In the war of the cold weapon era, compared with the army of the sedentary people, the logistical pressure of the nomadic army living on the steppe was not too great, because most of them were highly mobile cavalry, and they only needed to carry enough food for themselves to fight, and they did not need to rely on a large number of logistics troops to transport food like the sedentary national army. Moreover, when marching and fighting, the cavalry on the steppe rarely made a fire to cook, and they often carried a variety of dried meat or cheese, which could be preserved for a long time as a military food they trusted.
By the thirteenth century, the Mongols had rushed out of the steppes under the leadership of Genghis Khan, and during that time people had seen the "power" of cheese and jerky. Because the ancient Mongols often had to march for a long time when they were fighting, and when the army was fighting, the cavalry dismounted and cooked would waste valuable marching time, and the cooking smoke may also expose their position, so the Mongol cavalry very much liked to use cheese and jerky as military food, because this food is not only high in nutritional value, but also very convenient to carry and eat.
However, there are also many nomadic armies, when marching and fighting, they use more primitive methods to make military food, for example, in the European history books, it has been recorded that the ancient Huns have always had the phenomenon of eating raw meat, and in the eyes of Europeans at that time, the Huns were still a group of barbarians who drank blood.
When documenting the Hun diet, European historians often refer to a "saddle cured meat" food and claim that this food was the Huns' favorite food. The so-called saddle cured meat, that is, the ancient Hun cavalry will put raw meat under the saddle when marching and fighting, after a long ride, the friction and collision of the saddle and the horse's back will make the flesh of the raw meat very soft, when the Hunnic cavalry is hungry, it will directly eat the meat under the saddle.
The Huns were the first people recorded by Europeans to eat saddle cured meat, and more than a thousand years after the Huns disappeared from the european vision, the Europeans met a people who liked to eat saddle cured meat, this nation was the Crimean Tatars.
Since the Mongol conquest of Europe in 1235, many nomadic peoples have been called Tatars by Europeans, and most of these peoples have many ties to the Golden Horde. For ancient Europeans, the Crimean Tatars were "devilish" beings, and their appearance reminded Europeans of their ancestors who were ravaged by the Huns, and these Tatars also had many similarities with the Huns, such as they, like the Huns, were very fond of eating saddle cured meat.
In European chronicles, the diet of the Crimean Tatars was recorded as follows: "The Tatars living in the Crimean Khanate had a "notorious" food, and their cavalry, when marching, would put mutton under the saddle, and when the war horses ran, they would ooze a lot of sweat, and the Tatars used the sweat of horses as a condiment, and used the sweat of horses to marinate raw meat, and their food inevitably reminded people of the ancient Huns. ”
For Europeans at that time, this diet of the Tatars was incomprehensible and acceptable to them, but given the harsh environment and lack of materials on the steppe, it was normal for the Tatars to make this food. Because at that time, they had difficulty obtaining a large amount of salt, just as the ancient Arab nomads took salt from the urine of camels, and the Huns and Tatars living on horseback also learned to get salt from the sweat of war horses, but it is difficult to verify whether this food is delicious or not.