Maria Erdnieva, About Dairy Products

Maria recalls how her mother made milk vodka, cheese and kept butter inside a sheep’s paunch. Her story: When we lived in our homeland, I remember how my mother fermented milk and made bozo (what is left in the pot after distilling milk vodka). She distilled milk vodka in a big pot that had a pipe going to another pot. Alcohol vapor travelled through that pipe from one pot to the other. The big pot was covered with a wooden lid and people tried vodka from the other pot with the help of a special stick made from horse’s tail. Bozo, which was a by-product, was poured through a net and what was left on the net was collected and dried in the sun to make cheese. In my childhood, my mother used to milk cows. I used to sit next to her and drink the milk. I could run all day long, because the milk was very nutritious. We used to put butter inside a sheep’s paunch which was dried and salted beforehand.Sponsored by Arcadia Fund, a charitable fund of Lisbet Rausing and Peter Baldwin