses cow's milk, which is richer in fat and protein, but lower in lactose than the milk from a horse. Before fermentation, the cow's milk is fortified in one of several ways. Sucrose may be added to allow a comparable fermentation. Another technique adds modified whey to better approximate the composition of mare's milk.[3]
Cite error: There are <ref group=lower-alpha> tags or {{efn}} templates on this page, but the references will not show without a {{reflist|group=lower-alpha}} template or {{notelist}} template (see the help page).
- ^ Zeder, Melinda A. (2006). Documenting Domestication: New Genetic and Archaeological Paradigms. University of California Press. p. 264. ISBN 0-520-24638-1.
- ^ Anderson, Eugene N. (1988). The Food of China. New Haven: Yale University Press. p. 80. ISBN 0300047398.
- ^ Law p. 121.