Frozen Raw Meat in the Coldest City on Earth ❄️ Yakutsk ❄️ @Eli from Russia

Watch on YouTube · 2022-08-30 · 20 min

0:00 Hey guys, Bella and I are going to review what people in Yakutsk eat in a day.

[video] 0:04 Yeah, also this will be my first commentary.

[video] 0:15 Welcome to the biggest republic of Russia, Yakutia or the Sakha Republic. It's the coldest inhabited place of the earth with average temperature in winter minus 40 Celsius. But people don't only survive here as many of you could think, they truly enjoy their unique lifestyle, Yakut culture and food. Let's see what people eat in the coldest city of the earth. my local friend Maria is joining me for breakfast yeah hi everyone I am Maria and I also have a youtube channel Life in Yakutia if you want to know more about how we live in Yakutia welcome to my channel and now me I can already see that they're eating a lot of meat because her skin is like very glowy and plum, she looks fresh and Elena we are going to try some traditional Yakut cuisine let's go let's go it's too cold outside it's kind of beautiful yeah

[video] 1:15 So what do Yakut people usually eat for breakfast? So you know all our food is normally very nutritious. So here it's okay to eat soup for breakfast, for example. No, soup for breakfast! Yes, yes. Breakfast for me is usually like porridge, eggs. Yeah, I think they start with the soup for breakfast because it's warm and they live in a very cold climate, you know?

1:43 Yeah, and she said she eats porridge for breakfast. That's not gonna work in that kind of climate whatsoever. Yeah.

[video] 1:49 Yeah, we also eat eggs. Or only coffee. Yeah, we also eat eggs or yogurt or something like that, but it's possible to eat something, you know, like... potatoes meat for example and yakut food is mostly about meat right because there are no vegetables or fruits growing in Yakutia yeah like so today we are going to try traditional cuisine and our traditional cuisine is mostly about meat dairy products because Yakutia is so cold and we don't have fruits that that grow here naturally.

2:27 Naturally, this makes a lot of sense because animal foods, as she said herself, warm the body and give you enough energy. Whereas in tropical climates, a lot of fruit that you will find are actually cooling for the body. So it definitely naturally makes sense why some people live in these climates and how they survive there.

[video] 2:43 There is no need to have a refrigerator here. In Yakutia there is also a lot of berries growing.

[video] 3:00 Tell me, is it warm for you today? Warm. And how warm is it for you? He is an athlete and he even has a calendar. And you are a local star, right? Yes. Yes? No. You are 65 years old, you look good. My wife is 20 years younger than me. I have 11 grandchildren, but my daughter is 6 years old.

[video] 3:26 They said he's 65.

3:33 He's only seven years younger than the fruitarian that I reviewed. And he seems to be very sharp in the head. His brain is really working, obviously because of all the animal foods. Really insane difference.

[video] 3:44 This is how milk is sold here. Frozen in pieces and then you melt it.

3:57 Still better than the pasteurized garbage we get on most of the earth. I don't know if it's raw there, maybe.

[video] 4:02 Popular meat here is zherebyatina, which is baby horse meat. And Yakut people love to eat it raw. And it's even more popular here than chicken meat.

4:19 Right on.

[video] 4:22 Is the sausage made of blood? Of course it's blood. It's impossible to eat raw meat in Canin, only guys eat it.

[video] 4:44 That's how products are...

4:45 He said horse cannot be eaten raw?

[video] 4:47 Yeah.

4:48 Hmm. But then she said that they eat horse meat raw there.

[video] 4:51 Yes, but foal is possible and horse meat not. It doesn't really make sense.

4:55 Yeah, that's the same thing as when I was in Ukraine, the guy who was selling meat, he was actually eating beef there on the spot and selling it, eating it raw. But then I said, what about the testicles? He said, no, testicles, you got to cook. So it's just different beliefs that people have. Obviously, people in that village also, some of them believe that you can eat horse meat raw, some don't. Obviously, you can. When I was in Kazakhstan not long ago, I also ate horse meat raw all the time, no problem.

[video] 5:20 Told when outdoors is colder than in the fridge. Well, now let's see what can be cooked out of this product. Well, I see a lot of raw meat, so could you explain to the audience why it's popular to eat the raw meat in Yakutia? It's actually our traditional food, raw horse meat, only horse.

[video] 5:42 I mean it's funny because he said you can't eat horse raw and she says it's like their tradition And raw fish, right? And raw fish, yeah. Raw fish and raw horse meat Well, it's our tradition

5:58 Everybody on earth basically eats raw fish because of the Japanese. Sushimi, sushi.

[video] 6:03 Like traditional food. It came from our ancestors. But the thing is that horses, they are like wild animals. They spend a lot of time outside and

[video] 6:15 They go to the field, they find grass under the snow and they eat snow instead of water and they live by themselves. Yes, and also Yakut people only eat young horses, right? Only baby horses.

[video] 6:32 horse meat. In Yakutia I believe it's very hard to be a vegetarian because you really need lots of calories, lots of energy when you're I actually don't even think that someone there would be stupid enough to try being vegetarian

[video] 6:51 Outside at minus 40, 50, 60 degrees Celsius, when it's cold all the time, you just need this energy to keep you warm, right? Yeah. And the raw meat allows you to get the energy faster, right? It's actually interesting that they know about that raw meat is more nutritious.

7:14 Yeah, very interesting. You actually do get, of course, more micro and macronutrients out of raw meat than cooked meat because cooked meat destroys all of it.

[video] 7:22 The boiled or cooked meat. Yeah, it's more nutritious, definitely. It has more protein. Well, let's try.

[video] 7:33 Okay. How do you eat the raw meat? I don't know.

[video] 7:39 it's good actually I thought it would be awful because it's raw meat and we always eat it frozen like not melted next dish this is frozen raw liver horse liver

[video] 7:56 But how often do you eat it? Is it like a delicacy, or you can eat it several times a week, like on a usual day? It's actually a delicacy, like not that much. And what about the first one that we tried? Is it also a delicacy? Not really, because there are a lot of meat, and the liver is not that much. And liver we normally eat on special occasions, and meat we can eat often. Oh, this doesn't look good for me. Do you like it, by the way, the taste? Yeah, I like it.

[video] 8:32 It's like gelé, gelé, you know, or something. Jelly. Jelly.

[video] 8:38 I don't know. It might be not very bad, but the thought that it's a raw liver, no.

8:45 It's always that, the mental problems that you have with eating liver, not so much the actual taste. Liver can taste bad if the animal is somewhat sick, but it won't be the problem if you would be eating a healthy animal.

[video] 8:59 that's exactly what you see here yeah also i don't think it has a strong taste because it's like frozen you know yeah it wouldn't have as much of a strong taste for sure and it's so like slippery look at this because it's yeah it's melting yeah another dish of frozen fish is uh cheer

[video] 9:27 So many dishes of frozen raw meat. Yeah, because it's so cold outside and you bring the meat or fish from the outside. But do you make it at home as well or only eat in restaurants? No, this is like, yeah, you can see. On a daily basis, yeah? Yeah. So can people eat raw meat every day? Yeah, they can if they want.

[video] 9:54 Mmm. this is so good yeah it's like better than sushi you know yeah it's very good fish the taste is really good this fish lives in the lakes of the north of Yakutia it lives in a really cold lakes and therefore it has a lot of fat so this is like omega-3, pure omega-3.

10:25 It's interesting how she knows about all of this stuff, about the nutrition, omega-3 in fatty fish.

[video] 10:34 This fish is very very pure, it comes from really ecologically pure places which are really far from civilization.

10:45 They probably eat better than basically most of the earth. Maybe Japan is the only country that comes kind of close to it, even though the food is frozen still. Wow.

[video] 10:55 I feel like I'm not gonna love the next dish. It's boiled guts. Yeah, of course.

[video] 11:06 Looks awful. Why? But do you like it? I mean, it looks good, but it smells... It doesn't look good. This is harta. It's boiled horse intestines. So because Yakutia... This is our traditional food. and as I said we eat a lot of meat and we eat like almost everything from the that is inside of the animal even the brain and the tails right yeah like yeah tails if you if you take off the fur then it can be boiled and have you eaten the brains yeah the brains taste like eggs eggs

[video] 11:51 That's exactly true, that's what I always say Brain is really just like egg yolks, essentially Okay, let's go I'm obliged to do this as a host of this channel

12:12 It's funny how normal it is for the local girl to eat it and how she eats porridge in the morning and whatnot. It's so weird for her and she just doesn't understand it.

[video] 12:25 Do you like it? It's actually really good.

[video] 12:31 The sauce is quite spicy, but this one is good. You should chew it.

[video] 12:41 chewing it's actually really good it's like a lot of fat I don't know the gut of the horse here we go oh it doesn't smell good it doesn't smell good but tastes better

[video] 13:09 And chew too fast. No, I can't. It's okay. It may be too exotic for you. I'm just making myself chew it.

[video] 13:24 No, it doesn't taste good at all for me. Okay, that's fine. And you like the taste, really? Yeah, it's good. Very good. And we have the iconic dish here, the blood sausage. Oh, my gosh. A sausage made of blood. I never thought that this will happen in my life.

13:49 It's actually absolutely insane that humans nowadays go through their life without tasting any kind of blood. I can't even say that this is really like tasting blood, but that humans nowadays go without tasting actual real blood, without drinking blood, which is an everyday occurrence almost in nature. Yeah, and then people wonder why they are sick.

[video] 14:12 It's weird. It's like... If I didn't know what it was made of, I would think that it's an omelette. It tastes like omelette. And the texture is like an omelette. Actually, it's hard to believe that it's made of blood and all this stuff.

[video] 14:34 For me, it's like omelette. It's weird.

[video] 14:37 I like it. Actually, yeah. I think that I like it. So you also make it at home? Yeah, of course. Can you do it yourself? Do you know how to make it? I know how to make it, yeah, because my parents are farmers and we do it like every year. Have you tried the plasma, the blood, to drink it? Yeah, yeah, but like just a little.

[video] 15:05 And how do you like the taste? It's fine. Why do people drink?

15:10 What I noticed is that she's so incredibly calm. Her nerves are really intact. She's just incredibly healthy, no? I just can't compare her to any modern women that live in the West. It's just so incredibly different than all of the videos that I review. You can just absolutely tell that she's eating mostly animal foods.

[video] 15:33 Because it's very nutritious and good for health. After drinking it, you actually feel better. You feel different. Maria also ordered a soup. What soup is this? This soup is called Ismine, which basically means soup from stomach. This is actually soup from the intestines, from the guts. Finally, there is not meat, not raw meat, not guts, but a porridge. And Maria told me that it's flour, butter, and salt, right? And cream. And cream.

16:14 The way they make it, though, it seems a lot more digestible.

[video] 16:17 Yeah, she said there's like cream and butter.

16:20 Yeah, exactly, which makes it definitely easier to digest. It's just a whole different thing than eating porridge with soy milk or whatever people do nowadays.

[video] 16:29 Porridge made of flour. Interesting. And how often do you usually eat it? This is...

16:40 Okay, so they only use the oat flour, from what I understand.

[video] 16:45 Oh, my guess.

16:46 Yeah, that's why it's like that.

[video] 16:48 Not often.

16:51 They just do everything better than everybody else.

[video] 16:53 It reminds me a lot semolina. With the texture and even taste. It's like semolina. It's really good. Yeah, also she said they are not eating it often. Mmm. Mmm. And when do you usually eat it? This is actually... Do you eat it with bread? Yeah. Like for breakfast or...?

[video] 17:21 Normally we eat it not that often but you can have it for breakfast for example. So this salamat, this porridge is actually used for rituals. For example when someone gets married or someone buys a new home We make a special ritual which is called algus. It's actually asking for blessings from gods. And we feed the fire with salamat. You put it in the fire? Yeah, we feed the fire. Yakutian dessert kirchakh. It's whipped cream, right? And usually people mix it with different jam. For example, this one is with blackberry. Blueberry. Blueberry? Okay, blueberry. And this one is the same thing, whipped cream, but it's in a frozen way. I've never had such a huge nutritious breakfast. I am so full.

[video] 18:20 But do you eat less for lunch and dinner? Is breakfast the biggest meal of the day? I wouldn't say so. And breakfast, and lunch, and dinner, and meat, and soup. This was very nutritious for us. We tried kind of everything, you know, the most exotic things from our cuisine. I feel like I ate for my whole travels in Yakutia for weeks and weeks ahead. I want to see you this evening, okay? After you will be outside. Yeah, thank you so much, Maria, for introducing me to Yakut food. With this vlog, I finished this series of my videos from the far north of Russia, which I hope you enjoyed.

18:58 Alright, this actually made me want to visit the place and taste the food. Even though I had heard about it already, that they eat a lot of meat and even raw meat, now I'm actually even more curious about it. Also, the people seem to be very healthy and friendly.

[video] 19:15 Yeah, mentally stable.

19:17 Yeah, very, very, very. Probably one of the healthiest populations on Earth, I would even say, from the little bit that I saw. And of course, it's understandable if they eat liver, other organs, even if a lot of the stuff is cooked, it really doesn't matter. It's still going to make you way healthier than everybody that we see today. In winter, it would be a bit rough. It would be an experience.

[video] 19:43 Yeah, I would go there in summer.

19:45 Yeah, probably me also.

[video] 19:47 Also, I think the video was nicely filmed.

19:51 Yeah, the nature definitely is something worth seeing. And these people most definitely got all of the nutrients. They were non-missing. Okay guys, thanks for watching.