Hmong Army Cooks FEAST for 500 Villagers!!! | TRIBAL VIETNAM EP1

everybody's pitching in from the whole village everyone's doing something we got people chopping vegetables plating food boiling soup the energy is building you can feel the excitement in the air okay maybe they don't seem that excited but i can feel it this is nice in vietnam's northwestern highlands you'll find a place nearly unchanged by time bro can i take this thing off this is kind of yeah yeah take it up man wow this is beautiful check it out man soak it in today my buddy andrew and i are on a mission been handed this giant knife helping a village prepare a giant feast for a rarely seen black hmong wedding oh there you go the only challenge now that's not good oh there you go if this 50 year old decommissioned army jeep will get us to the village on time five hours outside of hanoi vietnam's capital where exactly are we last time we took on vietnam central highlands and this time it's all about vietnam's northwest oh great as a country vietnam is developing at a rapid pace but regions like this some of the most isolated and difficult to get to will be the last areas touched by modern life the north is characterized by these steep limestone mountains we get these gorgeous stepped out rice fields and i think the mountains are what keeps the population so separate present day conveniences are few but this means that local ethnic traditions have withstood the test of time in the north year we have the widest variety of different ethnic groups anywhere in vietnam actually we're going to be spending the next two weeks exclusively hanging out with vietnam's vibrant ethnic groups we're going to see how they work we're going to see how they live and especially how they eat brian i'm excited for this just don't be too excited what it's going to be fun but the food is going to get pretty extreme i don't know if you can handle it maybe out there man i'm wearing the you can't handle it what are you talking about i was harvesting ants oh my god my neck oh god i was diving underneath the water and catching spiky creatures you know i'm way more culturally open than you are oh really yeah you don't think so andrew i have a freaking food show you need a tv show i do this for fun okay that's a fair point all right you know what this trip we are gonna settle it we're gonna find out once and for all who is the most open-minded who is more culinarily woke that's right we will find out yeah all right all right all right all right all right this land is renowned for its terraced rice paddies and endless mountain passes a region of vietnam that's home to 20 different ethnic groups the hmong people are one of the biggest ethnic communities in the northwest of vietnam but even among them their tribes vary most commonly the white monk green mong flower mong and today's black long people [Music] we're here right now under a tent yes deep in the countryside in the mountains of northwest vietnam there's hundreds of people here who are all these people do they know all these guys yeah everyone now each other whole village they are coming even different villages so if we're helping to prepare a wedding feast then why are we currently attending a wedding feast well it turns out among marriage is a two-day two-wedding event day one starts in the bride's village this is her final farewell before she packs up her life as she knows it and moves to the groom's village [Music] tomorrow the groom's village a few miles away will host the second wedding a sort of welcoming of the bride to her new family no did i just see two people get married yeah they are married now this is moo born and raised among the black hmong people she'll be joining us for a portion of this journey everybody has their own table i mean how many different animals around here this is chicken this is pork and this is beef the trinity of farm animals everything is belong to the family they have their own cows their own chicken i mean it's found a table that's wow the food itself is paid for by the bride's family several villagers have helped to prepare it here we've got some fried pork belly look at that how long ago was this cooked they cooked early this morning nothing is like hot it's all just kind of hanging out everything is hanging out guests can contribute labor crops or livestock which will end up on one of these tables what kind of rice is this sticky rice the yellow color is natural it's made by some flower tree pick up on the jungle the food itself changes depending on the village really fragrant but there's one item on the menu that always remains the same corn wine that's powerful it's only 11 i am bro it's happening oh no the bride's relatives move from table to table inviting guests to take a drink he needs to bring his own glass because if he has his own wife on his table to here people are going to say that is water oh you cannot cheat no you can't that's the first 11 a.m shot i've taken in a long time yeah since college all right let's get to some of this food cheers let's go oh that is crunchy oh the fatty part is delicious but wow that skin oh another shot oh buddy it just looks like he wants to name us so let's start holy crap oh wow oh i'm going to try some of that rich fatty smoky and they got their own local herbs on there i mean it's oh my god man it feels like everything here is kind of like a drinking food you have a little bit of meat has some booze a little bit of rice and then booze and meat and booze and on and on and then what are all these people going to be asleep by 4 pm the man they can't sleep but the woman they have anything to do when they go home there is no set menu when it comes to weddings here so this one's beef there's skin on you i don't think there's anyone really eating beef skin in the u.s no not in australia but the one special treat you'll find on this day more than any other chicken chicken is meat meat of all kinds from all animals so on a normal meal you might just have one meat one vegetable one rice or even just vegetable and rice so the wedding's really special people are getting something they don't always get to have technology has found its way here in the form of smartphones 4g and facebook but even still some traditions carry on as they always have [Applause] how are people dating out here you won't spend a lot of time together before you're married if you want to marry this girl you just found it out by her friends or by family and if he decided to marry this girl the boy's family will come to us the girl's family and talk to each other so it's not arranged no she can say yes or no yes that's right this generation is like that but in the past it was different in the past people their family decided in the past it wasn't uncommon for marriages to be 100 arranged this could mean meeting the person you're supposed to spend the rest of your life with on the day of your wedding it also meant getting married at a young age some customs have changed and some have not today our bride is 16 years old but the choice to get married is hers alone this is what her father thinks of parting with his daughter at such a young age he won't like kim's daughter to get married around when she was tempted but they love each other they want to marry so he just angry because almost everyone they'll get married very early in here the bride's father got married when he was 20. did you get to choose your bride or was a bride kind of provided to you they are married because they love each other in vietnam the legal age for marriage is actually 18 but clearly some believe this doesn't apply to that how have the traditions changed over time he's changed her life today because step young they go to the city and the waiting today is much more easier and bigger than his generation after the bride's farewell wedding celebration she and the groom make the journey to his village but before they even arrive preparations for their massive welcoming feast have already begun what we just do over there is on the bride's family and here is different village groom's family needs to do something exactly the same so if you don't do celebration nobody in the village know that you sound or get married the countryside is so majestic i guess this is the problem with not having refrigeration the meal isn't until tomorrow but preparation is starting already early today i'm told there's going to be a cow there's going to be a pig yes and then chicken 20 chicken 20 chickens 20 oh my gosh here some of the food is paid for by the groom's family and some of it is gifted all will be feasted on by hundreds of hungry dinner guests in less than 24 hours is it some kind of vegetable what is that this almost looks like a paper they're stripping it away so is this edible no no no this is the pathway oh wow can you throw it over here yeah all right oh can it be eaten raw no no no this is deep inside the bamboo and then this is gonna be what boiling first the borax and that's our fried we have no idea how much food or even which foods are gonna be on tomorrow's menu how many people are gonna be there tomorrow 300 people about 300 yes but from the looks of it we are far from ready the one thing i fear is that if we don't pitch in this meal may never come to fruition is that true yes that's correct we need to help by preparing food i'm ready to roll andrew's going to help with the pig and i will help with vegetables chicken things like that there is no catering service there is no master chef we do have an army of unorganized albeit eager villagers waiting to help andrew and i will also contribute our efforts however we can okay so as you guys can see already this pig has been dispatched and in there what they've done is they've collected all of the blood and that's obviously going to be turned into blood cakes right now the boiling water is loosening up the hair we're shaving it all off [Music] oh are they making a paste i believe right now andrew's having a good time with that pig as for me i'm hanging out with the vegetable ladies and here something i've never even seen before this is an elephant foot yam an underground crop that's popular in isolated rural areas of africa and asia on the inside feels starchy like a radish one in vietnam this can only be found in some northwestern regions like this when you don't have a refrigerator you're going to be eating everything you see here within 24 hours so you are going to need a lot of people luckily we have them the most interesting part you would think maybe they just cut it up boil it eat it no sandpaper comes into the preparation they break down into kind of a paste this is an extremely laborious job maybe somebody could donate a sandpapering machine to this village so they can make this dish super fast in the backyard the ladies are taking care of the chickens while the men break down an entire cow there's no part of this cow that is gonna be wasted same with the pig okay guys so we are here in the butchery pit and it is hard to believe that this was a whole small intestine everything will be eaten including the prized internal organ meat this is a pig head as far as i understand we're going to be using this as part of a bone soup tomorrow so they're taking the intestine and they're kind of oh this is gastric acid a digestive fluid formed within the stomach lining usually in the west this should probably be discarded thrown away here this is a crucial cooking ingredient almost like a special seasoning and that's going to become a big-ass knife shut up just slices through like butter it is really strong powerful tasting component in the dish that we're going to be eating tomorrow this deadly liquid will join a combination of different cuts including the intestines and even the throat is that yummy long you're saying that's yummy that's real close to the bone bro there's no way i end up with all my fingers at the end of this i've filleted a few fish this is very different there we go guys that's uh one side of a pig head after a day's worth of preparation there's still plenty more to do meanwhile the bride and groom have nearly completed their journey right now i'm meeting them just a short distance from the groom's home i was tempted oh i love this they're pouring booze out of a stick of bamboo how do you feel right now we have the groom here i believe they're family excited the newlywed bride is eating in the background it's a generations old tradition for the wedding party to stop down somewhere along their journey and eat a small feast of sticky rice chicken and pure pork fat this cheers is fuel for their long journey [Music] i'm good i'm gonna do it oh it's too much no no no no no no no when you catch it you have to finish it [Music] oh after finishing their meal they continue their journey to their new home where they'll prepare for tomorrow's big event the sun is going down right now there's still a huge amount of butchery to be done and a huge amount of preparation ahead of us it really looks like it's going to be a long night [Music] the open-air dining hall is being set up soon these chairs will be filled with eager villagers donning brilliant traditional colors portions of food are distributed to each table once everyone is invited in the guests will begin dining together now there are just a few foods to be finished off well good morning it is day two of wedding activities everybody's pitching in from the whole village everyone's doing something we got people chopping vegetables plating food boiling soup the energy is building you can feel the excitement in the air maybe they don't seem that excited but i can feel it right here in front of me they're preparing some kind of a local spring roll inside vermicelli and wood ear mushroom they're rolling that up in a rice wrapper throwing it in some hot oil and then that's it it's one of the many many many dishes that's going to be served at our feast nobody is in charge and no one is assigned to any particular task but somehow after a day of toil and labor the collective effort of this village plus a minuscule contribution from andrew and myself have gotten us nearly ready for the event okay guys we are continuing here the preparation of the bone soup and the pig face soup okay so now we're gonna get the bamboo shoots we're tipping into these giant ass cauldrons i'm telling you guys that is hot i don't know if i did it correctly i've dumped it all in he seems to going step by step maybe it's because his pot's about to overflow okay yeah there you go see i was more accurately leveled this is super exciting what's happening right here yesterday we saw this root vegetable being prepared they made the shape they boiled it and then they've kept it in the water it's interesting because it goes from a solid to a paste back into some kind of a solid again it looks like kind of poke it looks like pig fat trying to find some of the bones we put in yesterday what's going on is they cut away as much of the meat as possible from these bones just to utilize every little last bit of the animal we're boiling it in this soup so that the remainder of the meat and the skin flakes away and everything is being used [Music] this is super exciting we're finally at the final big feast everybody's coming in and even more people still on their way in we went to a feast yesterday that was all the bride's village friends and family today this is a completely different group of people i mean the same tribe but there are different people this is just the friends of the girls family this is incredible we should start trying some of it huh first of all fried spring rolls i like it no mind you it's cold yeah to cook everything and then just let it cool down i think it would just be impossible to prepare this amount of food and make it all hot this the root been made into almost like a dumpling it is uh gelatinous it kind of looks gross to be honest yeah it's not tantalizing yeah yeah that is fascinating yeah dude there's almost no flavor yeah just about the texture let's talk about that it is like a big piece of pork fat without you know the oily part have you had this before no we don't have that in my hometown i feel like this has to be one of the only foods that requires sandpaper as part of the preparation but next time we come back i'm just gonna bring a food processor to every village we go to oh man we would have saved all those ladies a lot of work and just like that the ceremony begins this ceremony is a declaration to the groom's village the final day of the marital union the closing of an old chapter in the beginning of a new one approved by eight family members on each side witnessed by every person in this village the ceremony is quick and concise i don't know what they're saying but i'm sure it's along the lines of do you guys promise to not screw this thing up for as long as you both shall live [Music] in the end they both agree and that means we can go back to eating we were eating and then two people just got married real quick that took like 10 minutes i mean to be fair they have to do it twice there's a few things i want to try and some foods that andrew and i had a part in making this is the final soup we're not going to try that yet you know what this is no oh you're going to find out soon oh but here andrew definitely knows this soup right pig face and bone soup sorry that i have helped prepare so i got a piece of spinal column here i can kind of just rip off some of the meat is that what you do yeah that's good man so that's that's really good dude that's delightful what do you think mo like it very much they also have a ton of bamboo shoots in here a super layered crunch almost like a canned mushroom or something or like a canned artichoke i've only eaten canned food i grew up pretty poor andrew yes right here the final course you've had something like this before yeah oh let's get up and it's not something you forget that easily remember this special ingredient the gastric acid i helped prepare now joins a pot full of minced cow stomach that gets stir-fried along with lemongrass ginger and papaya leaves there's a layer of just green from the acid i'm just going to get a healthy spoonful you got to get some of the broth in there the next best thing um there's no spoons you just shovel it in your body i'm losing my appetite quickly go for it cheers [Music] oh dude you know that it's got like a sourness to it you know this is a great drinking food i'm just gonna like slurp this alcohol to cleanse thy palate to me the meat is nice because the meat's real soft i have to think the gastric acid helps make it even softer i've never had this level of bitterness you come from this area what do you think i don't like it if i have to drink a lot but i don't want to drink it maybe i would eat it if you are drunk then it's easier to eat if you eat it it's easier to drink hey cheers to that i just have a couple more questions about the wedding and the tradition here the girl today she's getting married pretty young 16. what is it the age of a woman here where it's like uh unmarriable too late okay first of all like me i'm married when i am 24. i'm too old for the village nobody wants to marry me that's why i have to get married very far but 24 seemed so freaking young in the u.s here on this side of this mountain things are done a little differently from your point of view peeking into these people's lives through a fast cut video some of these cultural differences may seem shocking but when you're here surrounded by these mountains and rows of smiling locals [Music] all this starts to feel kinda normal it's interesting to see it in person because from the outside it's easy to think maybe there's something negative and reprehensible going on it's something that feels so normal when you're here and experiencing it and nothing feels overly wrong about it yeah very different from where we come from but completely fascinating and my god this food was delicious super interesting we've seen what people eat here when they celebrate but what about everyday dining next time we're gonna experience what it really means to live off the land does he see something he sees it he sees it [Music] being an influencer doesn't require millions of fans all you need is this t-shirt entertain and inspire at your own pace don't be an influencer be a micro influencer get your shirt now it's fantastic [Music] oh wow just been handed this giant knife i love how he was just groping this bloody pig head and now he's just talking on his nokia from here they're going to take it and cut it into pieces for the feast awesome i can't stand like this much longer without my back going out this is going to be a mean day are you prepared no i didn't actually want to get really drunk this is why they need the rules around bringing your own glass to the table i can see the need to cheat in this game you're getting a little rosy already yeah she's like pretending to speak english boom guys that is the end of video number one of eight in the northwest of vietnam a huge thank you to andrew thank you guys you can check out andrew's youtube channel right here it's called power up that's it for this one we will see you next time with the bike guy a piece how he didn't do it

Channel: Best Ever Food Review Show

Views: 1,572,642

Keywords: best ever food review show, befrs team, befrs, sonny side, vietnam, asian country, asia, south east asia, north west vietnam trip, adventure, Andrew, exotic food, Yen Bai province, ethnic people food, Hmong people, Hmong unique food, Hmong traditional cuisine, travelling in vietnam, Special wedding, 16 years old bride, SAUTEED BEEF, STIR-FRIED COW ORGANS, BOILED ELEPHANT FOOT YAM, BEEF GASTRIC ACID SOUP, PIG FACE BONE SOUP

Id: 7bsmO8jWVps

Length: 22min 2sec (1322 seconds)

Published: Sun May 16 2021