Changes

Later, during the period of the Mongols and their invasions of much of Eurasia in the 13th century, the concept of an easy to eat meat was needed as the Mongols prided their war-making skills and that required fast movement including nearly non-stop ridding across the steppe. Food had to be eaten on the go. The Mongols developed a way to mince meat down and store this meat, so as they rode they could even simply grab the meat as it was saddled to their horses and eat it on the go (Figure 1). They likely did not use any bread but effectively they developed a concept of 'fast food' that introduced meat being minced and stored easily.  This type of meat production was later introduced by the Mongols to places in Europe that they came into contact with, in particular Russia. They usually used horse meat as this was not only widely available but also was able to sustain a high number of warriors relative to their nutritional value of horse meat and, of course, this meant they could eat what they brought with them as they moved around. This minced horse meat may have been the origin of 'steak tartare' that is still eaten today, although beef is now often used, with tartare being a reference to the Mongols. During the occupation of Moscow, for instance, Russian populations began adopting using stake tartare as a commonly made dish as it was easy to make. Similar to the Romans, the Russians and others often did not use bread to eat the meat with.<ref>For more on the innovation of steak tartare, see: Tomaino, A. (2010). <i>The grill Junkie burger-a-day cookbook: what fires you up?</i>. Lulu.com.</ref>