Where does Ayran (salty yogurt drink) come from?
Ayran comes from Central Asia, where Turkic peoples first made it. This chilled mix of yogurt, water and a pinch of salt travelled west with them, and today it is often called Turkey's national drink.
A drink of the steppe nomads
Ayran was developed by Turkic tribes in Central Asia. As nomads on the steppes, the vast, treeless grasslands they called home, they turned milk into fermented foods such as yogurt, cheese and ayran, which kept far longer on long journeys than fresh milk. Turkic peoples are believed to have made ayran for at least a thousand years. Its name comes from the Old Turkic root adır-, 'to separate', which lives on in Turkish ayır-.
In the first Turkic dictionary
Ayran already appears in the Dīwān Lughāt al-Turk, the first known dictionary of Turkic languages, written by Mahmud al-Kashgari in the 11th century. It defines ayran simply as a 'drink made out of milk' and says nothing about how it was made. The Turkish linguist Besim Atalay helped trace ayran's roots back to this book. Related words live on elsewhere: in Chuvash, uyran means buttermilk.
Why people say Turkey
When Turks migrated from Central Asia to Anatolia, ayran moved with them, and old travel accounts describe Anatolians eating bread with yogurt or ayran. Today it is a national drink of Turkey, sold everywhere from supermarkets to street vendors' barrels and served with kebabs, sometimes in copper cups. But it is not only Turkish: ayran is drunk across Central Asia, the Balkans and the Middle East, and is on the menu of most restaurants in Bulgaria.
Sources: en.wikipedia.org ↗ · cnn.com ↗
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