Extreme Jungle Food!! EATING WHOLE BANANA TREE 🌴 Karen People Thailand!!

hey everyone hope you're having an amazing day it's mark wiens i'm in the gorgeous mountains of mehongsan province in northern thailand and today we have the special opportunity to be in a karen hill tribe village community hanging out with my friend mook who is from this village and so the plan for this afternoon is we are going to first head up the side of the mountain just a little ways to harvest some ingredients including some chilies and especially they're going to harvest a banana trunk an entire banana tree trunk stem [Music] so this is the part we want to eat which is then going to be used in a specific karen dish that we are gonna cook and so it's gonna be again an incredible experience incredibly delicious local and traditional karen food and i'm gonna share it all with you right now [Music] [Music] what is the name of the village mung pam yes okay yes i'm already starting to see some chilies karen chiles which are some of the best chilies that you will find in all of thailand or oh it's uh cassava i think cassava right oh yeah this one is huge wow [Music] oh okay this is a leg sized cassava awesome i i have seen a lot of cassava i don't think i've ever seen a cassava this large okay maybe we'll set this down for a little bit and we're just going to get some chilis real fast okay the cup they're some of my favorite chilies not only are they some of the spiciest chilies in thailand but also some of the most fragrant best especially when they're grown in the mountain like this they are the best chilies that is a lot of chilis some type of an eggplant i have i've seen this before i'm not totally sure of the english name but it almost looks like a tomato but it's an eggplant okay cup lemon basil okay oh you and they're also saying that right now because it is the winter it's really dry in the winter so that's why there's not as many vegetables and they're not as blooming or as green as normal but especially they said in the rainy season when all the hills around here are very green and lush but still there's a lot and that lemon basil smells so good she said she's going to pound it up with chili and make a karen nam prick chili dip using the flowers of the lemon basil and chilis but as soon as she digs up that uh galangal you could smell the aroma of that rhizome galangal the gingery freshness oh man it smells amazing they're so good so fast and just know all the ingredients oh man i love it everything is natural everything is literally from the backyard side of the mountain backyard [Music] i think it's a a wild jungle banana that is huge the which is the trunk of the banana tree is gonna go into this dish this is huge and so i think uh mook said that this type of banana tree so juicy look at the juices coming out of it and mook also said that there's no banana fruit on this tree or maybe it has it but there's so so many seeds because of the wild bananas but they're just water's gushing from the cells of the tree [Music] you can lift weights with it just to confirm all of these petals from the banana tree that we are gonna discard they're actually not gonna go to waste the pigs which are over there are gonna be happy to eat all of them but we just want the core this is going to be one of the coolest ingredients coolest meals ever water [Laughter] just as i went to pick up the camera the tree fell and leaving the stump and those layers that is amazing uh and that's exactly what we want is that center the very core of the banana tree that's what we want to eat oh foreign this is so this is the part we want to eat honey honey this is the section okay nice good job you guys are amazing oh my god man they let me tell you they the experience but the knowledge that's just life knowledge in the forest on these mountains we've got all the ingredients we're gonna head back to the house to start cooking and i can't wait to try uh the special karen dish or dishes they're making a couple dishes that they're gonna make for us with these ingredients [Music] bye-bye loving this village so beautiful yeah oh man and people are so incredibly friendly buddy cobb and there are about 130 families that live in this village about 600 or so people so it's a good size uh but not too big and just almost i mean you can walk of course everywhere in this village and and it's just so peaceful okay i think this is where we're heading swedenkov oh ying you got the bamboo right that's for the cooking the curry [Music] this is the mountain rice growing here right yes from your village we're gonna first get started with the karen mountain rice uh we're gonna put that on to start cooking and then we're gonna begin with the other dishes uh [Music] now we're getting started on the kawkua the roasted rice dish what is the name again in cook so the first step is taking some of the mountain rice the mountain rice and just toasting it over the fire roasting it [Music] home and she's getting started on the curry uh which is going to be made in the bamboo pole uh using a variety of dry spice there's uh macon which is similar to prickly ash or similar to related to uh sichuan pepper there's a like a i can't remember the name of that spice but it's very fragrant um and then there's also coriander seed and here goes in some dry current chilies [Music] and now some of the fresh spices go in including galangal and lemongrass and for the rice you have to keep on toasting it until it turns brown until it actually turns more yellow in color golden in color but you want all that fragrance that smoky yellow golden color and this is mook's mom mother who has come to inspect how it's coming along okay rice is ready [Music] oh it smells so good it's so fragrant like popcorn almost [Music] foreign okay so two things pounding away now for the curry paste for the curry that is one complex curry so starting with the dry spice then moving into the fresh spices uh then she added garlic and shallots and lemongrass and kaffir lime leaves and galangal pounding that and turmeric pounding that all together that is just a medley a harmony of just vibrant ultimate vibrant ingredients [Music] [Music] then taking the flowers stripping from the stems the flowers of lemon basil that goes in ultra incredibly fragrant and some of the kids have just arrived so micah is very happy mike are you making them laughs foreign [Music] foreign [Applause] [Music] that's gonna roast in the flame for about 30 to 40 minutes they said until the the bamboo the green you have to by the way you have to use green bamboo fresh bamboo every time you do this because then it chars the bamboo it roasts the bamboo uh as you cook into the roasted rice powdered dish which i'm still not sure how it's all gonna come together and it's something like i've never seen before is gonna go in a chicken and also the the banana stump that we we harvested so those are the main ingredients for for that dish [Music] [Music] funny [Music] are going to go into a paste or the ingredient seasoning ingredients that's going to go into the toasted rice powder with the chicken and the banana stump [Music] oh [Music] and then the banana stump gets chopped up into little bite-sized pieces you see like the the airiness of it almost like the like little segments of it and really what you want is the heart of the banana trunk what is that and another ingredient that she's going to add to the rice powder dish is these are i'm not sure if they're hyacinth beans or some type of almost like similar to snow peas a little bit but a type of bean pea that's gonna go in as well fresh off the bush like everything fresh off the bush [Music] and i think it's going to be chopped up now [Music] okay [Music] time to start on the toasted rice dish chicken goes into the pot then that pounded paste of lemongrass galangal and chili's goes in [Music] oh then that eggplant that type of and they said it's going to make it a little bit bitter uh so that's gonna but that's also a key ingredient in the dish [Music] and i'm already loving the chili dip that they're making everything gets the fire treatment on the fire the chilies are roasted lemongrass even gets tossed on the fire smoked out burned out tomatoes go on and tua nao which is the fermented soybean discs dried [Music] okay [Music] [Applause] [Music] okay [Music] so [Music] [Music] so the toasted rice powder goes in last and that immediately starts to thicken it a little bit and makes it starchy uh and makes you can immediately see it getting like thicker and heartier and i'm not sure it's gonna i think it's gonna boil just for a little bit longer and i think it's ready and i think almost everything is ready and i am extremely ready to start eating this has been just a fascinating meal cooking learning experience for me and just absolutely impressive how all the ingredients are from right here [Music] okay the last step coriander and green onions [Music] [Music] we are all sitting down to eat again i don't think i've ever had a meal quite like this and actually the toasted rice which has thickened into a like porridge consistency it's a main dish that you eat along with rice it's not just a porridge that you eat it's a main dish then the curry came out you get that poof of all those herbs and that meat and then we have the chili dip and what a meal and just they're incredibly hard work and everything what stands out to me is everything is just natural and i love the communal eating of this meal because it's all one central bowl and you just take bite by bite you don't take a whole plate of food so you enjoy the family and community okay let's try [Music] oh wow immediately the smokiness of that rice and the toasted ingredients oh that's so good and i think i got a piece of the um the banana trunk which has kind of a fibrous stringy texture to it but the smokiness of that oh man that's like the i mean it is a porridge consistency it's thick but it's wonderfully smoking i love it [Music] okay the other dish i cannot wait to eat the the curry cooked in the bamboo with all those herbs and you see the turmeric making it yellow the lemongrass in there wow that's incredible oh oh and just herbaceous how do you say uh oh that's tasty both dishes together okay and we still have the chili dip to eat with everything as well [Music] okay with the roasted sticky rice that chili dip there's tomatoes in there there's fermented soy beans everything roasted [Music] oh wow that numb prick is just insane the smokiness the umami the tomatoes the chilies the fermented soybean is just what elevates it [Music] it's just so warming it's really hearty filling you can tell that it's just it is absolutely the perfect dish for mountains for colder weather weather colder temperatures and i love also how you have the the texture of the porridge um and then at the same time you every now and then you get a piece of the vegetable the eggplant the bitter eggplant or the um the banana stump which has a fibrous kind of a crisp texture to it for this bite i got one of the pieces of the eggplant oh wow yes like the bitterness of it but kind of sweet at the same time and the seeds just erupt out of it [Music] what's happening alloy my cup [Music] everything blended together in the bamboo wow that is a flavor [Music] wow that was an incredible meal [Music] that was superb [Music] by time we finish with dinner at 7 30 p.m the village is just completely quiet you just hear the natural sounds of the insects the stars i don't think i can capture them on the camera but just the full sky of stars not polluted by light it is spectacular uh but that's gonna wrap up this just amazing experience learning about karen food harvesting our own ingredients and they are truly just so incredibly knowledgeable about the land and about cooking talk about master chefs man and i want to say a huge thank you to mook for hosting us here in her village she actually does tours and i will show you you could come to her village she will take you around and will take care of you so i'll have her link in the description box below uh contact her when you are in mae hong san for a learning experience and an incredible time in this beautiful village in the mountains and that's going to be it for this video i want to say a huge thank you for watching please remember to give it a thumbs up if you enjoyed it leave a comment below i'd love to hear from you and if you're not already subscribed uh click subscribe and also click the little bell icon and that way you'll immediately get notified of the next video that i publish thanks again for watching and i will see you on the next video

Channel: Mark Wiens

Views: 3,714,244

Keywords: Thailand, tribal food, village food, Mark Wiens, Karen food, hill tribe food, Thai food, Thailand food, food videos, food vlog, things to do in Thailand, Mark Wiens food, Mark Wiens Thailand, Thailand food videos, food blogger, travel food, best food, best Thai food, best food Thailand

Id: macbYqnLdo4

Length: 27min 37sec (1657 seconds)

Published: Sat Jan 15 2022