MOSCOW, December 26. /TASS/. What are typical dishes most Russians serve seeing a New Year in? The Russian salad, herring 'under a fur coat' and, perhaps, aspic fish. However, some peoples living in Russia on those holidays prefer walrus meat, raw fish or sliced wapiti. We have learned about feasts of Arctic and Far Eastern peoples and about what holiso is.
Start cooking winter dishes in summer
The Eskimos village of Naukan was believed to be Eurasia's easternmost settlement until in 1958 this role went to the village of Uelen, located in the very east of Chukotka, near the Bering Strait. The local residents are engaged in sea hunting, and on New Year holidays they serve to guests a dish called k'opalhyn - walrus meat wrapped in its skin. The Eskimos cook the dish in summer and then store in pits covered with turf. This way, the meat preserves the taste and unique properties for many months - until next summer. Fermented walrus meat is a delicacy.
Valentina Leonova, running the Inuit Circumpolar Council, told us the Eskimos cook most winter treats during summer hunting and fishing seasons, and in the cold season the endless Arctic tundra and the coasts seem lifeless.
"Of course, when in Chukotka, you will definitely be treated to mantak - whale skin with fat. It can be eaten frozen, served in thin layers or squares, or right when cooked. I really love mantak with canned cucumbers, garlic and white bread - this dish would be on my New Year table," she said. With mantak, the Eskimos eat tops of rhodiola rosea - they collect the tops before flowering, while they are still juicy and soft, then put them into water and afterwards leave them under pressure for a few months.
People living in the tundra ferment the plants, then eat them frozen, or use as a seasoning or as an independent dish. Rhodiola tastes sour, and its juice complements the whale meat taste which is a traditional New Year dish for the Eskimos. Chukotka's residents also eat tundra berries - they make a kind of dessert mousse, though in a specific Arctic way, since they normally eat them together with meat of marine animals.
Lavish meals
The Udege people are a small ethnic group living in the Maritime and Khabarovsk Regions. By the early 21st century, only a few hundred of them were remaining. For centuries, they have been hunting in the Far Eastern taiga. Nowadays, many Udege live in cities and are losing their traditions. However, some preserve carefully the national knowledge and the knowledge about the Udege cuisine, including about festive dishes.
"The Udege people always serve 'rich' New Year's tables, even if the family lives modestly the rest of time. Before they start eating, they ask a shaman to address spirits for well-being, a good year for hunting and harvest, and a requirement for this address would be a rich table - demonstrating what the family is asking for. Traditional New Year dishes are liantsai - potato salad with meat and tala - stroganina (sliced frozen) fish or wapiti," says Natalia Kanchuga, a collector and keeper of the Udege culture, a guide at the Bikin National Park, and the elder of the Krasny Yar village.
Traditional food, she says, is always made of only natural products without chemicals or a wide variety of spices. Talu and liancai would be a must for winter holidays, even if the taiga hunting was not big and if the year was not successful for the hunters. The families who managed to get meat always shared it with neighbors. Meat for liancai should be chopped, not grinded, and raw potatoes are cut into thinnest chips by hand, not on a grater.
"Potato chips are dropped into boiling water, brought to readiness, and not to be overcooked, then drain the water and mix with meat, which has been fried in oil with onions," the elder said.
New Year twice a year
The Yakuts traditionally see the New Year in in the summer - on June 21, when they celebrate Ysyakh on the summer solstice. Interestingly, the regular New Year and the Ysyah do not contradict each other. People in Yakutia celebrate widely both holidays, and every holiday has a set of traditional dishes.
Nikolai Atlasov, the chef at the Atlasovs Manor Ethnic Cultural Complex, says that in the past, cattle slaughter was forbidden in summer, and people were practically fasting - they ate plants. Cooking meat resumed only in autumn, when hunters could get a duck, a hare and artiodactyls. By winter, animals gained fat, and frozen meat and fish preserved necessary elements, vitamins and amino acids.
The chef likes to cook foal and venison. "I love making stroganina and the Indigirka salad - a national Yakut dish of frozen fish cubes served with vegetable oil, onion and pepper. We can say New Year celebrations never do without them in Yakutia," he says.
Cold winter dishes for the New Year's table - stroganina of fish, liver and foal meat - are prepared and sliced in advance. Stroganina of northern fish — nelma, muksun, Arctic cisco, sturgeon, grouse or broad whitefish - decorate practically every New Year's table in Yakutia: it is served in the form of chips, and the parts from the ridge and abdomen are put on the plate bottom. Fish is normally sliced on the floor or on the ground. People hold it by the tail with one hand. Stroganina is served with salt and pepper, soy sauce, adjika, mustard. But true fans of its pure taste prefer not to use any seasoning.
Other dishes on a New Year table in Yakutia are a pile of pancakes with melted butter, salamat - a dish of sour cream and flour, wild berries drinks, black pudding, fried crucians and kerchakh - whipped cream with wild berries - lingonberries, blueberries, strawberries. Another New Year's treat is chokhon - frozen cream with Yakut flatbread, salads with meat, tongue, red and white fish, vegetables, seasoned with natural cream.
33 pinches
People in Buryatia, similar to those who live in Yakutia, see the New Year in twice: the first time - on the night of January 1, the second - in February or March according to the Buddhist lunar calendar - Sagaalgan. The second celebration's date varies from year to year - Buddhist lamas - astrologers announce it depending on the Moon phase. Anyway, on both occasions, traditional Buryat dishes are based on meat and dairy products. Buuzas will be on every table - a traditional dish, similar to manti, which are steamed. Since ancient times, this very nutritious food has helped nomadic peoples to survive the harsh steppe winters.
Buuza is a piece of minced pork, beef and finely chopped onions, wrapped in elastic dough and steamed. It is folded in a special way - the minced meat is placed into a "bag", and it is necessary to make 33 pinches on top leaving though a hole for steam to get out. The number of pinches is believed to be related to the number of folds on clothes of the Tibetan monks. Cooked buuza resembles the form of a traditional Buryat dwelling - a yurt with a curling smoke from the hearth in its center.
"Buuzas must be boiled for 19 minutes. If longer, the broth will evaporate, it will be gone. A fragrant meat smell indicates they are well done," Buryatia's Governor Alexey Tsydenov says. Buuzas are eaten with hands. At first, bite one on the bottom and drink the hot, hearty broth.
The Buryats cook boiled meat for New Year - to replace salami or liver and offal delicacies. Among popular desserts are urme - frozen airy milk foam, holiso — a dish of cottage cheese, sour cream, sugar and grinded bird cherry. The latter is cooked as follows: rub cottage cheese through a sieve, add sugar, cherry flour and biscuit crumbs, add sour cream and mix well.
Written by TASS correspondents Kseniya Sukhikh, Dmitry Osipov, Ulyana Lavtsevich, Elvira Balganova