What Did Silk Road Caravans Eat? Mare’s Milk, Dried Curd and Melons

A thump in a felt tent on the steppe, in 1253: a friar watches mare’s milk turned into kumiss. What did Silk Road caravans eat and drink? This documentary follows the Silk Road table from the Mongol steppe to the rice of southern China: kumiss and dried curd, the milk paste a rider shook up in a leather bottle, the oasis fields of Khotan, the melons of Khwarazm, Pegolotti’s dried provisions for the long road, the tea of the Song court, the cookbook of 1330, and the silver tree at Karakorum. Where the film dates a source on screen, it says so. Watch the series in order (How the 13th-Century Silk Road Worked):    • How the 13th-Century Silk Road Worked   The novel behind this series is Wayward, a trilogy set along this road. Trailer:    • WAYWARD | Epic Silk Road Historical Fictio...   Part of Life on the Silk Road, documentaries on daily life around 1270. More from the series: Silk Road Cities (documentaries on life along the Silk Road around 1270):    • Silk Road Cities   Chapters 0:00 The Skin Bag 1:19 Iron Rations 2:25 Water from the Mountains 4:29 Rice and Tea 6:38 The Silver Tree 8:08 The Bag at the Door Sources William of Rubruck, Itinerarium (Rockhill and Jackson translations), via Medievalists.net and factsanddetails.com. Marco Polo, The Travels (Yule), via the Columbia Asia for Educators excerpt. Ibn Battuta, via Aramco World, “In Search of Ibn Battuta’s Melon” (2015). Francesco Pegolotti, Cathay and the Way Thither (Yule). Encyclopaedia Iranica, “Khotan i. Geography”. Wikipedia, “Grand Treatise on Tea” and “Hu Sihui”; Buell and Anderson, A Soup for the Qan. Springer, Rice (2011), on Champa rice. World History Encyclopedia, “Food and Drink in the Mongol Empire”. The Wayward trilogy These films grew out of the Wayward trilogy, historical novels by Fred Suh set on these roads around 1270. The books on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/6502032990?... Music (YouTube Audio Library): “Tiburtina” by Schwartzy; “Sleep Music No. 1” by Chris Haugen; “Inner Outer” by Lish Grooves; “Jomon Grove” by The Mini Vandals; “Rain Over Kyoto Station” by The Mini Vandals; “From Here on In” by Everet Almond; “A Distant Call” by Dan “Lebo” Lebowitz and Tone Seeker. AI disclosure Narration: AI voice, Kokoro (open-source text-to-speech). Images: AI-generated (mainly ChatGPT); clips: Google Flow; maps: Natural Earth. These are illustrations, not photographs or archival footage, and were reviewed for historical accuracy. Corrections are welcome in the comments. Subscribe for daily life on the 13th-century Silk Road, from the world of the Wayward trilogy:    / @wayward-trilogy   Topics: Silk Road food, kumiss, Mongol steppe food, Khotan, Khwarazm melons, Pegolotti, Song tea, Yinshan Zhengyao cookbook, Karakorum silver tree #SilkRoad #FoodHistory #MedievalHistory