1. Pickled puffins
The feature documentary made Japan's nhk TV famous, and in a program about the world's stinkiest food, the production staff measured Sweden's star delicacy with an instrument - the odor value of canned herring is 8100au, which is enough to make people sick to the stomach and vomit. To know that in Our country, stinky tofu, which is famous for its stink, its stink value is only 420au, which is less than 1/19 of the canned herring.
However, if the canned herring really wants to sit firmly in the position of a brother in the "stinky world", I am afraid it is not so simple. Tourists point to the Eskimos, who live near the Arctic Circle, and that they eat pickled puffins as the most favorable competitor, with an estimated stink value of 9500au.
Around 4,000, a team pursued by a powerful enemy took advantage of the winter sea ice to cross the Bering Strait and then south to the north American hinterland. But they were greeted by the indigenous Indians, who were forced to migrate to live near the Arctic Circle for thousands of years, and this group of people were called Inuit, and because they ate raw meat for many years, they were also called Eskimos, meaning a group of people who ate raw meat.
In the Arctic, the conditions are harsh, and the Eskimos have to use local materials in order to feed and fill their stomachs: seals, walruses and cetaceans in the sea; polar bears, reindeer, musk oxen and some small animals on land are all preyed upon by the Eskimos, except for meat or meat. The problem is that the Eskimos did not return with a full load every hunt, and in many cases tossed for several days without finding anything. Under the urgent need for food, pickled puffins, which can be stored for a long time, were slowly excavated by the Eskimos.
Puffin on the rock – Larabjag, Iceland
Puffins are closely related to the good knower and the sea dove, and there are 21 species in 13 genera and worldwide. The Eskimos hunted a puffin called the dwarf petrel, which resembled a penguin, with black feathers, head and beak, a white belly, and open wings that could sneak up to 50 meters underwater.
Tens of thousands of pygmy petrels migrate around the Arctic Circle each summer to breed, and for the Eskimos to catch them is a "hand-to-hand" catch: holding a special bird-catching net, with a long handle at one end and a large and deep enough net at the other end, which can accommodate multiple puffins at a time. Just dance back and forth near the puffin cave, and the disturbed puffins flee, and there are always a few trapped. It may be that there are too many puffins to catch dozens in a short time.
Winter is a good time for Eskimos to catch seals. Arctic seals are a typical "patrilineal society", dominated by a male seal weighing 100-300 kg who dominates 50 female seals weighing 30-50 kg and their children. Seals are adept at diving, allowing them to dive underwater for more than 30 minutes.
Seals are mammals and need to ventilate the ice floes every 20 minutes or so, so seals have reserved 15-25 air vents for themselves. Cunning seals sometimes set their ventilation holes in the middle of nowhere, and sometimes they are covered with snow and ice. In order to catch them as quickly as possible, the Eskimos often worked collectively. The Huskymos used hounds to find the ventilation holes one by one, and then stood by the air vents and waited for the seals to float.
It only takes 1 Eskimo to kill a small seal, and if it is a large male seal, it will be a fierce fight, and finally the seal will be transported to the home with his companions: some of the seals will be eaten on the spot, and the Eskimos will have the freshest meat at this time; some will be stored and enjoyed slowly.
2. How to make and eat pickled puffins
After the two main materials of puffins and seals are in place, the rest of the work is to make, and the most frantic "cooking, processing" method is launched. First, the seal is disemboweled and removed the internal organs to leave enough space for the puffins. These freshly taken offals are undoubtedly a delicacy for the Eskimos, who sit around and enjoy them.
Puffins are then stuffed into the stomach of seals one by one, and a female seal of about 40 kilograms can accommodate more than 100 puffins. A set of footage from a documentary shows an adult male seal being stuffed with 500 puffins at one time, and their stomachs bulging. These puffins do not need to pluck out feathers, beaks, limbs and claws, nor do they need to be disemboweled, but the whole puffin is stuffed alive.
The air inside the seal is then expelled, which can be squeezed with a heavy object or stepped on. After the air is almost drained, the seal's belly is sewn up with needles made of animal bone and silk threads made of reindeer tendons, and a layer of seal grease is applied to the seam to prevent air from seeping in.
Finally, the seal is buried in the permafrost and a stone is pressed on top to both mark and further squeeze the air. The fermentation time of pickled puffins varies from environment to environment, ranging from 3 months to 1-2 years.
Eating pickled puffins is exquisite. The fermented puffin feathers are messy but do not fade. One of the more civilized ways to eat is to first pluck out the hairs of puffins, then split them, and swallow them little by little according to your preferences. Another more extravagant way to eat is to pull out the puffin's tail, clean up the dirt in the anus, and then suck it with your mouth on the anus, and the gutters that have become sauce after fermentation will flow into the mouth of the eater.
People who have experienced the taste of pickled puffins describe: The moment the sauce flows into the mouth, the complex taste of smelling with fishy and fishy with a fecal smell comes straight to the brain, let alone swallowing, and the meals eaten in the morning are swallowed.
In recent years, the Eskimos have interacted with the outside world more frequently, and their diets have become richer. When eating pickled puffins, they no longer pursue tradition, and have added a variety of modern condiments, making the taste of pickled puffins more complex, and no one can accurately describe the specific taste now.
In fact, the Eskimos ate raw meat and pickled puffins as a result of food deprivation and a singleness. On the one hand, it can meet their food needs, on the other hand, the animals contain a lot of vitamin C in their internal organs, and they avoid the scabies of scurvy for those who have no fruit source. But long periods of meat eating make Eskimos far more likely to suffer from cardiovascular disease than land people, and the average life expectancy is much lower than the world average.
Original: Old High