This they
do, in the first place, and never use it until it has undergone this
operation, without which they would be exposed to the inconveniences
with which sour milk affects Europeans. In like manner, the Kalmucks
do not relish water that has not been boiled. Poor persons, to prevent
their being reduced to the necessity of drinking it pure, mix it with
their milk, in the proportion of a third part or half, in order to make
the most of the latter as a drink.
The milk is therefore heated as soon as it is withdrawn from the animal;
and, when warm, it is poured into a large skin bottle, with which the
poorest hut is furnished, and in which there is always a remnant of sour
milk sufficient to sour the new milk, after it has been stirred with a
stick kept for the purpose. Those bottles are never washed or cleaned:
they are therefore always incrusted with cheese and dirt, and the smell
admitted by them is sufficient to show what they contain. But it is
precisely in this that the secret for making the milk undergo the vinous
fermentation consists. If it be intended to sour milk in empty or new
bottles, all that is necessary is to put into them the least drop of the
milk-brandy to be presently described, or a little of the curdled milk
that is found in the stomach of young lambs.
All the preparations of milk are comprehended under the name of Tchigan.
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