Friday, November 20, 2009

Food Posters

by Kara

We need to take some time to talk about food posters. Food posters are an essential item to any non-ger (i.e. house or apartment) Mongolian kitchen. I am fascinated by them. My sitemate Ashlee shares an equal fascination with the posters and aspires to be the world's foremost expert on them. The best ones make absolutely no sense -- and we were just lucky enough to get one of the best already scotched to the wall in our kitchen. Here's where it's located, right above the sink:




And here, for your viewing pleasure, is a close-up:




While washing the dishes, I discover new, wondrous aspects to our poster everyday. Our poster contains many of the essential food poster qualities. For example:
  •  First, there must be some sort of liquor in the poster. Ours is some type of yellow liquid (label is in Chinese so I haven't figured out exactly what it is) but there's also a martini glass with an umbrella and some indistinguishable brown liquid - I can't tell if it's coffee, liquor, or gravy. I have yet to solve that mystery.
  • Next, there should be some other inanimate, non-food objects. We have a vase of flowers, which isn't that weird. But on the left is what appears to be a tissue box which says "blue beauty" upside down and "made in China". Oh and there's a knife and fork (which is upside down) that don't match.
Okay, onto the assortment of food. Now, many food posters have a variety of fruits, most of which you are unable to purchase in Mongolia. But, again, we're lucky -- our poster offers a cornucopia of food: 
  • Corn on the cob in a bowl
  • Cupcakes, with a mini plastic fork stuck in them, next to the stuffed jalapeƱo pepper
  • Green maraschino cherries
  • Two red maraschino cherries just sitting on the tablecloth
  • On the plate in the back is what appears to be a hamburger of sorts, half a piece of sausage, and a personal sized pizza 
  • And possibly my favorite dish on the poster, a plate with fried eggs, prawns, and a carnation
And that my friends, is our food poster.

Here's a picture of the food poster in my host family's kitchen, of the classic fruit + liquor variety:


2 comments:

Mike Fiechtner said...

Love it!!! My first thought was "what is that poster doing in the bathroom". and then I read that was the kitchen....oops.

that is too funny! At least they have Cocoa puffs there! And what's the jars in the last pic? Milk? Mayonaise? Hmmmm....looks interesting. hope you guys are well!

Kara Estep said...

I have to say, the Cocoa puffs are rare! There are none in my town. My host family bought them when I first arrived in fear I would not eat their food and they probably spent way to much money on them. They served them to me in hot, sometimes salty, milk. I enjoyed them though! And I think the big white jars might have been mayonnaise and the other, milk.

Glad you enjoyed the post!