Ahh.... the essence of Central Asia!
When I finally tracked down one of Kazakhstan's signature beverages, it was a little anti-climatic watching the woman open a cooler in the diary section of the bizarre and scoop out the stuff with a laddle, pouring it into a used 1.5 litre water bottle. Nonetheless, I proffer to those milky naysayers of you that "shubat", as it is proudly procalimed here in Kazakh, has substantial anti-viral properties and serves as a splendid prophylactic against a whole host of stomach maladies. It tastes of a strange cross between buttermilk and sour orange juice which mind you, while not palatible for those of us uninitiated to fermented diary, I think any denizen of Alabama would be proud to pour this over his Special 'K'. Don't let it's curdled, frothy appearance intimidate you, this stuff enriched the diets of generations of hardy steppe nomads, soothing even the surliest of Mongol tempers! So here's to you Wisconsin!
