White china dishes loaded with boiled sheep parts are placed on the table as the guests take their seats. One dish holds the bones of the animal, mostly enormous flat ribs fringed with meat and chunks of gleaming white fat. Another holds intestines; they have been emptied, cleaned, turned inside out and wrapped tightly with narrower intestinal tubes. Some have been stuffed with gristle and fat, and sliced like roulets.

Buyanto serves his guests a taste of everything, remarking on the ribs, "You may be tempted to take the jawbone first, but the ribs are more tasty. Clean them off as best you can. The Buryats have a saying: The cleaner the bones, the prettier your children will be."

For the second course, Tsypelma brings out the sheep's boiled stomach, swollen nearly to bursting with a mixture of blood and spices. Buyanto slices the stomach open, and all at the table take spoonfuls of the congealed purplish-brown mixture, pausing occasionally to wash it down with clear mutton boullion.

More dishes follow: slices of tongue, of heart. The only dish that is missing is the head. In Buryat tradition, a very honored guest is treated to the sheep's brains, which he is expected to scoop out with the flat end of a rib. But tonight, the head is not served.

There is one other tradition that is not fulfilled on this evening. Batomunko, Buyato's elder brother, remarks, "In traditional Buryat culture, the women never sit at the same table with the men. They come in only to serve the food, then must back out of the room the way the came, so as never to turn their backsides to the men."