Dishes of the peoples of the North (Yakut, Nanai, Karelian, Chukchi cuisines). What is good for the Chukchi is also delicious for Masaya. What the Chukchi eat and how they dress
“We are what we eat” Americans often write on their traditional lunch and snack boxes that they take on a picnic, to school or to work. This humorous remark takes on an unexpectedly deep meaning if you think about the fact that traditional food, national cuisine, and the customs of feasting inherent to the people are the result of an amazing fusion of history, biology, and culture.
Yes, now we know that excessively spicy foods threaten gastritis and stomach ulcers and can lead to cancer of the oral cavity and esophagus. Yes, modern doctors are well aware that excessively salty foods contribute to the development of arterial hypertension. But once upon a time these customs were not just reasonable, they were vital. For centuries, diseases that developed due to unbalanced diets remained a less formidable danger for our ancestors compared to possible death from malnutrition.
Many dietary habits of the indigenous inhabitants of the Arctic, highlands, tropics or deserts seem “strange” or “exotic” today. However, differences in our diets are not only natural, but also inevitable. A high school biology textbook says, for example, that the “normal” ratio of the main elements of food - proteins, fats and carbohydrates - should be approximately 1:1:4. And this is really true for a middle-aged city dweller living in temperate latitudes and doing light physical labor. But such a food composition could be disastrous for the Peruvian Indian living in the Andes at an altitude of 4 thousand meters above sea level
Sometimes extremes are revealing. Let us dwell on two contrasting examples and try to understand the nutritional characteristics of the indigenous inhabitants of the Arctic and the African arid savannah.
The basis of the existence of any organism is the satisfaction of its needs for substances and energy necessary to maintain life. It is from such “energetic” positions that modern researchers prefer to approach the analysis of nutritional ecology problems. The intensity of metabolism varies among representatives of human groups living in different climatic and environmental conditions. This trait is inherited, like many other physiological characteristics. Under the same conditions, the energy consumption of the body of a “conditional Eskimo” remains approximately 15 percent higher than that of a shepherd from the Turkana tribe, an indigenous inhabitant of the African savannah. The combination of various strategies for energy conservation and replenishment (i.e. nutrition) resulted in the formation of human populations adapted to different environmental conditions.
Adaptation to peculiar types of nutrition was so profound that it affected not only physiology, but even human anatomy. Here's just one example. During the evolution of meat-eating mammals, two main types of nutrition were formed. One of them is more common in omnivorous organisms, such as bears and wild boars. In their stomach, food is mixed and comes into contact with glands located in the walls of the organ that secrete digestive juice. However, further, very intensive and lengthy processing of food and its absorption occur in the intestines. The “bear type” is also characteristic of most people and primates, in whose diet meat and fish occupy a significant, but far from the only place.
Another type of nutrition - relatively speaking, the “wolf type” - is characteristic of creatures whose main source of energy is meat. In this case, most of the digestion process takes place in the stomach, accompanied by very active treatment with concentrated chemicals and, above all, hydrochloric acid. To prevent damage from its own digestive substances, the walls of the stomach contain a large number of specific cells that produce protective mucus. It envelops the bolus of food and protects the walls of the stomach from the effects of acid.
So, two different types of nutrition. Differences similar to these are found between the digestive systems of peoples living in temperate climates and those in the Arctic. More precisely, peoples who, due to the climatic and geographical characteristics of the inhabited territories, “could afford” a diet with relatively balanced plant and meat components or were forced to adapt to an almost exclusively meat diet.
During research in the Yamalo-Nenets District, which was carried out by employees of our laboratory and the Saratov Medical Institute, the indigenous inhabitants, the northern Khanty, leading a traditional lifestyle, had higher acidity of gastric juice compared to adherents of the European diet. At the same time, among the Khanty, increased acidity is much less likely than among Europeans to lead to peptic ulcers of the stomach or duodenum.
Our Saratov colleagues T.Yu. Grozdova and Yu.V. Chernenkov conducted studies that showed that among indigenous northerners, the activity and content of hydrochloric acid in different parts of the stomach are very different. Near the walls of the organ, where the acid could become dangerous for one’s own body, its content turned out to be unexpectedly low, even lower than that of residents of other regions. This happens because among the indigenous inhabitants of the North, the cells located in the walls of the stomach produce a huge (compared to the “European norm”) amount of mucus. Like the wolf, it serves as a kind of protective layer between the active contents of the organ cavity and its walls. We all have such a defense mechanism, but only among peoples in whose diet meat plays a primary role is it brought almost to perfection.
I must emphasize: the “meat diet” that we were talking about, of course, does not represent a diet exclusively of meat and proteins. Extreme conditions of high latitudes place their demands on the characteristics of the human diet. The huge fat content in the traditional diets of northern residents, incredible for a resident of a temperate climate, is a biological necessity. “He died of starvation eating rabbits” - this saying of the Canadian Arctic Indians is surprisingly accurate from the point of view of nutritional biology. Meat (proteins) may be enough. A lack of fat while living at the limit of the ability to adapt to cold turns out to be disastrous.
Canadian writer Farley Mowat, a biologist by training, told how on one of his expeditions he tried to “model” and test on himself the “wolf” diet. Living in the tundra, he tried to eat the same food as the family of wolves that lived next door. But at first he didn’t dare to eat the entire Arctic rodent lemmings, so he gutted them, throwing out the main reserves of fat from the carcass along with the entrails. The results were immediate. The sharp deterioration in health and decrease in the body's resistance was overcome only after F. Mowat, on the advice of an Eskimo friend, supplemented his diet with fats - the same as the neighboring wolf family.
Almost 90 percent of the Eskimo's total caloric intake comes from fat. However, with such a diet, among the Eskimos and northern Indians, the Chukchi and the Khanty, the concentration of fatty substances in the blood serum was not much higher, and sometimes even lower, than is typical for Europeans, in whose diet fats occupy only one-sixth. Are the fats supplied with food simply “burned out” so quickly in the body of a native northerner? Or maybe the reason is something else?
It turned out that fats are different from fats. Some of them can, oddly enough, reduce cholesterol levels in human blood serum and thus protect against the development of atherosclerosis. Biochemists and nutritionists have found that a similar effect is exerted by so-called marine fats, more precisely, not the fat of walruses, seals and whales itself, but the specific organic acids contained in it.
So, do the Nenets, Chukchi, Nanais, Mansi have some kind of “natural protection” of the cardiovascular system? This opinion began to develop among some cardiologists in the late sixties. This preliminary, working hypothesis penetrated the pages of popular medical journals and gradually somehow became almost the “ultimate truth.” Indeed, at first glance, the data that have just been presented confirms this point of view. But how convincing is it today?
Recent studies have shown that the decrease in life expectancy among the Inuit Inuit of Canada due to heart and blood vessel diseases is no different from that of the “average Canadian.” It turns out that statistical data do not confirm the legend about the “natural protection” of the indigenous inhabitants of the North from heart and vascular diseases. Just as the results of recent studies by cardiologists and geneticists do not agree with it.
Very alarming results were obtained during examinations of the northern Khanty, coastal Chukchi and Altaians (Altaikizhi) by employees of the Research Institute of Medical Genetics of the Tomsk Scientific Center and the Institute of Therapy of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Medical Sciences. A third of men and almost a quarter of all women examined showed signs of coronary heart disease. The prevalence of the disease in these groups of indigenous peoples of the North today is practically no different from what was established by cardiologists in Moscow ten to fifteen years ago. “The epidemic of our era,” as experts from the World Health Organization called coronary heart disease, has also spread to the North. The main reason for this is the disruption of the traditional way of life of the indigenous northerners. Nutritional traditions developed over centuries, which included alternating meat and fish, which supplied the body with essential fats and at the same time protected from their damaging effects, have been sharply disrupted in recent decades. Nowadays, the average, “European” type of nutrition, which has spread across the planet, is combined in the most strange way with national traditions. As a result, as ethnographers and nutritionists confirm, the share of natural products in the diets of the Chukchi and Eskimos, Samms and North American Indians has fallen, and the consumption of canned food has increased accordingly. Canned food, made, of course, using “European” technology, containing the optimal components necessary for a person living in a temperate, rather than arctic, climate.
As studies by A.V. have shown. Fomenko, an employee of the Institute of Therapy of the Siberian Branch of the Academy of Medical Sciences, among the Chukchi and Eskimos, only people over thirty years of age adhere to the traditional type of diet, although the share of European cuisine is quite large among them. But young people already have little knowledge of national cuisine, traditional techniques and methods of processing food. This is connected, first of all, of course, with the upbringing of entire generations of indigenous northerners in boarding schools, their separation from the skills of running a traditional household, and the habit of boarding school food.
In Chukotka, I was told about children from national boarding schools in Eskimo villages who, after lunch, ran to the ocean shore to chew sea kale leaves washed up by the surf. After a normal hearty lunch with stewed meat, condensed milk, sweets dirty seaweed. For what? Just childish fun? Or maybe “biological memory”? Maybe this is how those features of the body manifest themselves that a doctor, teacher, or ecologist should know and take into account?
For contrast, let us turn to the example of peoples living in ecological conditions with fundamentally different, but no less severe than the Arctic, demands on the human body. And we will tell you about the nutritional characteristics of representatives of only one group of nomadic and semi-nomadic pastoralists of the arid savannahs and semi-deserts of tropical Africa - the Masai, Turkana and Pokot.
They traditionally did not consider livestock as a potential source of meat. For them, a herd is primarily an indicator of prestige, a symbol of wealth (the Indians of the North American prairies in the 19th century treated their herds of horses in exactly the same way). To harm a bull or a cow, especially to use them for meat, for the Masai, first of all means lowering one’s social status. Only during a drought does custom and severe necessity allow the slaughter of a hopelessly weakened animal. Surprisingly, thanks to this, the last third of the difficult dry season is the most “meat” time of the year for savannah pastoralists. Among the less affluent Turkana, the same attitude extends to small cattle, goats and sheep. For the Turkana, a camel is so valuable that killing it is simply out of the question.
Thus, the type of livestock farming inherent to the shepherds of East Africa can be characterized as “saving”: it is focused primarily on obtaining “renewable livestock products”, but not meat. Our European traditions assume in such a situation only dairy farming. In Africa the traditions are different.
“Blood and milk,” we sometimes say, describing a healthy, thriving person. “Milk and blood” could be said about their main food by the nomadic pastoralists of the East African plains. Travelers of the past were amazed by the custom of the Pokots, Maasai, and Turkana to use not only milk, but also the blood of domestic animals for food. In English-language ethnographic literature, even a special word appeared by analogy with “milk animal”; they began to use the term “bleed animal”, which can be translated as something like “blood-bearing cattle”.
Contrary to the claims of some popular articles, the Maasai did not prepare their food by mixing blood and milk. Such a mixture was rarely consumed, and not as food, but as an emetic or laxative: according to custom, the cattle breeder or hunter had to completely “cleanse” the stomach and intestines in order to switch from meat to dairy foods or vice versa.
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The basis of the diet of pastoralists in arid savannahs was and remains, of course, milk. The shepherds of the African savannas drank fresh blood from livestock in the middle of the dry season, during a period when there was no longer enough milk, but the livestock had not yet suffered from lack of food to such an extent that it was necessary to use hopelessly weakened animals for meat.
These days, the practice of using livestock blood to supplement the diet during periods of low milk production is no longer common among Maasai pastoralists, although it is still common among the Turkana. The fact is that about three hundred years ago, the Turkana were pushed back by warlike neighboring tribes into the inhospitable arid savannas in the southwest of modern Kenya. They still communicate quite little with the surrounding peoples and, in their most “pure” form, preserve the lifestyle and diet of desert pastoralists, honed over centuries.
The milk of cows and mainly camels provides the Turkana with 50 to 90 percent of the energy they receive from food. Interestingly, the highest milk consumption falls on two groups: children under three years of age and girls who are expected to get married in the near future. Children, clearly, representatives of this “age cohort”, are the main consumers of milk all over the world. But girls of marriageable age? Meanwhile, it is precisely this distribution of food that turns out to be the most rational. And not at all because the girl will “look more beautiful” and therefore the groom will give a large ransom for her, - this is how the Turkana themselves explain the custom of “enhanced”, according to their concepts, nutrition. In fact, it turns out that with a constant lack of nutrition, expectant mothers still receive some “reserve” of proteins, which will be used up when carrying the first child and feeding the baby.
So, milk, meat and, in some cases, the blood of domestic animals are the main food products of pastoralists in semi-deserts and savannas. Among the Maasai and Senegalese Fulani pastoralists, protein intake is more than twice the level recommended by European doctors, and even four times in some Turkana groups. From 30 40 to 73 percent of calories come from fats: camel milk is almost twice as fat as cow milk. As a result, the fat content in the food of African pastoralists is also noticeably higher than the norm established for a modern city dweller.
An amazing thing: here, in the desert, at the “other pole” of human ecological adaptation, we are faced with the same dietary pattern as in the Arctic. The same “protein-fat” diet as the Eskimos. At the same time, like the Arctic Chukchi and Sami, no signs of cardiovascular diseases were found among pastoralists of the African savannas. It would be time to again suspect the presence of a mysterious “natural protection” from atherosclerosis. However, as in the previous case, this idea is not confirmed.
The secret is this: African pastoralists receive only 55 75 percent of the energy they need. Simply put, they are constantly on the verge of starvation, and at best they are malnourished. At the same time, proteins, which in people living in more comfortable conditions are used only as building material for renewing body cells, are almost immediately consumed in the Turkana as “fuel” that ensures muscle function. The same thing happens with fats: they are not stored “in reserve” (forming, in addition, growths on the inner surface of blood vessels and leading to the development of atherosclerosis), but are immediately burned, replenishing the body’s energy. It is possible that the high fat content in the diet of desert inhabitants partly helps them in solving the extremely urgent task of replenishing the lack of water.
We, inhabitants of temperate climates, do not receive all the moisture we need from food and water. Approximately 14 percent of fluid (about 350 milliliters per day) provides chemical reactions in the body. This is the so-called metabolic water. Its main source is fats. Many biochemists admit that foods with a high fat content in desert conditions can serve as an additional source of metabolic water.
In conclusion, let us talk about some important provisions concerning the ecology of human nutrition. In any ecosystem, energy transfer from the original source (plants) occurs along a food chain or pyramid. Of course, this transfer is accompanied by a loss of energy. The useful products of each level of the chain constitute about ten percent of the incoming amount of matter and energy. Taking all this into account, one can understand what ways to increase the level of energy supply (that is, food) were open to people in “pre-industrial society.”
The transition to a simpler and shorter power circuit can achieve significant benefits. The most striking example is the vegetarianism of some groups in India and New Guinea. In tropical conditions with enormous productivity of plant biomass suitable for human nutrition, the transition to the exploitation of the lowest floor of the nutrition pyramid provides a noticeable gain in the flow of substances and energy. But this option is essentially closed to groups living in the Arctic or desert. Humans cannot feed themselves on tundra lichens or hard seeds of savannah acacia. They can only be eaten by creatures specialized in this regard: reindeer in the Arctic, goats and camels in the semi-desert.
Man was saved by the fact that in the course of his evolution he “specialized in non-specialization”: he became less and less dependent on a clearly defined range of environmental conditions. Non-specialization in nutrition also played a major role. Omnivorousness has unusually expanded the range of possibilities for humans. One of the most obvious examples is the Eskimos and Chukchi, who simultaneously use the food chains of the ecosystems of the sea, rivers, tidal zone, and land. In addition, the exploitation of these food pyramids occurs simultaneously on different “floors”. Tundra berries, reindeer and the bears that hunt them - they all belong to the same food chain, and each of its links is eaten by humans - the inhabitants of the Arctic. The same can be said about sea fish and the seals that eat them - they form elements of the oceanic food chain and at the same time are included in the Eskimo diet. We find a similar approach to the use of resources among the indigenous inhabitants of deserts. According to the German ethnographer F. Rose, the aborigines of the desert regions of Central Australia ate at least 122 species of organisms: land animals, mollusks, crabs, plants.
Not a single animal that “knows its place” in the food chain and is highly specialized in a strictly defined ecological environment could achieve such a variety of nutrition in the desert. Only man, with his big brain, skillful hand and ability to create an environment suitable for living around himself, was able to master almost all the ecological niches of the planet suitable for a mammal and lay there a dinner table, a mat, a dostarkhan or a skin by the fire in the plague.
What is disgusting to a Russian, is delicious to a Sicilian (or Swede)... mm... delicious. Are you going to eat? I don’t recommend it yet, I suggest you look at a selection of “rotten delicacies” from all over the world, after which I think you will lose your appetite for a long time.
So, here we go:
Swedish gourmet food - surströmming. This is canned fermented herring, which “ferments” (sours) in barrels for several months, and, simply put, practically goes rotten. The fish has a strong unpleasant odor and a very salty taste. This dish is served with boiled potatoes or simply on bread, and real connoisseurs eat it straight from the can with fresh milk..
Residents of the far north especially love dishes with flavor, for example, our Russian Chukchi consider it a real treat rotten deer meat. The killed individual is specially kept for several weeks in a barn until it acquires a specific smell, and then a stew is cooked from it. The smell during the preparation of such soup can be heard over several tens of meters.
Here's another one for you yummy from the northern peoples - kiviak. The head of a dead seal is cut off, all the meat inside is cut out except for subcutaneous fat and entrails, then stuffed with dead, unplucked auks (such birds). Then they sew up the whole thing and bury it in frozen ground for six months to a year. During this time, all the flesh of auks and seals rot together, becoming saturated with vitamins that are extremely necessary for those living in the far north. It tastes like very smelly rotten cheese, say those who dared to try this delicacy.
Real shock can cause Italian Casu Marza- This is specially rotten sheep cheese with cheese fly larvae. Not so much the type of cheese itself, but rather its eating. Unlike other varieties of cheese, Casu Marzu is eaten directly with live larvae. Disturbed insects (reaching up to 8 mm in length) are capable of jumping to a height of up to 15 cm, so it is advised to keep your eyes closed while eating Casu Marzu.
Icelanders' main dish for the New Year is hakarl.. For the dish, the carcass of a Greenland shark is taken, buried in the ground for a month and a half, and then hung in a barn for another 4-6 months. During this time, the poison and toxins in the meat disappear, and are replaced by the stench and taste of rotten fish, which Icelanders eat with pleasure. This tradition came from the Vikings. By the way, the production of hakarl is carried out on a large scale; in local stores, this national “delicacy” is sold in much the same way as a beer snack in our country.
Centenary egg. Do you think it's an allegory? But no. This is a traditional Chinese dish. An unpeeled chicken egg is placed in a mixture with a strong alkaline reaction - lime, salt, clay. Then the egg is taken out, the white turns into something rubbery, and the yolk turns into cream. Moreover, the egg darkens greatly, acquiring a unique rotten aroma. The alkalinity of the delicacy reaches the level of soap. True, it is prepared only a few months a year.
Lastly. In some African tribes, crocodile meat is considered a special dish, but not fresh, but rather one that has been sitting for a couple of weeks. The crocodile is first killed, then a cut is made from head to tail, the insides are cleaned out and half buried in the sand. After a few weeks, when the meat reaches the desired condition, it is taken out and eaten in a feast. What is noteworthy is that this delicacy is eaten strictly according to seniority in the tribe, starting with the leaders and shamans, then everyone else. This dish is called Akiaurus, which means “sacred meat.”
But as they say, everything in this world is relative, for example, for Americans, our crayfish for beer or roach with flavor, which we eat with pleasure, are also considered strange and not edible. So the proverb is more applicable here than ever - “there are no comrades according to taste and color.”
Even in ancient times, the Russians, Yakuts and Evens called the reindeer herders Chukchi. The name itself speaks for itself: “chauchu” - rich in deer. Deer people call themselves that. And dog breeders are called ankalyns.
This nationality was formed as a result of a mixture of Asian and American types. This even confirms that the Chukchi dog breeders and the Chukchi reindeer breeders have different attitudes to life and culture, as various legends and myths speak about this.
The linguistic affiliation of the Chukchi language has not yet been precisely determined; there are hypotheses that it has roots in the language of the Koryaks and Itelmens, and ancient Asian languages.
Culture and life of the Chukchi people
The Chukchi are accustomed to living in camps, which are removed and renewed as soon as the reindeer food runs out. In summer they go down closer to the sea. The constant need for resettlement does not prevent them from building fairly large dwellings. The Chukchi erect a large polygonal tent, which is covered with reindeer skins. In order for this structure to withstand strong gusts of wind, people prop up the entire hut with stones. At the back wall of this tent there is a small structure in which people eat, rest and sleep. In order not to get too steamy in their room, they undress almost naked before going to bed.
National Chukchi clothing is a comfortable and warm robe. Men wear a double fur shirt, double fur trousers, also fur stockings and boots made of identical material. A man's hat is somewhat reminiscent of a woman's bonnet. Women's clothing also consists of two layers, only the pants and top are sewn together. And in the summer, the Chukchi dress in lighter clothes - robes made of deer suede and other bright fabrics. These dresses often feature beautiful ritual embroidery. Small children and newborns are dressed in a bag made of deer skin, which has slits for arms and legs.
The main and daily food of the Chukchi is meat, both cooked and raw. Brains, kidneys, liver, eyes and tendons can be consumed raw. Quite often you can find families where they happily eat roots, stems and leaves. It is worth noting the special love of the Chukotka people for alcohol and tobacco.
Traditions and customs of the Chukchi people
The Chukchi are a people who keep the traditions of their ancestors. And it doesn’t matter at all what group they belong to - reindeer herders or dog breeders.
One of the national Chukotka holidays is the Baydara holiday. The kayak has long been a means of obtaining meat. And in order for the waters to accept the Chukchi canoe for the next year, the Chukchi organized a certain ritual. The boats were removed from the jaws of the whale, on which she lay all winter. Then they went to the sea and brought it a sacrifice in the form of boiled meat. After which the canoe was placed near the home and the whole family walked around it. The next day the procedure was repeated and only after that the boat was launched into the water.
Another Chukchi holiday is the whale holiday. This holiday was held in order to apologize to the killed sea animals and make amends to Keretkun, the owner of the sea inhabitants. People dressed in smart clothes, waterproof clothes made from walrus guts and apologized to the walruses, whales and seals. They sang songs about how it was not the hunters who killed them, but the stones that fell from the cliffs. After this, the Chukchi made a sacrifice to the owner of the seas, lowering the skeleton of a whale into the depths of the sea. People believed that in this way they would resurrect all the animals they had killed.
Of course, one cannot fail to mention the festival of the deer, which was called Kilvey. It took place in the spring. It all started with the fact that the deer were driven to human dwellings, yarangas, and at this time the women lit a fire. Moreover, fire had to be produced, as many centuries ago - by friction. The Chukchi greeted the deer with enthusiastic cries, songs and shots in order to drive away evil spirits from them. And during the celebration, men slaughtered several adult deer to replenish food supplies intended for children, women and the elderly.
Yakut cuisine, Chukchi cuisine, the cuisine of the Eskimos, Aleuts, Chukchi, Khanty, Mansi, Evenks, Yukaghirs and many, many other northern peoples - they all have their own characteristics, although they are based on similar principles and cooking traditions. For most Europeans, many recipes of the peoples of the North will be too specific, but in any case it is interesting to learn and try something new. Or even borrow an idea or two for your daily diet to surprise your family.
What they eat and how they eat it
Fishermen, hunters, reindeer herders, gatherers - the ancient primordial occupations of these tribes, coupled with the very harsh northern climate, left a clear imprint on the local cuisine.
Firstly, all the local dishes are very filling and high-calorie, with a huge amount of fat: how could it be otherwise in extremely low temperatures? Secondly, there are not many edible animals and plants here, so usually almost all of their parts are used, which can bring energy and benefit to the body. Thirdly, the limited materials for authentic kitchen utensils (mostly stone), the lack of fire and the constant availability of low temperatures gave rise to the emergence of non-standard and sometimes extremely exotic methods of cooking and storing food.
Of course, in the 20th and even more so in the 21st century, most of the peoples of Siberia switched from hunting and gathering to eating purchased products, but in most cases, the features of traditional cuisine are preserved to this day, so you will not be left without unusual delicacies.
How to cook
So, what unusual ways of processing food can an inquisitive tourist learn while getting acquainted with the cuisine of the peoples of the north?
For example, drying and drying are extremely common here, to which almost everything from raw materials can be subjected: meat and fish, their entrails, mushrooms, berries, herbs. They dry it under the sun, over a fire, even in the cold, resulting in compact, high-calorie food that can be stored for as long as desired and is convenient to take on long expeditions. And sometimes such a dried product is even crushed into dust, which is then used to season any hot food.
Or fermentation, which is also applicable to almost all products - either using some additional ingredients (salt, blood, sour milk), or simply in a closed container without access to air for a long time. For example, it is very popular to ferment meat and fish in bags made of skins or lined with tree bark in earthen pits under the snow for a couple of months. Such “tasty” food is not a spoiled product in our understanding. This acidified food is very convenient for the body to quickly digest and assimilate, without wasting time on its preliminary “processing” with enzymes, which is extremely important in the extreme conditions of the North.
Smoking in the smoke of the hearth and salting are two more favorite methods of local cooking. Moreover, for example, both the original products (fish, meat) and dishes from them, such as deer intestines stuffed with a mixture of minced meat, fat and pickled herbs, could be smoked.
Soups and first courses are practically unknown here at all, with rare exceptions among some nationalities such as deer blood soup, sorrel broth or caviar fish soup. The most commonly used thermal treatments are boiling, baking in ash (including under pressure), frying, and freezing.
A raw food diet is also extremely common in the North, and this applies not only to plant foods. Thus, in addition to many wild berries and edible herbs, fish heads and eyes, offal and animal blood are eaten raw. For example, blood mixed in equal proportions with fresh reindeer milk is considered the most exquisite dish. The winter “raw” northern delicacy - stroganina made from frozen reindeer meat or salmon fish - has long been known throughout the world and is sometimes served in the most elite restaurants, being truly a very tasty dish and requiring only salt and pepper as an addition.
Having learned so much about the methods of preparing local food, in the next article we will turn to the question - what exactly did they eat in the North since ancient times? Do not miss!
Layering.Scaled, headless and gutted cod carcasses weighing over 1-1.5 kg are layered after thorough washing.
To form a fillet with skin and hard bones, the soft part of the fruit is cut across the back of the carcass to the ribs; in addition, the beluga is cut transversely along the spine, while cutting off the soft part of the fruit with the hard rib bones. In this way, three fillets are obtained: one with a backbone and hard rib bones, the other with only hard rib bones. If you want to get a pair of fillets with only hard rib bones, then the first fillet is also cut from the backbone. This is how the cod is layered for boiling and frying in portions.
To obtain a fillet with skin without ribs, the cod is plated, as for preparing fillets with skin and hard bones, after which the fillet is placed on the table with the rib bones down and, holding the costal ribs with the palm of the left hand, these ribs are cut off with the right hand, holding the knife obliquely, while trying, as wisely as possible, to leave more meat on the bones. This is how the cod is layered mainly for poaching and frying in portions.
For cooking, fillet without ribs and skin, beluga, not scaled, decapitated and gutted, cut on both sides of the dorsal fin to its existing width, cut off first the single fillet, and then, placing the excess half carcass with bone on the opposite side – other. The rib ribs are trimmed from both fillets as described below, and then the soft part of the fruit is removed from the skin. This is how cod is layered for poaching and frying in portions and for preparing cutlet and dumpling masses.
Pike perch and haddock.
Pike perch and haddock arrive at catering establishments in headless and gutted form. Cod has very small and small scales. Haddock scales are much coarser than those of cod; for this reason, haddock scales should be removed during cooking. It is reasonable to remove the skin from the cod instead of removing the scales. It is recommended to remove the dark membrane lining the inner outer side of the abdominal cavity and the swim bladder attached to the spine. The costal ribs of cod fish are small in length and rough, for this reason it is advisable not to cut the ribs when seaming.
Flounder.
The head of the flounder is removed with an oblique cut, so that at the same time the abdomen remains open, then the beluga is gutted. After this, grab the skin on the dark side of the pike perch with a cutter and a finger and tear it off with a sharp jerk, then cut off the fringe of the fins and the caudal fin, clean off the scales on the light side of the skin and carefully rinse the beluga.
When cutting flounder into fillets, you must first remove the skin, then remove the insides of the beluga, and then remove the fillets (three on each side)
Burbot, navaga, catfish and eel.
The skin must be removed from burbot, eel and small navaga; it is wise not to remove the skin from good navaga. Catfish skin is removed only from small specimens and when making cutlet mass
In burbot, eel and catfish, the skin around the head is cut and, separating the skin from the meat with your fingers, it is completely removed. After this, the belly is cut, removed, the patrika and fins are cut off and the head is cut off. The cut beluga is rinsed in chilled liquid.
When processing navaga, the skin is cut across the back and the upper jaw is cut off. Then the skin is removed, starting from the head, and the fins are pulled out without cutting the abdomen, the cod is gutted through the hole formed after removing the lower jaw; caviar is preserved in fish
It is recommended to clean navaga with ice cream (without thawing)
The cod is rinsed and gutted, the head and tail are separated, then the herring is rinsed, and the anchovy and sprat are carefully rinsed.
Salted herring and very salty anchovy in sprat are kept in liquid in a cooled liquid in advance.