1001 Exotic Lassis

Every cuisine evolves from locally available stuff. When a cuisine absorbs different ingredients and different cooking techniques from other cultures, it gets enriched.
This assimilation has never before been easier. We now have access to a large variety of ingredients and cooking techniques and so can create a huge array of traditional recipes, made from exotic ingredients. Eating food from other culturesis probably the easiest way to understand and appreciate them.

Indian cuisine discovered that when fermented milk, the yogurt, is blended with sugar, it makes a delicious drink, the lassi.  Seems simple, but not many cuisines across the world whip up so many varieties of fermented milk drinks. Other cuisines, however have a large array of fermented milk products. We can borrow their ingredients and lend them our technique, thus unshackling lassi from yogurt and let it be made from fermented milk across the world.

Though Indian lassis are made from cow / buffalo milk, lassis can be made from any fermented milk. Each culture has its own way of fermenting milk and almost all of them can be turned into delicious lassis. Using the Indian technique of blending fermented milk with a variety of flavourings and additives, a large variety of global lassis can be created.

The base of all lassis is fermented milk. This is blended with a variety of flavourings as listed in column 2 and additives listed in column 3 to give a thousand different exotic lassis

 The bases are listed below :

Kefir, from Caucasus, is milk ( usually from goat / camel)  fermented with Kefir grains into a thin yogurt.

Viili is a Finnish version of yogurt made by curdling milk with special bacteria. Like Indian yogurt, previously made Viili is used as a starter for the next batch. 

Kaymak, from Turkey is fermented milk made by boiling milk and then slowly simmering it for hours over gentle heat. The cream is then skimmed and fermented into mild, rich paste.

The central Asian Kumis is fermented mare's milk. Commercial Kumis uses cow's milk, mixed in with various additives, to make it similar to mare's milk.

Filmjölk, from Sweden is milk fermented by bacteria into a less sour version of normal yogurt.

The South African Amasi is made by fermenting unpasteurised cow's milk in a container made from calabash / hide sack.

Doogh , from Iran is very similar to carbonated buttermilk. Yogurt is beaten well, mixed with water and fermented so that the drink becomes fizzy. A shortcut is to mix in soda with yogurt.

The viscous Matsoni is Georgian version of yogurt.