Hunting and Eating Whale!! Europe’s Most Controversial Food!!

this is the actual skin of the whale and then you have a good two inches of solid fat and then the protein in this video You're Gonna witness one of the world's most controversial Meats sourced on a tiny collection of islands in the North Atlantic the color of the dried whale it's amazing it is like black but first let's back up hunting pilot whales here in the Faroe Islands goes back Generations these whales are an abundant source of food once critical to a place where agriculture is nearly impossible I've never tried whale in my life I know you've had it once or twice before one or twice but in recent times animal activists have condemned the practice staging protests in an effort to save the whales you should try to look with the foreign and things like that the reality now is that people don't have to do it no but they still continue why do you think that is today in order to understand the locals I'm gonna eat like a local what is the most you've ever gotten one day 200 300 kilo that is pure meat I'm on a mission to discover why this practice still goes on and if their actions today could lead to these animals going extinct forever is this sustainable it all starts with breakfast before you can understand whaling you need to understand how important the ocean is to small collection of Islands fishing and fishing products account for 95 percent of this nation's exports among those is salted cod or pakalau a daily staple for many Islanders here what they are specializing in is salted cot what do you know about Cod hello tell me tell me everything this is biersky for decades he was a sailor and a fisherman I have been fishing a lot of code you know thousands and thousands of tons of coffee this morning our breakfast is a two-course bacalao meal starting with a soup The Salted fish is soaked in water for 48 hours to rehydrate and reduce its brininess then it's cubed cubes of salmon potatoes carrots and bakla are piled in a bowl with parsley sprinkled on top the colorful Heap is submerged in a steamy soup made from fish bones Sriracha cream salt carrots onion and Thyme I'm gonna try just some of this broth oh that's delicious oh it's so buttery and creamy it tastes like a gravy oh yeah tastes very nice the fish tastes good still very salty but not too salty I like it it's very very little of it though you would put more Cod yes of course are most people on the island eating cod as kind of a daily food I think so yeah and how many protests were on the island for people against cod fishing I mean they're alive they're creatures of oh I have never heard any protests okay I'm just checking yeah yeah boom main course right here does this look familiar no well it probably shouldn't you know it's elevated food our main course starts with mashed potatoes and salted fish whipped together complete the dish with mixed seeds pickled Gooseberry and something I call faroise fish sauce you'll know what this is in the middle right so it's fermented too if I eat it just like no I wouldn't do that yeah I know that's very little you can eat there wow yeah I mean obviously it's pure fat pure oil it's almost a buttery texture but it's between being rancid and like fermented like a soy sauce it has a wonderful flavor to it but it's just too much to have straight you need to mix it up a little bit that's awesome really packed full of flavor and very rich and there's like pickled gooseberries that are a little bit sour too is that what you grew up on fish potatoes yeah when it comes to types of fish are there any fish that are off limits uh no I'm a little disappointed because uh I heard that there's whale meat in the Pharaoh Islands well there's no whale meat here at this restaurant do you think it's illegal to sell in restaurants I don't know about that because I wouldn't go out and eat I do it at home a bay dyed Scarlet lines of massive whale carcasses when the topic of a Fairways whale hunt known as a grin to drop is mentioned these are the images that appear has also partaken in dozens of whale hunting missions throughout his life how old were you the first time you saw or partook in the Grinch just after I could walk or maybe my mother took me with her to watch it brshki offers me a more profound look at the tradition by bringing me to burbay Grinch destination now clear of educational red stained Waters could you show me exactly how it works [Music] a Brint always starts with a sailor spotting a pod of pilot whales wandering into the pharaohis fjords then you have to send the message from ball to boat until it reached the land then they were running and crawling grindable all over the villages upon receiving the call the townspeople drop what they're doing and rush to the beach with their whale harvesting tools meanwhile the chasing has begun offshore fishing boats on Shore work as a flotilla to herd the pot of whales toward the beach when you come close here you make noise you can use your screw the propeller on the boat and what's the purpose of that scare them and then they come up onto the shore so you way out into the sea and they have a hook and you put it in the nozzle and then you drag them in this way until somebody reaches and kill them [Music] each whale is put down with a cut behind its blowhole in order to sever its spine then each body is meticulously measured and lined up on the beach waiting for the townspeople to claim their share of the catch how many times could it happen in a year very very very different it can be none it can be 10 20 maybe the Pharaoh Islanders never deliberately set sail in search of pilot whales a grinch only happens when a whale pod comes too close to the eyelids this has been the tradition for over 1200 years but ever since the 1980s this Millennium old practice has been challenged by International scrutiny why is no one protesting Cod they don't see the kill here you see it the sea is red and you can see it for hours after the kill I'm filming a show here on the Faroe Islands if the Grinch happened now and we showed up to film with our cameras what do you think would happen they will throw you away they wouldn't be happy about that no they're worried about these people are bringing wrong information to the world about us They tell we're chopping the whales up in pieces and doing these things for fun and we don't eat it and things like that today with 80 percent of this nation's grocery products imported it's fair to ask if it's necessary to continue wailing for food this is food from this area you don't have to bring your food with chips and airplanes and then polluting the air you eat the food that belongs to your area you understand that I totally understand eat seasonal eat locally stop pollution stop Flying or shipping peaches from South America to Thailand to be put into a can and then be shipped back to the USA every documentary about Fairways whaling stops here but for me it's not enough I want to visit a local family learn their story and find out why the fairways people won't replace whale meat in spite of its controversial reputation foreign like your favorite serial killer and normal appearance suggests nothing about what he has inside his fridge though in this case it's a load of whale meat this is a steak from a long finned pilot whale the most common species caught in the Faroe Islands do you have any other ones here is dried the color of the dried whale it's amazing it is like black as wailing here is not a commercial event the whale meat is divided among the grit participants the most ant has ever received from a single Grint was 400 pounds of meat so how long can you keep this what's the oldest one I don't have this for that long it don't get better yeah it's not like wine right before we sit down to a whale heavy meal Susanna the lady of the house gives me a tour of today's uncommon ingredients you have so much behind you right now maybe you could like pick up a dish and tell me about it this is the fresh meat no fat in this one not much of a smell the color is so dark almost black that is so interesting and that's not been dried or cured or anything like that but it was maybe Frozen yeah and then this fresh blubber the smell is so unique it's so interesting it's a little Briny baby it smells like if I wear a gym shirt and then I put it on the ground and I forget to hang it up and I smell it the next day sorry I'm not trying to insult your whale blubber this is the actual skin of the whale and then you have a good two inches of solid fat and then the protein this huge layer of fat is what coats the entire animal to keep it warm in the water that is remarkable in Greenland you eat this raw but we always cook you know what I'm thinking do you want to try it raw right now no not this one turns out I can't eat blubber that's not been cooked but this has been cured so this is self-preserved proper so you eat this together with the dry meat so your husband showed me this but that was wrapped in plastic this is just dense it's pure protein it's like a brick it just smells like normal dried fish I rip it in half you can try it but I don't think oh you're Oh I thought I could oh I'm spoiling it sorry dried whale meat and salted blubber are sliced thin and laid with potatoes [Music] first taste of whale meat this is the most black meat I've ever seen in my life Susanna is supposed to be that black yes are you scared or something yes a little bit [Music] oh so interesting it's so weird it's yummy it is the texture is amazing kind of dense but soft The Taste is like they fused together a cow and a fish and then it creates this kind of flavor it's beefy and fishy somehow at the same time and then it just has a very strange bizarre aftertaste and I can't really pin down it's not like anything I've ever had before but as far as dried Meats go it tastes excellent Susanna where did you learn these recipes from from my grandmother my mother my father we have always used it like that that's how you know it's good but next we have the blubber now I've been told to cut the blubber with other food can I eat the blubber alone you're brave enough to try it alone why did she say Brave why'd you say that yes oh wow it has a slightly kind of rancid smell to it oh I know what it smells like it's like my wife's feed when she takes herself at the end of the day I mean I love that smell [Music] wow it's so oily yeah but I gotta say the smell is more powerful than the taste The Taste is nice and it's not heavy oil it is a light oil yes I agree it's not like pork it's not like a buttery thick oil that coats your entire mouth it's like a lip gloss I can start to see how this is something that people wouldn't want to part with because that is an experience like no other unreplicable cannot replace that with something else you could only take it away while I'm starting to understand why pharaohis people don't want to part with this unique delicacy one important question remains will this tradition eventually lead to the extinction of an entire species today Susanna welcomes us with a special dinner with two main courses consisting largely of whale meat first she boils whale meat with salt for an hour before adding more ingredients how many times a week are you preparing a whale not every week actually sometimes once a month when you have children especially girls we shall not eat so much whale meat because of the metal this heavy metal like Mercury yes when the meat is soft enough she adds in potatoes chunks of fresh blubber and salted fresh blubber foreign I was trying to figure out the smell earlier when you were cooking now I can say it's kind of like cheese we knew this smelled before we knew the cheese so we're gonna say the office is the opposite way okay so this is so similar to what I already experienced with my little appetizer you've got the fat the protein and the carbohydrates yes I was told I ate it incorrectly earlier actually I forgot to add the potato so I'm going potato protein wow it's such a powerful taste a lot of flavor it's something very new to get used to so I'm trying to enjoy it but I'm trying to understand it at the same time earlier today we tried some of fermented sheep Tallow and it was like this flavor bomb it had so much power and so much flavor and that's kind of what I experienced something similar when I'm eating this when you are sectioning up a whale and butchering it into different pieces how many different cuts are there I don't know actually but it just is drywall and the different fresh one and sticks like with beef whale steak seems to be a favorite here Susanna's personal recipe starts with a whale steak marinated in vinegar and water overnight it's cut very thin right it's like a flat steak but it's just completely black Susanna cuts the steak into smaller pieces coats them with a flour and pepper mixture then pan fries them with slices of onion on the island what percent of people here do you think eat whale meat it depends where you live I think in this Village almost everyone but if you are in taioshan I don't know to complete the dish she adds beef powder and and boiled water and lets it simmer for half an hour do the Young Generation eat it too yeah it was going down slowly and then when we had this confrontation from the International Community there were some people here who came to the conclusion that no they are not going to decide what we shall eat so there were many young men and people Patriots who said we will really keep our tradition [Music] thank you it's a completely different experience yeah I thought it would just be so dry I mean it's just such a lean mean it's not dry at all it's not tough it has a slightly Livery taste to it it actually tastes a little bit like venison to sweeten it we have this rhubarb stem yeah this rhubarb is amazing really sweet really delicious do you like this it's gone I ate it all without thinking about it what stands out to be the most is the idea that these foods are kind of Irreplaceable there's no way that you can just say well just eat something else just eat chicken I can feel the frustration people have when Outsiders say we're going to take this away yeah you can't have this part of your culture anymore this thing that you grew up with so I guess the biggest question I have is is this sustainable yeah I'm sure it is yeah absolutely and how do you say that with such confidence because they're living in the North Atlantic and we don't have them they just take the few of them that comes to our fjords how can we kill the population that's living in the total North Atlantic we can do it it's estimated that about 1 million pilot whales live in the wild today far fewer than one percent of that population ever swim near this tiny archipelago in a given year when I see what they're doing in Japan there's a lot of people there who want to eat whale and they're going out into the ocean and they're looking for big whales that live in limited numbers and they're doing it under the guise of research but then they have to eat the animal so they don't waste the meat and it doesn't seem like that can last forever but here it's just whatever happens to pass by this small island in the middle of the ocean you get a piece of that and that's it every year about 800 pilot whales are caught in the Pharaoh Islands the pharaohis authorities have accurate statistics of whale catches dating back to 1584. it's the oldest unbroken hunting statistic of any wild animal do you think in 50 years from now the Grinch will still be happening it's very difficult to say because as you know the culture is changing a lot also now they say that please don't eat it because it's not healthy late because they what they did because of the Mercury that could harm their babies and when the wives in the house doesn't deal I should demand they need it and they're not going to start reading it when they are over 50. yeah of course this controversial fair with tradition doesn't notably impact the whale population the harvesting doesn't destroy habitat there is no bycatch and there are zero food miles still the whale hunt remains a source of controversy characterize the Islanders here as bloodthirsty barbarians killing for sport but from what I can see governing bodies have taken the protests to Heart altering their hunting methods to be conducted in the least painful way possible it's called a spinal cord lens so the idea what it is you take this pointed in the around a hand behind the blowhole and just stab it and there would be a blade there there will be a blade here is this the old style or the currency this is in current style in the old days they only use the knife it can take a bit of a while now how long does this take as fast you can do this so two three seconds I'm a Hunter the first thing you do whatever you want to do is try to make as less suffering it doesn't matter which animals face your whale bird it doesn't matter try to kill it as quickly as and humanely as possible foreign review show is a small team of independent creators and everything we do here works because of you guys click the link in our description to join our patreon and receive exclusive benefits boom guys that is the end of this video I hope you enjoyed it my gosh feral Islands I cannot believe I'm here and I can't believe how crazy this video was I hope you enjoyed it but that is it for this one thank you so much for watching I will see you next time all right reference to whatever happened in this video no I didn't pee my pants that's water

Channel: Best Ever Food Review Show

Views: 2,528,799

Keywords: best ever food review show, befrs team, europe country, faroe island, whale meat, killing whale, eating whale, Europe’s Most Controversial Food, hunting whale, DRIED WHALE MEAT WITH BLUBBER, BOILED FRESH WHALE MEAT & SALTED WHALE MEAT, PAN-FRIED WHALE STEAKS

Id: 2mYjBYHh3fc

Length: 17min 59sec (1079 seconds)

Published: Wed Mar 22 2023