TRIBAL VIETNAM!! The Food and Lifestyle of Vietnam’s UNKNOWN Mountain People!!

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 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 [Music] 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 right 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 uconn handle what are you talking about i was harvesting ants oh my god my neck oh my 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 chickens i mean it's found a table that's wild 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 trees pick up on the jungle the food itself changes depending on the village really a fragrance yeah but there's one item on the menu that always remains the same corn wine that's powerful zone 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 had his own wife on his table to here people are going to say that is water oh you cannot cheat no you cannot change that's the first 11 am shot i've taken in a long time yeah since college all right let's get to some of those food cheers let's go oh that is crunchy oh the fatty part is delicious but wow that's 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've got their own local herbs on there i mean it's hot 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 p.m 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 honestly 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 yes 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 all 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 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 i don't know 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 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 this [ __ ] this almost looks like a paper they're stripping it away so is this edible no no no this is the pathway 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 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 boiling water's loosening up the hair we're shaving it all off 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 it 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 sand papering 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 gonna 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 would 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 sharp 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 wrong 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 your 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 no when you catch it you have to finish 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 pots 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 gross 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 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 look at 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 now 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 our journey continues in vietnam's remote northwestern highlands right now we're walking along this narrow path that wraps around the mountain [Music] over generations folks here have learned to thrive while contending with harsh living conditions everything and this animal is going to be used in some way today andrew and i are going to learn the hard way what is going on what it really means to live off the land oh man look at that thing andrew yesterday we got to hang out with the black among people and see how a wedding works today we get to go to the home of a black hmong family awesome but um what about breakfast breakfast is the first thing we're gonna do but we have to help make it that's not that big of a deal we got this eggs bacon right it's not that kind of a breakfast no yeah you'll see we have come to the home of a black monk family in this region this is quite possibly where pounded rice was invented though that is now substantiated pounded right you know like mochi of course they don't call it mochi here they call it the local word banzai today we're gonna be making banzai with some local ladies this is your team member this is my team member the goal is to pound your rice faster than the other team here are our tools all we need now is the rice rice traditionally bonsai is a vietnamese dish made from pounded white rice here among people have adjusted the banzai recipe adding their own twist using purple sticky rice that grows in this area wow this is beautiful purple rice naturally dyed and we're about to naturally die in a second this sticky rice is considered a luxury ingredient it requires more care and produces significantly less yield than white rice so only a small portion is grown and it's saved for honored guests and special events like weddings time to pound it this is one of the largest ethnic populations with no country of their own take advantage of that take a lead we're taking them here they're known for their ornate dress made from hemp crushing dyed in various colors depending on which sub-tribe they belong to oh no i'm stuck here the black monk wear a traditional black guard these women are so bad ass i know how are they so powerful we're finished [Music] it seemed like the pounding was the hardest part but now we have this unwieldy super sticky glob of rice this giant magnificent glob will be portioned into smaller more manageable gloves so she breaks off a piece kind of rolling it in on itself like a big ball of mozzarella cheese to prevent the pounded rice from sticking to their fingers they coat their hands with hard-boiled egg yolks she put some egg yolk on this platter and that's going to stop it from sticking boom one complete the sticky rice is ready to eat just like this but it can also be wrapped in a banana leaf and cooked by the fire [Music] ma'am i was in such a hurry to pound that rice that i didn't get your name what's your name me me miss me is the head of this household like many other hmong folks in her community she and her family are farmers here you've made a sticky rice dish the name in locally is banzai now is that the vietnamese name or them so what do you call it before we can bite into the sticky rice cake it must be cut with a piece of string usually we use the hemp string to cut it the cake is paired with a traditional sauce made from chilies roasted in ash how do you say cheers [Music] that's awesome it's like mung tabasco that's great i love this texture you know i went to japan i mean their version of pounded rice and the texture is quite a bit different the world's most commonly known pounded rice is probably mochi found in japan but it turns out pounded rice wasn't invented in japan or in vietnam it originated in ancient china and was introduced to japan through southeast asia what i had there was much more liquidy super sticky it definitely wouldn't get solid and crackly like this strong you know like you've got to put a bit of effort to separate this stuff you've also prepared it in a grilled style over here can we try this oh it's a big piece it's kind of hot still and there's just this beautiful big crackly crust on here [Music] it has that toasted rice taste to it really delicious i can't believe how different it is from the non-toasted version if you've ever had like rice krispies cereal that kind of toasted rice flavor that's really captured here this is a lovely breakfast i really enjoyed it i love this hot sauce um what uh what's going on here is that jungle rush jungle rats junglers other jungle rats and that is for what is that for eating or for eating if your family are very poor you don't have enough cornfield you don't have enough food to feed the chicken or pig this is the only one you found without money the hmong are survivors folks who were persecuted in china generations ago so they moved they packed up their lives and journeyed to lands most would consider untraversible and unlivable but folks here adapted they carved rice paddies out of mountainsides and truly lived off the land the men when they got dead off they will go to their jungle and try to catch them living out here means being resilient and resourceful time to see if andrew and i have what it takes andrew i didn't tell you yet but today we're actually going to be helping them procure some different food items for the meal we're going to be having tonight what can andrew do what about cash the l on the rice fell he seems like he's a good fisherman but what's going on here i know just last time you didn't catch any fish guys i'm pretty disappointed nothing absolutely nothing all right move we're catching an eel okay yeah rice puree yes 100 promise me yes [Music] okay guys we've now come down from the house up there to the rice fields of tulare i'm with my partner ha together we have smashed sunny's team once and we're gonna smash him again unfortunately i don't see any fishing rods or anything i just have this traffic cone looking instrument speculate a little bit like this no no maybe while andrew is off fishing the men and i are heading to the mountainside to hunt down a mysterious jungle creature hopefully we'll have something to bring back for dinner and right now she's digging a hole through the side of this damn wall i think what's going to happen is we're literally just going to drain this whole rice field plug our minnow traps into the hole so that any eels that are in here have two options the other arrive in our minnow traps and get eaten or they get stranded in the now dry rice field if there are any eels in this rice field i don't see how they get away with this they've got to be caught right right now we're walking along this narrow path that wraps around the mountain and under any of this foliage could be a hole that a rat or some kind of rodent is hiding it we've gone just a short ways from miss me's home to this mountainside forest i'm trying to think if i was a rat what kind of a hole would i build left alone here i'd probably starve to death i'd probably put it under here i'd probably put a little roof on top i'd probably have a little porch in front but that would be a little too obvious but for locals there's food all around us including a not so common protein source [Music] oh i think he found something over there we've drained a good portion of this rice field already and we still don't have any eels how can there be eels in here it's a rice paddy where could they come from it's probably been dry for years and considering our mt trap i really am starting to question this so we've come across a hole here there's no way to know for sure if there's anything inside the only way to know is to kind of knock on the door uh he's gonna do that now using a garden hole sir take it away leading the hunt today mr zhang is he no he's sticking his hand in there that's like the scariest thing he's looking okay there's nothing in there okay just cause you find a tunnel doesn't mean there's gonna be anything there so we just have to keep trying and hope that there's something in the next one so as the water is almost draining out you can see the eels the ripples of the dorsal fin cutting across the top of the water so it turns out you drain all the water it's pretty easy to find the fish look we've already caught one i can see i can see something in there this is a great start we have just stumbled upon a hole you can't even really see it it's completely covered if there's something in there it has kind of closed the door on itself sir take it away look i see anil that's oh oh man look at that thing locally these are called eels but they're actually loaches a species of elongated freshwater fish got like whiskers kind of like a catfish it's slippery as [ __ ] keeps moving and kind of like walk along my hands which is strange for a fish how does he see it what does he see really it looks like it's all caved in no way there's no way there's anything in here it's still oh [ __ ] i see it i see it i see it i see it oh my god this is the most dangerous part this thing has huge teeth he's grabbing it behind the neck oh no it's freaking huge no way i can't believe he just did this i thought there's no chance of there being anything in there but he just really expertly pulled him out of that hole i mean look at these teeth one bite from this rat and it's gonna rip a quarter of your finger off from here i think we're gonna head back to the house and uh well you guys know what comes next [Music] andrew we've just come back from our hunt my friend yes the results oh look at that sunny side that's a lot can i tell you i also got something can you hear it sounds like a wolverine andrew feast your eyes on this what the hell man it is pissed this isn't just any mega-sized rat species it's called a bamboo rat a rodent found throughout southeast asia that feeds on bamboo you caught this i basically caught this i mean you basically caught this i went out there with the local guy all right walk me through this what exactly did you contribute to this god what did i contribute i shed a healthy amount of doubt on the situation there's no way there's anything in here i described the situation as what was happening in detail oh it's sticking inside out right now is he going to come at us so basically nothing i didn't really do anything no damn it for now we're bringing this thing we're bringing this angry little guy to dinner after dispatching the animal the men collect the bamboo rat's blood then miss meat drips this freshly collected fluid into her daughter's eyes [Music] she believes that since rats live in dark places they must have great vision she hopes this great vision can be passed on through the animal's blood it's impossible to know if this is a tradition among people in this region people on this side of the mountain or just people in this household but it doesn't seem to be a widespread practice adults mainly adult men also seek to get their own benefits from this freshly spilled rat's blood andrew a big part of belonging to the hunting party is what we're about to do next these guys mix the blood with a potent rice wine and drink a shot in an effort to increase stamina and virility ah oh it's satisfying huh it's hard to describe what i like the least in that shot the corn wine is really intense and abrasive it's not refined at all but when you add blood to it then it tastes like iron all right that was a upper teeth now we're ready to get dinner started hooking is underway everyone pitches in the ladies take care of the fire and rice while the men prepare the meat when the meat is ready it hits the fire we are back here with the loaches that we've just caught out of the rice field and we're following along with the story right now they've been sandwiched in these bamboo skewers i imagine this is a pretty traditional way to cook fish the meat here looks really different actually it looks more like a beef i wonder if it's got like a little bit more of a protein-like flavor than the white flaky ocean fish we're kind of used to i definitely never eaten fish out of a rice field before and i'm pretty excited there's also a bunch of rats coming up as well and they're cooking in a very similar manner giant rat skewers but not everything is roasted one dish will be stewed with a very special ingredient right now we're making a dish out of that bamboo rat he's gonna take the intestine and remove the contents of what's inside will that be thrown away absolutely not everything and this animal is going to be used in some way yesterday andrew and i went to a wedding where we saw them cook kind of a gastric acid soup out of the beef intestine here he's doing a similar preparation but with rat intestines i can see there's kind of a pattern of really one using every single part of the animal but two appreciating these really deeply bitter acidic flavors let's try it out folks thank you so much for having us here it's a an honor to be joining you for dinner right now let's take a quick tour around the table we've got jungle rat here we have the eel gastric acid soup and then this looks like a yummy dessert we have in the u.s what is that actually this is their snake a snake yes for these snake cakes snake meat is minced shaped and fried until it turns a desirable shade of golden brown when's the last time you had a snake she had never either held her life oh really when is the last time you had snake you can change nine he very scares snakes has anyone even snaked here he a lot oh all right the hunter all right so when is the last time like one years ago this is what's interesting about a video like this is everyone will look at everything here and assume this is what they eat all the time every day not true two people here never have even had the snake ever one guy eats it often last time a year ago so stop your assumptions internet all right should we try it out cheers i'll tell you i just put some herbs in there some seasoning it's nice and fried it is nearly impossible to eat it is they're so full of tiny hard bones but the taste is good of everything here what's your favorite queen like they're on younger breasts oh the jungle wrap that's all i need andrew yeah so let's try to grab one do we eat the bones on this guy too yeah shut the [ __ ] up is she serious she's [ __ ] with us she's ripping the head off right now she's putting it in her mouth oh my lord it's very crunchy very good all right people at home they know now no no no we gotta eat it we're about being open-minded i'm open-minded she tried it we don't need to all try it what's wrong with you that's the point of this choke oh yeah fine okay good yes [Music] so we twist the head off until the neck gives out try it out i gotta say that's not bad wonderful smoky flavor coming from the way they cook it i can't believe how juicy it is on the inside it's really quite tender and soft i think i got a brain in there it tastes brainy yeah bringing it rats are smart you know that oh this one tastes really smart andrew i think we should try the fish that you so bravely cut that's a great idea grilled rice field loaches start with garlic chilies and lemongrass all finely chopped then pepper salt and msg [Music] it's not very fishy at all no that's good it's juicy it's yummy the seasoning he put on there is coming through and the bones are so thin that it's kind of a nice texture i don't mind the bones andrew well done well thank you sir yes and you know the woman that actually did all the work but well done we have one final dish that we built up to it's kind of a bamboo rant gastric acid soup made of the digestive fluid in the rat's intestines bamboo rat gastric acid soup after the bamboo rats intestines are extracted and washed they get chopped up releasing their contents including the gastric acid think of it like a deeply bitter stomach acid yummy huh mix that with chopped ginger and chilies and add it to a pot wait until it cooks through add water and chop the lime leaves cheers oh that's interesting they have put so many herbs in there got like a little bit of that livery taste but other than that it's really that leaf that shines through yeah there's a little bit of the pileiness but it's behind all these other spices they've mixed it with so many other intense flavors that the bile is having a hard time shining through yeah this one was scary to me when you're looking at the rat when you're looking at the preparation and the intestine it's like oh my gosh what have i gotten into what are we doing right but i can see they don't look at it as being a lot different from any other creature and they definitely use everything i gotta say it's very amazing for me to see how resourceful everyone is here and how much you're able to do with what you have and it seems like the way you live is very sustainable growing your own food raising your own animals what kind of stuff do you still have to buy with money more since you need to buy is salt or oil if you have a bit more money she might buy meat that's it i'm curious if you had unlimited resources what is one thing you might want to buy okay would love to buy a machine to plow the rice fair if you have the machine you don't lose whole years to take after the water buffalo just to plough the rice people here are the definition of resourceful this is the only one you found without money they're not waiting to be saved no way they're not waiting to be taken care of by a charity or government organization these women are so badass i know they wake up each morning counting on the only people they can count on themselves and each other she would like to open a store to sell things to local people miss me's dream is to one day own a simple convenience store on a main road so finally she can relieve herself of work in the fields and let the customers come to her i hope one day she gets there vietnam's northwestern region is renowned for its rolling mountain landscape mountains that for generations were nearly impossible to traverse guys very lucky because they have just done with the road and so before that it was just what [Music] in those hard-to-reach places isolated tribes practiced and preserved their culture for hundreds of years man she makes light work with that bamboo what they did then what is in here it's largely what they still do today [Music] he's gone another day another fun food adventure today our mission continues here in the northwest of vietnam yesterday we got to hang out with the black hmong people and see how they live andrew for you which part stood out the most well i'd say it was definitely the bit where the mother put the rat blood in her daughter's eyes just so that she could see better that was pretty memorable that was a good one yeah well there are 54 different ethnic groups in vietnam all of them are unique in their own way today we're going to be visiting the thai people the thai are the second largest ethnic minority population in vietnam at about two million unlike the mountain dwelling hmong family from our last episode the thai people live mostly next to streams and rivers far far from the city do you reckon they're gonna have any rats involved this time rats yeah we got something much better than rats we got something that's gonna make rat meat look like chicken mcnuggets can you handle it you're still questioning me can i handle it whatever it is i'm gonna do it first you're gonna do it first yeah that's right i'm gonna get the boss so damn high sonny i don't know if you're gonna be able to follow me you're stepping up i am between us you are gonna be the most culinarily woke that's right all right all right all right don't question my culinary wokeness we're here it's bright and early in the morning ma'am thank you for having us today what's your name okay miss kin has been living in this village for the last 26 years with over 145 thai families she's our host today giving andrew and i a closer look into the secret lives of the thai people we have breakfast before us can you tell me what you've prepared she said she doesn't have much same for breakfast she just makes those bamboo sticky rice and buffalo skins wait that's just skin yeah where'd the rest of the buffalo go go into someone else's stomach sticky rice is soaked in water for six hours then put in a bamboo tube add water seal it shut with ferrinium leaves and roast it until it starts steaming now this is really thick i've had bamboo sticky rice before but it's been a lot thinner you could beat someone over the head with this have you ever beat your children with one of these she used such a big youtube [Music] not bad i mean it's plain rice but sticky rice and i like the texture instead of bacon and eggs a side of sour buffalo skin this skin is grilled over fire to remove any hair then it's boiled for an hour cut it into thin slices and mix with galangal chilies and salt ferment for seven days then serve [Music] oh my god dude that is so sour it's shower but i like it where does that sourness come from they put little lemon into yeah it tastes like it's naturally fermented right how often would you eat this then don't eat it very often because they don't have water buffalo often to kill it and move when you speak with her you speak in moms yes she only speaks hmong i am vietnamese she only speaks three languages yeah the thai have a rich culture with customs traditions and a language all their own they've lived in what is now known as vietnam for 1200 years mainly concentrated in remote areas of this country's northwest one thing that's really unique and very special about this place is you can only get here by bike there are no main roads out here me and andrew had to take some motorbikes to get out here and what blows my mind is that everything we see here this house the barns everything was brought what by bike how do they even build a house here their houses are made of wood and sit on stilts usually with the back leaning on a mountain flow you guys very lucky because i have just done with the road so you can come in with motorbike oh so we're calling this a road that little thin strip of concrete that we came in on that's the road how often are you leaving your home she will go to the markets one or two times per week to buy soap oil and maybe some garlic what kind of food that she's able to get around here something she can get at home is vegetable another thing is she can just go to the river to catch the fish are you thinking what i'm thinking i think so ma'am i have a proposition for you what if today me and andrew help out with procuring the food what do you think hi to catch the fish is the man's job so she trusts yoga look we're both strong one of us is obviously stronger than the other which one does she think that is i think i just got picked to go fishing she said she tries that you will get more fish because you're very fat that's uh you're hurting my feelings she said that it's not rude people always say if you're fighting you had enough healthy to work on the field to carry something very heavy so if her doctor wanted you she would choose you the fat one 70 of the world's population lives within a few miles of a water source the thai are no different they're known for building homes next to rivers and streams like this i'm not exactly sure how this works i'm with my dude t are you done hello i'm here with cheek we're going to be cutting down some of this bamboo never really filled a tree before but i'm also a man i might not be as fat as sunny but i think i'm up to the task these freshwater veins bring life to the thai people here freshwater springs are used for drinking oh god it feeds nearby towering thickets of bamboo that can be used in an infinite number of ways okay we got our tree we're gonna go for it man stuff is tough river water redirected is used to irrigate crops and fill the rice paddies she's gonna show me a bit more oh my god she's shredding this thing i'm getting smashed by a 50 year old woman the patties produce rice but as a byproduct they provide fertile grounds for growing crabs and snails i can see air you can see the middle of the tree the last remaining piece [Music] along this whole river it's like a beautiful babbling brook with pools here and there i'm thinking these little pools are areas where fish could be so he puts the triangle in the water anywhere he thinks fish might be hiding he's trying to coax them into the net and then he's very disappointed to find he's got nothing the river contains a bounty of fish keep going you can do it but cultivating the riches this water provides still requires some knowledge and skill no shut up oh this is gonna feed a family of five yeah see that that's technically a fish get in there nothing honestly this kind of style of fishing is very hit or miss come on fish i suck at this i think i'm doing the right thing here oh that's one big house piece of bamboo i mean i told miss goon that we're gonna help her she said i'm pang pang i'm a real fisherman i can't let her down so we just have to go for it okay here we go go now we're continuing to cut it into smaller pieces so we have something that's usable i imagine as a cooking vessel oh my god i've ruined this one completely man this takes more calories to get these fish than you actually burn my ass you're getting it now you need the wrist action one more piece here yes yes wait what the i got a fish why is there a fish in my neck wow did you put this here man she makes light work with that bamboo this probably took me about a minute and she did that in 15 seconds oh my god don't jump holy cow look how big this is this is unreal it turns out it's possible it takes a lot of patience and a lot of time for not that much food [Applause] sorry man so um we're gonna keep fishing i think we need a little bit more time i'll probably do better without the cameras cooking is underway the fire is ready vegetables chopped the rice is being cooked but there's one more main course andrew needs to collect for our meal when i was told we're going to be collecting vegetables this is not exactly what i was thinking i'm told it's moss looks kind of like seaweed let's grab some and see what it's like as for the fishing team we've been rewarded with the bounty of some not so fresh fish that were caught long ago oh my god what is that that's potent what is in here we call sour fish sour fish actually it smells a little bit like the sour buffalo skin we had for breakfast are they using similar ingredient seasonings inside yes similar but the buffalo skin we eat this morning it has been cooked before mix and this time it's not so this is raw decomposed fish yes it's basically rotten fish and spices out here with no refrigerators food preservation must be done the traditional way how long can you keep the fish in here hiding bottom two to three years wow that's a pretty good expiration date the fish is seasoned with galangal lemongrass chilies rice powder and salt they put it in a clay vessel for three to seven days before serving it's kind of like rotten and sour at the same time but it's kind of enticing like i like it a little bit folks here also get plenty of fresh food too like this moss knowing that it's actually edible is a bonus we're sort of just scooping this stuff up sort of sieving it with your fingers trying to get as much of the mud out as you can and that's what it looks like it's really goopy not the most appetizing of vegetables okay he says hmm it kind of tastes like a cabbage or something you know pretty flavorless very water filled it's really not a script but yeah i could eat this not bad these methods are the best most sustainable ways to live alongside nature goodbye but are they the tastiest oh the scales are still on here yeah well hi bar yo it's so tender it's almost gooey i think it's great it's really briny it's sour looking at it you think it would taste really overwhelmingly fishy it doesn't the juices taste better than i thought it certainly has a bold flavor to it but when you mix it with some herbs it's real nice i like it today's lunch consists completely of traditional thai dishes first grilled fish with bitter thai dipping sauce cut the fish open and remove its internal organs we'll save those for later butterfly then marinade with lemongrass chilies perilla leaves thai pepper salt and minced local stink leaves fold it in half clamp it with a bamboo skewer and grill for 30 minutes the fish is just a fish but the dipping sauce is everything the main outstanding ingredient the contents of the fish stomach and intestines season with msg salt pepper perilla chili more stink leaves and lemongrass mince it well then pour the mixture into a bamboo tube seal it shut and cook for 20 minutes now andrew's moss it's cleaned and chopped into small chunks seasoned with garlic chilies lemongrass shallots and cilantro that also gets cooked in a bamboo too finally a fish salad a bowl full of banana blossoms fish herbs and sour juice made from pickling bamboo shoots the only thing i don't see are the fish this looks awesome i gotta say i'm proud that andrew and i were able to make a small contribution during the day it looks incredible what do you think she said enjoy you can start fantastic first of all this is a big fish right here so what kind of fish is this the local name we call papinto the fish has so many seasonings inside you just dipped it right in there what is this it's the gastric acid this is our third gastric acid type contribution to the meal a trembling thumbs up it looks dark it looks demonic it's a bit intimidating i'm gonna just jump into it let's try it out oh that's what kind of tiny bite is that all right come on cheers how do you like it really it's not that bitter it is a bit more muted muted yeah mine is full volume really it's spicy it's oily super heavy and it definitely has some of that kind of bile intense bitter flavor it's not overwhelming but that's interesting i mean i wonder why not just eat the fish why do they need that dipping stuff will be more tasty if you dip into this the fish alone is delicious i like it they like to turn it up to 11. they're like why mess around they have powerful tasting ingredients here right this is what andrew was helping with straight out of the river it was really plain so they've clearly faked some herbs and spices into it i can see i've never had moss in my life first time [Applause] whoa man that is way more flavor that's super delicious that is crazy you know it's almost like this moss is like a sponge ready to soak up all these flavors they put msg and garlic chilies and all kinds of fun seasonings in here the texture is almost like a fried spinach but even more fine somehow yeah i would eat that all day every day this is good wrong way so far so good i gotta say i don't see uh my contribution we went out fishing and we caught a ton of fish it took forever you caught fish we netted fish i mostly lost fish and they did not cook them yet well this is what we cut so what's next what do we do do we grill it here he's saying we're gonna eat it like this are they [ __ ] with us dude that's a big fish bro i just feel like we're being pranked right now i don't know what's going on there's no way all right so he grabbed the fish he put it in the salad he pinches it together with the what is going on [Music] [Music] are we legit gonna do this yeah [Music] what are you waiting on what are we gonna do here are you oh that one's microscopic i'm not gonna do a big one bro it's swimming in the salad it's alive come on you don't have to do it i'm doing this i mean you said early on whatever it is i'm gonna do it first and i'm gonna set the bar so damn high sonny i don't know if you're gonna be able to follow me i think i'm being trolled oh it's kicking don't move don't think about it just give it one firm bite to kill it is it swimming in your mouth just try to enjoy it a little bit andrew don't be rude before you get the wrong idea you should know that this is not a common dish at all those bones bro the fins you got a monster the woman of this house has never even tried it the bones thick you can feel it with your tongue yeah this is what i would call dude food shot of booze something a select few men challenge each other to eat when they've had a bit too much to drink um oh man i'm never doing that again so anyways i think we get it no what do you mean we get the idea no there's no way no i should do it yeah currently i haven't had enough to drink are you usually drunk before you do this when he comes when he comes the key is to give them one strong humane life-ending chomp it's harder than i thought it's so big i've had some experience noshing on live animals before coconut worms in vietnam's mekong delta live shrimp salad in thailand oh i missed it but those things were small this is a whole fish just keep munching oh that's delicious oh there's some part left over what is that can i be honest there is a moment of hesitation in the end i'm glad i did it the flavor itself is fascinating because there's something very bitter in the fish and i don't know if i'm it's just the guts i'm eating everything yeah my first bite i tried to do like the death blow immediately yeah it's concerning when it's in the chopsticks and it's still moving around but once it's in the mouth you're like all right we're most of the way there just keep things moving so how many shots would you usually have had before you're eating that [Music] he takes like half a liter of alcohol before he gets in the mood to kill fish with his mouth really out there it's starting to fall in line though i'm blown away in general by just how much they get from the river and how resourceful people are with everything they have the whole meal comes from the river the moss these fish this big grilled fish once again it seems pretty like self-sustaining this village's river just a few footsteps from the home we're in right now brings life to this community you've lived here for almost 25 years has the flow of water changed since you came here around southeast asia there's a recurring conflict people living upstream damn irrigate take and use river water with little to no concern for those living downstream they're very high speed change a lot they have built huge power stations in this area right so the water is start to get less and less if they don't have good water in anymore then the rice fields cannot grow right it's the entire lifeline to the whole community it's the rice it's every food we see in front of us it's uh it's everything [Music] for now this god made geological feature remains a consistent source of vitality however the future is unknown guys thank you so much for scaring the crap out of my friend andrew and offering us a bit of your food and a lot of your culture thank you she's saying so happy welcome and please come back all right yeah maybe i'll do it again [Applause] [Music] our tribal food mission continues in vietnam's isolated northwestern highlands andrew tonight you are going to be dining on ah let's spawn my arm learning how and what oh i mean look at those legs the most bizarre traditional thai recipes are still around today [Music] [Applause] [Music] right now we are on our way to sola so far we've had the chance to see a lot of the traditions and people's homes the way they live personally but the northwest of vietnam is also really famous for its markets have you ever even heard of an inside market an insect market wow there's a guy who has to get around us hold on enjoy and we're back so i've had most bugs that you can imagine but this place has a crapload of bugs i have never seen before i'm not feeling that open-minded anymore what insects have you eaten already i have eaten a bug with you before it has egg inside the hell out of it okay so it's gonna be like that times 10. you excited sunlight is a mountainous province located in the heart of northwestern vietnam this area has been populated by the thai people for hundreds of years over time they've managed to preserve their way of life their culture and food food that most people where i grew up wouldn't give a second glance this is the tiniest fried frog i've ever seen cheers it's a weird breakfast that's not an insect sonny this is the buy-in to the market if you can't get past this level honestly there's no point in even going huh right now we're warming up with a table full of creepy cuisine traditional delicacies that have been around in this area since forever here and eggs actually i think antiques are really good ants can be used as a seasoning they can have this really amazing kind of lime citrusy taste to them boil the ant eggs in water then stir fry with beetle leaves shallots and fish sauce [Music] okay i'm glad i brought you on this trip you got to get up under there that's great the eggs are kind of chalky almost like an egg yolk that's been hard-boiled yeah it's kind of like a pate you'd never know what that was if you weren't told i think there's a scale with bucks there's easier and there's harder sure and eggs are like a one yeah crickets grasshoppers it's like a two or three here these are stink bugs i would say stink bugs are like a three really they smell like us man when have you ever smelled a stink bug's ass these stink bugs are fried in hot oil then seasoned with fish sauce msg lemongrass lime leaves and chilies [Music] dude there's some like weird aftertaste i just can't handle it it's not a bitter taste it's got like that silky feel in your mouth wash it down oh cheers cheers the good thing is they fry it so much that you can crunch right through it there's a little bit of a gush i think it's not that bad andrew you've done it you passed the test on to level two let's go let's go um but you should i don't want to be rude can you like take those with you oh yeah yeah around the world several cultures still maintain a bug-eating tradition to this day holy sh but in many western countries creepy crawlers have gone from a serious source of protein to a bizarre snack for the brave few um to be fair we're here to document the cooking process in this village and in this house bugs aren't just an optional side dish they're a way of life and there's no one better at wielding and dealing bags of bugs than this woman big or small or fanged and ferocious folks around here know her as the queen of bugs yes hi this is home one of the most productive vendors at her local market you'll learn her secret soon why did you choose this as a side job at garyvee would say a side hustle yeah right do you watch garyvee by her side our vietnamese translator and food enthusiast the thai people like to eat the book but gradually there's more and more people want to try it this thing that it is a good way to earn money for the family do you get high on your own supply well no no every day fantastic yeah right here we have a bag of stag beetle oh god they're crawling out the insurrection they're coming over the capitol walls her business here goes on year-round but every season there's a new hot item stag beetles stink bugs crickets or grasshoppers on a good day she can make up to 15 how much would this whole bag cost this probably weighs close to two pounds it's about six or seven dollars that seems like an incredible value right i would say these are kind of intimidating these are maybe more like a five out of ten we're looking for something like a 10 out of 10. do you want to see it oh it's right there that's convenient here in a giant pot these are tarantulas these two are in the defensive position they have like four of their legs up oh oh she made them fight in here so people eat these tarantulas yes how much does the tarantula sell for fifty thousand dollars oh that's way better business about two dollars for a spider wow although that's a lot harder to catch you wanna know how i know how can you pick one up real quick i'm telling you this is why they're expensive there's not one of you picked up huh oh there's a big furry mfr right here that is so fuzzy how do you see you have a really big yeah i'm kidding i'm getting the heavy genies man landing on me i'm freaking [Music] so right now you're getting ready to go to market can you tell us how your day-to-day bug selling works when i would do it this one go out at night to collect it and bring it to the market at 10 or 11. does she usually sell out at the market yes i want to comment on your hair you have striking hair it stands out it's just the most giant bun i've ever seen yeah is this a recent trend it seems like it's probably going on for a while the thai people have sub tribes most commonly the white thai and the black tie each with their own distinctive customs in vietnam for the black tie women when they get married they have to have this hairstyle to show the other man that they already get married so don't touch her the black thai women believe a woman's bun shows her loyalty and respect for her husband how long is your hair right now below the butt yes wow the bigger the bun the more prosperous the family how do you wear a helmet do you just sort of perk it on top do you cut a hole in and how does that work a custom worth doing is worth preserving here thai women have found creative ways to maintain their tradition while also adhering to modern traffic laws [Music] we along with the bug queen have just arrived here at nasi market almost all the vendors here are black tie you can really tell because they have that hairstyle the giant bun wrapped up on top some of them decorate it some have a scarf some accessorize it it's a dead giveaway that you're at a black time market nasi market is a buzz with business between 1 to 6 pm 7 days a week here you can find your usual mundane grocery list items vegetables fresh fruit and meat but when you go a little bit deeper you'll stumble into their more offbeat offerings this is one of the most terrifying insect creations i've ever seen in my life here a dragonfly larvae on my insect scale i'm going to say 7 out of ten it's up there dragonfly larvae live and breathe in water after taking a few years to molt and mature they spring forth from the water and soon take on their adult form however they can also be made into a salad just a dragonfly on its own it looks creepy like a little cockroach is this good that smile how could you deny that smile well sonny's inside trying to find something insect related to eat i'm out here trying to find something that is well preferably not insects what this is is a giant pouch filled with grilled fish eggs this nice little package contains carp eggs wrapped in perillium leaves and grilled over hot coals oh man the nut is not what i expected at all maybe i've made the wrong decision here all right this spoonful right here has like eight or ten larva in it here we go find out cheers there's definitely a fishy flavor it's got a real strong garlicky taste and now the spices are kicking in the eggs are really tiny i've got to admit this is the kind of meal i could get down with safe decision not insects [Applause] no i don't know they're they're biting mean or they're just spiky nothing wrong with the flavor the pickle juice that's in there it's a little spicy it's very salty it's more the fact that i'm just chewing on live dragonfly larva that's kind of the main hang up i have right now this is a lot more bugs than it would usually have they asked me i said i want more protein i'm in bulking season right now in 2014 this market was built for local folks to more safely and comfortably hop their goods including bucks but bug selling here goes way back how long ago was it that you began selling anything this is miss e one of the first vendors to start selling on this street she said that about 30 years ago what was she selling at that time she saw almost everything she can buy like the ant app and some other kind of insight when she started some other people see that it can get a lot of profit from the bug so they follow her and they do like they do these days getting modern farm-raised meat is easier and cheaper than ever yet the demand for these insects keeps increasing they've become an indispensable part of the thai diet and now city folks are paying to get their hands on them too thanks to modern technology and an entrepreneurial spirit the queen of buffs is able to advertise her wares well beyond the confines of this market thanks to daily live streaming this way she can show off her inventory all over the country in real time well andrew so many people here are selling insects yeah i think we can help out the market by buying insects i'll buy an insect that you have to eat and you'll buy something that i have to eat all right challenge accepted [Music] oh i don't understand at all that accent was really thick look sunny he eats extreme food for a living it's so good and i think i found the perfect food to challenge him has he eaten three pounds of worms yellow worms i doubt it i wouldn't want to be eating this that's for damn sure right now andrew is roaming around the market looking for an insect or some kind of crawling creature that's gonna freak me out and i don't think he's gonna be able to top this right here this is something i have never seen before andrew i have silkworm pupa i think i could do this really so you'd be surprised oh i mean what that's crazy andrew tonight you are going to be dining on ah that's on my arm what is that you're going to be dining on cicada cicadas are the loudest insect in the jungle what do you think this is going to be out of ten good eight five nine distinguished by their stealth bodies broad heads clear membrane wings and large compound eyes hold it i don't wanna hold that i'll just no no jesus christ man still alive dude i have no idea how this is going to be prepared we're actually going to head back to the home of the bug queen and whatever she does i'm going to eat it i'm looking for a similar commitment yeah i'm going to eat it yeah yeah should we go let's go i'm not going to do that same ending every time yeah yeah yeah dinner is underway and miss home is serving up some authentic black thai recipes first andrew's cute contribution silk works stir fried with garlic wait for the worms to plump up absorbing all the seasoning then add thinly sliced lime leaves yum now my contribution cooked up hot pot style with her own special broth a spicy savory pork bone creation served with enoki mushrooms veggies and live cicadas we're here i'm very excited home did you have a good day at the market today almost everything heck yeah very good here we have the cicadas they made it clean so you just put it into the oh she cleaned them already hold on oh yeah they look fresh ready for the prom oh oh they don't like it nobody they're making some sounds they're vibrating doesn't make it more appetizing though when you see it moving around that's what you're worried about i think you're worried about them they're worried about you yeah well this is cooking can we try out these worms just scrape it in here thai people they often eat the worm with the sticky rice that looks great a little bit of a rice bite a little bit of chopped they're so creamy and peanut buttery at first it's like jiffy peanut butter andrew too gushy bro she cooked it she's right here i know okay but it has this kind of very earthy dank sour flavor to it yeah you were pretty spot on with the peanut butter as well because it is a 10 out of 10 gush but it doesn't have a face it doesn't have wings it doesn't have legs it's a good entry bug the cicadas are in here they're still boiling away and they've become more dark in color oh god you know what gets me is the eyes yeah tell me the right way do i just raw dog sorry do i just go just straight 100 or do we mix it with a mushroom or rice [Music] well this lady's a real deal yeah badass absolutely cheers [Music] a lot of little legs and stuff chewy just stuff hanging off it antenna how many antennae does this thing have just the wings that's fingernail material right there oh my god yeah i keep chewing this is just soaked up the flavor of the broth it doesn't really have any flavor of its own no but the texture is just kind of rough it almost just feels like an empty vessel like nothing's inside it looks way more intimidating once you put in your mouth you're like not that big of a deal not so bad that's the end of mine and andrew's insect offerings but definitely not the end of this meal bro remember those spiders from earlier or should i say tarantulas this is the final boss this is not what i'm looking forward to we have to go for it there's four tarantulas four people i mean what do you think yes i want to try to pretty confident [Music] yeah my god it is done for its legs just kind of curl up i gotta say this is either the high point or the low point of my life i can't figure out which one but it's very exciting [Music] they're so gushy dude there's like a week's worth of spider webs in that butt it's not like liquidy gosh it's kind of meaty if i'm being honest the flavor is kind of good it's almost like a shrimp or something but the texture i'm picturing like a ball full of webbing in there and that's hard to wrap my head around yeah now if we were done now i'd be ecstatic show us the next step what you just literally eat the rest i thought it should break it down more if they can do it we can do it it's food of mother nature it's here for us to eat let's enjoy it let's go cheers there's no doubt that this way of life is likely very different from your own legs lots of legs the legs are hard almost a little bony similar to the cicada and then it's a lot of work to eat right the first bite was the best because it's a gush but then you get it over with what is crunchy what am i crunching i think maybe the fan the fangs i think so too before you criticize the traditions here the butt is the part to eat you might want to reflect on your own values andrew we didn't we're still here and we're better for it oh my god i'm still gone if you value nature reduce consumption and living sustainably well you won't find anyone around the globe living much more sustainably than this [Music] i'm starting to see why you eat this way i mean it's free it's available it's provided by nature it's very sustainable i don't want to hear any of those people who are going psycho about climate change to talk about this being disgusting right this is the definition of sustainability it's more the visuals isn't it yes it's all about the visuals but the reality is once you get through one i could eat another one and it would be ten times easier yep [Music] [Applause] our high land food mission continues in vietnam's isolated northwest today we're at it again you excited learning how oh yeah and why what you eat that the most extreme white thai recipes have survived for generations good morning andrew good morning mr sunny today our focus is on vietnam's national animal any guesses as to what that is the mosquito yeah that's a good guess it is not that some animal that you've seen all around dotting the northwest water buffalo the water buffalo water buffalo are of incredible cultural economic and historical importance to vietnamese people domesticated more than 5000 years ago they serve largely as a powerhouse source of labor so you don't often see it being eaten but sometimes it is eaten and actually now in modern days it's becoming more and more common to eat this today we're gonna find out why [Music] soon we'll be trying some intense extreme thai food but first we're visiting the birthplace of traditional thai cooking a thai home kitchen [Applause] in this white thai village many families slaughter and smoke an entire buffalo once a year i'm here to learn why the thai are the second largest ethnic group in vietnam 1.5 million strong among them the black tie who we met last time and the white thai who we're meeting today we have just entered the house of a white thai family and right now i'm in the kitchen now there's a lot more going on here than meets the eye at first glance let me show you first of all in the center of the kitchen they have a fire which doesn't seem like a big deal except for the whole house is made out of wood typically white tie houses are made of wood collected from nearby forests they sit on huge wooden stilts around seven feet high potentially these fires could be going all day that's perfect because that's exactly what you need to smoke meat if you look up here it's like a beef closet what do you have hanging in your closet i bet it's not beef but it's not just beef that they're smoking here this is the front guard of a fan you'll see these used all over vietnam not actually on fans because if you take it off the fan it makes a great basket yes your five-year-old is probably gonna stick their hand in a fan and lose a finger but still you have a cool basket so in this vanguard basket we have a smoked chicken it's looking kind of hard and dried out so in a second we're gonna actually try this smoked chicken and the smoked beef you excited look at that excitement [Music] first of all what is your name rang ti-hai you can call her hi dining with us today the house owner miss hai hello hi how old are you 61 years old 61. wow what is your secret to long-term youth and vitality though she don't know just live here with the nature so it's always feel realized and happy with the life i'm so interested and fascinated by the buffalo people are eating in this area by this time we've traveled all over the northwest and it seems almost every home has a buffalo but the buffaloes are being utilized in some way and so i don't see almost anybody eating the buffalo but here among the white thai people this seems to be a tradition how old were you when you first saw a buffalo being slaughtered and preserved in this way ever since he was about 12 he learned how to make this kayak meat before refrigeration was invented smoking meat helped thai people survive and thrive smoking allowed them to preserve protein year-round while killing any harmful bacteria thus preventing food poisoning should we try this out let's go for it man i'm excited [Music] months ago this buffalo meat was smoked and dried now she's gonna bring it back to life [Music] first she heats it up over fiery coals then tenderizes it by smashing it with a stone as it softens up she's able to shred it into thin strips on the side an intensely flavored traditional thai dip cheers oh my god dude that's got way more of like a south african biltong flavor to it like a little bit of that gaminess i like the sauce it's a little bit fresh and a little bit peppery just gives some zest to it and this is this is great since she's heated it up it's like releasing all the oils from the buffalo super good do you own a refrigerator with your hunger it used to have a warm breeze but now it's just broken up so you cannot use it anymore so she used to have one yes she was like we don't need that yeah she has no use for it if they have some fresh meat and they don't want to use it now they will hang it to make it the smoker well that's what they've done here with this chicken to prepare the smoked chicken she cuts it into bite-size pieces and stir-fries it with ginger and a bit of water to rehydrate it my chickens are so small it's easy to kill a chicken and a family can just eat the whole thing so why smoke a chicken you know because they love the smell of the smoked chicken let's try it out cheers that's really good it has a really satisfying deep smokiness it sort of tastes a bit more like a duck or a goose not really like a chicken right this is fantastic i love seeing where the tradition comes from and then how it's kind of transformed over the years and become much more popular meat and it all started with this tradition that kind of came out of necessity for the white thai people very cool [Music] due to vietnam's rapid development this way of life and these customs may not go on forever but one woman is doing her part to not only conserve her culture but to share its most unique foods with outsiders andrew sonny i came here under this house one because it's rating but two to introduce you to our next guest thank you for joining us today ma'am for a handshake meet miss chow a local white thai she started a restaurant in her home four years ago here she serves tasty classics but also the most daring thai delicacies you'll ever try they look gnarly man they look gnarly it's one of the most creepy bugs i've ever seen so these are a kind of water centipede i'm so curious about this i'm guessing you didn't just make up this recipe recently when is the first time you tried this this cat food is a part of her childhood ever since she was a little girl she started to cut this one and bring back home and cook it these centipedes are native to this area their carnivorous creatures preying on worms and other insects folks here plug them straight from the river bring them home and invite them to dinner andrew i think we should both grab one right now bro how do you stop it from biting us you go quickly behind its head and you grab it so he can't turn around to bite you should i go first okay okay i'm going to go first i see one here always try it oh dude it's trying his best to twist around and bite me your turn and drool all right hey come on right i got it you proud of that well mine was more widely yours is like half dead mine's ready to take down a horse [Music] i don't know andrew we need to try it dude this is one of the most revolting creatures i've ever seen but so is a coconut worm and we've had coconut worms raw before this is part of the trip you have a small one i have a giant one it's fine okay so i think we need to go for it okay you ready all right ready here we go one two three what does he say that we need to cook it oh you don't eat it like this no oh all right so i'm just gonna put that back all right jesus that's a relief um so andrew i can see you're a little traumatized by this there's a couple things we're eating today yeah so i will handle this and you can handle the poisonous plants sound good but what there's a plant it's poisonous you're gonna help with that all right plants i can do plants all right see ya all right while andrew is preparing plants i'm preparing the freaking what is it centipede millipede caterpillar the nightmare centipede demonic millipede it's one of those what's the actual name uh water speed oh it's a water centipede it's a cute quaint name considering it looks like something that crawled up through hell and ended up here on earth yeah what okay guys so given that i have been tossed with dealing with the supposedly poisonous plant i've been doing some googling and what we have here is a plant known as delicium or yellow jasmine yellow jasmine is native to china and southeast asia all parts of this plant are poisonous due to a high concentration of alkaloids here in vietnam however there are two varieties luckily for us what i've been told is that the other variety hopefully the one we're about to eat is less poisonous and thus edible so that's good to know the way she works with these she's so slick she's so smooth going from one to the next not getting bit it's very impressive if they weren't scary enough the centipede's two front legs contain venom for insects this means certain death but for humans this venom could cause extreme mild irritation is it going to kill you probably not no the vegetables are what's going to kill us today but it'll hurt it'll be inconvenient and nobody wants that oh did you want help okay she's like can you do something besides talk oh jesus they're still very much alive so do that we're literally rubbing their bellies one interesting story i was told in preparation for this is that when there is a young local couple around here that is deeply in love and their parents ban them for getting married they will sometimes use this leaf to commit suicide being poisoned by yellow jasmine is not a pleasant experience its effects can be felt soon after ingestion leading to a painful death by asphyxiation yeah it's very tragic in a very romeo and juliet fashion all right so that looks fantastic they're still alive and they're happier than ever because now they're ready for the big feast with the midi note [Music] all right we are in the kitchen and this is the most exciting part of the centipede preparing process she's gonna take big goopy chopstick fulls and shallow fry them in hot oil this is probably the best way to prepare an insect is just to really fry it get it crunchy and hopefully it's gonna taste like french fries hopefully she has mayonnaise i'm gone mayonnaise i do not think she has mayonnaise [Music] ma'am what an honor i know many have come here before me but does everyone get to sit down here with you i think not let's take a look at the spread here so we've got buffalo chicken tri-color sticky rice over here i was really curious about this so this is the plant andrew was kind of helping with right he told me a little bit about it it's a potentially poisonous plant it looks harmless now it just looks like a bunch of fried up spinach with garlic is this from the garden or from the wild in the past it's just a wider plant but then the people find out that they can eat this so they bring it to the garden and plant it and it's become available for the daily life of the people here how many people did it take to find that out a lot of people died mistaking this vegetable with the other one they do yes because in vietnamese they all call it lang on both yes the same name yeah that doesn't seem like a good idea i'll call one of them poison kill plant and the other one broccoli stir-fried heartbreak grass after the leaves are cut they get stir-fried with salt and msg add an egg and mix until it's cooked and definitely not full of poison all right let's try it out that's bitter hello then now the leaf is very firm even after cooking it's a thick leaf almost like a lime leaf in thickness oh it has a powerful aftertaste yeah a little bitter obviously she's kind of dressed it up some salt some garlic so the tastes are great do you know anybody who's actually died or been poisoned good highly cocknum one in the village and the surrounding areas die because of eating the other side of the portionless lip because they have some tip to recognize them oh yeah all right let's talk about this so i got to say it has reduced in size from the frying it does look crunchy which is nice and last of all it's not moving anymore it's just very docile and calm at this moment it's almost in a meditative state oh wait no it's just dead should we try it let's go cheers it's like a french fry dude that's surprisingly pretty no wait till you get to the end it is like an old pate yeah it kicks in right at the end yeah in the beginning you're like maybe it's a french fry oh it's not like a french fry at all right at the beginning it's like really good and then there's this really strange aftertaste so surprising usually when you fry bugs like grasshoppers or crickets there's really no flavor left these it's not the case lots of flavor beyond that the legs are kind of over fried so they crunch like you're chewing on soot i can't believe how strong the flavor is i mean all of the bugs we've had have kind of been non-descript but this has a really distinct yeah pate like livery flavor people think i don't share with my team honestly all the rest of this is for the team you guys can have the chicken too but you have to eat all of it together fair fair oh we're getting a thumbs down on that one all right this was fantastic it has been such a revelation to hang out with the people here the way that people live off the land the way they're so resourceful the way they have so much joy and kind of light-heartedness in everything they do it's really a model for how the world should be you don't see people here waiting around to get help everyone here works hard they bust their ass and they look right it's really impressive so i'm blown away by you buy your food and buy the white thai people in general you don't need a time machine to travel back in time yes folks here have motorbikes phones and facebook but life now is largely the same as it was generations ago being among these people teaches you about humanity and their food tells a story of resourcefulness and innovation in the face of adversity [Music] our highland food mission continues in vietnam's isolated northwest today we're at it again traveling back in time as we head to one of the world's most isolated markets it's really unsettling it's putting me on it andrew good morning my man good morning mr sunny another day another fun food video if we can get to our next location because right now we are traveling through the second most dangerous paths in all of vietnam how do you feel about my ability to host the show and drive the second most dangerous pass in vietnam at the same time you know just keep your eyes forward a little bit but then the camera can't see my face right now we are on our way to baka city this is a really interesting place it's kind of a huge melting pot of all these different cultures all in one place from there we're going to be able to explore so many different new ethnic groups that we've not yet discovered for example so far we visited the black hmong people today we're going to be visiting the white mung people what's the difference i don't know huh so we're going to go find out so we are just entering the village right now look at this half the village is out here trying to help prepare the fields for something oh dude they're sewing corn in most of asia rice is cake but in these parts it's all about the corn corn grows much more easily in this harsh terrain it doesn't require as much water as rice and it's calorie dense the way you know that they have a lot of corn here is instead of rice wine you often will drink corn wine which is even more potent yeah it's brutal andrew and i are on a mission to discover one of asia's most hard to reach mountain markets but first we're stopping at the home of a white hmong market vendor her name is miss chat and every afternoon she prepares the food she'll sell at the market the next day it starts with corn today we're gonna make uh you know there's not exactly a good translation for the name of this food they were calling it kind of a corn powder it all starts here on the mill and begin this staple monk dish is called men i can totally reach that it was consumed more in the past when rice was less available and more difficult to grow and she's gonna flip the switch now it's found mostly in markets where folks from near and far can get a taste of the past the corn goes from this upper here and then it goes to the bottom of this giant rotating stone once it's between these two stones it just gets grounded to a dust there used to be places here where you'd put wood and manually grind the core now they have a motor and so it's much easier than it used to be after the corn is turned into a fine powder it gets strained to get rid of any lumps then mixed with water and steamed in a wood trunk for 20 minutes first of all thank you so much for having us here today andrew if i may back up for a second you know there are 54 different ethnic groups in vietnam four of those are mung she belongs to the white hmong tribe but i'm curious what sets the white monk people apart from other tribes in this area when they pass away the club for the funeral is a one so that's we call the white hormone i understand you grow food around here you sell the food how did you learn this recipe is it something that was passed down from generation to generation we learn from the parents i'm assuming her parents learned from their grandparents and she learned from her parents yeah and andrew today we're gonna learn from her oh i can't wait uh tell her that she's my mom today and that she will pass the tradition to me [Laughter] the amendment is about half done steaming she's she's gonna dump it out right here when you touch it it feels like cornmeal it's kind of coarse and a bit dry still so she's adding some more water and then really massaging it she's mostly putting water on her hand as it burns it's not funny that's my mom so she's going to take it from here put it back in the steamer it's going to finish steaming and once it's all the way done it's ready to take to the market [Music] tomorrow [Applause] foreign [Music] wow [Music] this is crazy so we're at the market now what is the name of this market sorry there's a lot of pig screaming it's a little hard to hear you this is lumpin market one of the few locations where you can find several of vietnam's ethnic groups rubbing shoulders and engaging in good old-fashioned commerce if they can make it breed it or grow it then they'll strap it to a motorbike and sell it here what are people selling in the whole market that's how many different things food this is awe spelled simply hey today she'll be our bridge to those who speak only in the hmong language did you get any of that i just hear a pig streaming yeah it was pretty tough the thing with pigs is like you could tickle them or torture them and you get the same sound it sounds like there's pigs being tortured all over correct they're just being picked up why do some people have a cage and she has pig bags it's easier to carry oh so she just throws a pig in a bag puts it on her bike and rides all the way here yes can i take a look at this is this a good pig yeah it's good looking big how can you tell a little bit a little bit healthy do these rules apply for humans too i'm a little bit chubby and just a little bit healthy only [Music] well we've been shopping for little piggies miss chat has set up her stall and is serving her customers in this market's food court there's a logistical issue and being a food vendor at a market like this she comes here on a bike not a truck so she brings half the food and then half the food she makes here the men men is made beforehand some of her pork she'll actually get from a vendor here and cook it here and then there's this this is the tofu she started making yesterday at her home all she did was grind the soy beans here she's added water some herbs and boiled it for an hour and then that is going to be served with the men men sounds like a good breakfast right good morning this is beautiful this is all food that you've made today do you like eating your own cooking yeah now man you don't she love it that's why she made it oh that's a good answer yeah that's great so this is called men men how do we eat that do we just eat it plain yeah just eat it all right let's try it out [Music] oh it's so dry i don't mean this in a disparaging way first of all it's a beautiful looking dish but it's very very dry it's super dry it's like eating sawdust almost like it soaks up all your spit and then you need this so you mix it with tofu [Music] now tofu tastes good it tastes like silky tofu but it is a bit bland i think this is all the flavor right here what is going on in this bowl it's truly salt i'm gonna get a nice healthy chunk yeah me too all right cheers okay so that's all the flavor that is spicy my mouth is ablaze already i went from like no flavor to flavor overload man if you just eat that alone or that alone you'd be so disappointed about the combination that's right here this is the star the trotters how does she prepare these after the pork chops are boiled for two hours she cuts them into thin slices and seasons the meat with their secret spices and lime leaves that is crazy good i can't believe how tender the trotter's gotten yeah these are great it's a real hearty breakfast you'd be full all day i think that's the point how many years have you been working here selling around 20 years 20 years is a long time how has the market changed over the 20 years is changing a lot every year it's just growing bigger and bigger and more people sell it more people more time from here we're going to meet a cultural guru so he's going to show us some of his traditions and talk about how they can be preserved into the future there's one problem i feel like we should bring a gift what is like a bomb gift you bring bottle of rice wine or some meat what about a pig that would be super happy but it's a little bit too much let's see we're going to find that balance or we're just going to blow this guy away maybe we blow this guy away while sunny is off doing whatever sunny's doing i have been tasked with buying gifts for our white mum cultural guru we're here in what is clearly the alcohol section can i try some of this while andrew is shopping for gifts i'm taking a look at what else this market has to offer that's got some punch the average family in this area is making two to three hundred dollars a month so that means they really need to be careful with their spending but a lot of the stuff at this market is actually pretty inexpensive oh she's gonna get a swig as well [Laughter] oh that's great i have no idea what that means but i'll take it exhibit one the honeycomb sandal when you're up here in the north even when it's cold you see about half the people wearing these sandals and that's because they cost about one dollar super affordable i just paid a little over ten dollars for this whole thing i think that's a pretty good deal let's see what else we can find what we found out is giving a pig as a gift is a little bit too much but i think a chicken could be a pretty good compromise so for items that people can't get from a big manufacturer people will just make locally here for example this any ideas seventy thousand i think we take a look homemade cowbell one dollar okay so this is seventy thousand that's like three or four dollars for a chicken that's a pretty good deal i think this guy comes in at about ten dollars it's not bad oh we're gonna weigh it i thought this was by chicken i don't know why we're getting a weight what is this for this is like a mortal combat weapon okay i was wrong here the whole time apparently it's per kilo oh it's like an old school paper cutter this is how they do circumcisions locally it's a brutal process that concludes my market tour is andrew done shopping let's find out seven or eight dollars for a chicken it still seems like a fair deal to me i was surprised at how cheap it was i'll take it good deal sir put her there it is an honor meet our cultural guru mr foam here he's going to reveal his culinary traditions including the most intimidating dish i've tried so far on this trip and we've tried a lot we have come bearing gifts this is alcohol oh and a chicken huh first of all what do you think of the chicken he picked it himself he said it's very nice and healthy chicken oh good i'm glad i was told it would taste delicious we're excited to be here because you are a man of both of music and mixology it turns out as part of his culture-preserving journey and because the man enjoys a good buzz mr foam makes his own moonshine from corn how did you learn to make corn wine he grew mom and grandfather are doing that so they learn from the family most of the hard alcohol in vietnam is made with rice what's the difference with the corn one kong wine is more powerful and you get more easy to addicted it's my understanding that once you partake in your first creative endeavor drinking the alcohol that gets you kind of souped up and ready for your other creative endeavor playing traditional music if it's okay we'd just really love to witness you playing this instrument can we do that how am i yes no problem [Applause] [Music] [Applause] this is a clang a traditional mongood mouth organ [Music] due to the tonal nature of the hmong language each tone of this instrument corresponds to among spoken word to folks here listening to a clang is like listening to a story and clang players are known as storytellers mr thumb's father taught him to play at age 14. now many years later this has become an integral way for him to preserve his culture [Music] there's one more way he preserves his culture food so right now we're making some very traditional mung foods here a big intestine that's already been cleaned out so they've got a funnel they've got the intestine into the nozzle there that is avant-garde art right there after you take one deep breath and blow it into the intestine then you fill it up with this insane mixture this mixture starts with chopped pig lungs and fat add that to the pork blood and add ginger look at that the whole thing is filling up they're kind of massaging it working it out trying to get the blood all the way through from here they're going to hang this up over the fireplace where it's going to smoke [Music] we have quite a spread here we have so many different foods i saw the blood sausage being made this isn't the one i saw them make this is one that's much much much much much much much much much older preserving meat is a crucial part of mung food culture every kind of hmong living every kind of country the major thing once a year they solder a pig and preserve it by smoking the meat that meat can be eaten throughout the year because hmong people don't have freezer so they learn how to smoke it some meats age better how old was this one it's around four months that's a good amount of time and some age worse this one has a distinct odor it is funky how long has this one been hanging around four months all right so these are from the same pig yeah it's the same people um let's try this no no no no no oh he's in the driver's seat i don't know what to do let him take over buddy just doing what the man says he's giving us some of this okay oh i got a giant fatty bit and he's finding me i don't know what to say this smells distinctly rotten it's beyond fermented should be good to make this soup the smoked pork trotters are boiled with daikon for one hour cheers it's not often that i worry about getting sick as i'm eating a food but this happens to be one of those times this soup oozes a musty fungal odor that's telling every sense in my body to be careful perhaps this is where the corn wine comes in oh body really funky man it's almost just like a cheesy like blue cheese pork but i'm done with it if it doesn't get me sick and i can see why you could have this as an acquired taste it kind of reminds me of truffles or smelly cheeses something where at first it's kind of like oh what the hell's going on here and then over time you would start to crave it let's try this this is the pork belly this looks really good right yeah smoked pork belly gets grilled over a fire then cut in thin pieces and stir-fried with the corn wine and a bit of ginger how is it that's really good it's kind of like an intensely salty bacon i'm a fan of this one come on let's go man [Laughter] sorry it's okay just have some sausage just have some sausage and i'll be okay okay after the blood sausage is smoked for a couple of months it gets boiled in hot water to bring it back to life squishy juicy it does not have a sausage taste no super salty there's blood in there but it doesn't have that minerality that blood usually has right the casing is kind of much more chewy than a normal sausage i imagine because it's real intestine i'm a fan of this too these are the perfect drinking compliments especially if you've got a wine like this it's so salty you need something to drink you need to chase that with something then yeah it's a delicious cycle of chasing but overall i love the pork belly the most the sausage the next this one i can just go ahead and not have it here at all i'm with you same order culture is a living thing from the time you're a kid have a lot of the hmong traditions changed or began to fade it grows it changes our young people are changing a lot the isolating nature of these mountains has helped preserve the local culture here for generations but still there are kids and culture in there so not totally changed but as modern life creeps closer and closer it may only be a matter of time before ethnic minority customs are washed away into the mainstream forever 100 years from now what are some of the hmong traditions that you hope absolutely hold miss chan is the skirt to tell very small and mr foam yeah go ahead and lose the costume the mask mount clothes to tell that you're among so that's why it's important to have it in their own ways fight to push that day back as long as they can [Music] our highland food mission continues in vietnam's remote northwest there's a hole on this guy today we're back at it hello hey whoa oh my god don't kill anybody documenting the unusual lives of vietnam's noon people oh yes no no no no no seeing how they live and how they eat man we've been everywhere and i've never even heard of the me either it's this is also first for me as far as i know they have their own unique culture different language different houses and different food including their breakfast do they eat insects like the thai it's not even an insect thank god man think mr ed a horse horse meat i don't know exactly how it works but i especially want to know how this tradition came to be and why horse meat is so common here but not in other areas of vietnam oh yeah no insects well good morning ma'am thank you so much for this incredible breakfast before we begin my first question is why horse miss yui is one among one million known people that live in vietnam most are located in these northwestern highlands today for breakfast she's making up an ancient traditional recipe soup made with horse meat an unusual choice of protein you won't find in most of this country for the dish are making right now they're going to use all different types of horse opals all the different internal organs right here one of the main ingredients horse heart heart's really one of my favorite meats ever so whether it's chicken heart or beef heart i really love it horse heart on the other hand i've never had but here it's just another day at the village the equine organ meats joined together in a giant iron pot according to her this food has been around for generations how old were you the first time that you tried horses she already eat when she had children if you asked me like how old was i when i first ate chicken i'd be like i don't know pretty young like from zero yeah next she adds water and boils it down cardamom star anise ginger and cinnamon are added in to pack an even more powerful pony punch she dumps in horse blood wow finally sliced lemon leaves lemongrass and shallots do they still use horses here for other tasks or is it just a food animal now now they don't use so much just what to eat let's try it out you put a lot of different horse parts in here i can see there's liver there's intestine there's uh what's this is it just meat oh just meat just no more enjoy okay you know she made this so fast in a couple hours she broke it all down and stood it and it's surprisingly soft it's really good actually so how often does she actually get to eat horse because a little bit expensive the other meat one month they eat two or three you wanna try some home i'd love to man that's delicious that is really good dude wonderful texture yeah it's got a little bit of a crunch but it's not chewy at all that is fantastic can you tell her this horse heart has my heart [Music] [Laughter] and you two are not speaking in num not mong language or vietnamese language so she knows a little bit of all those languages yes could you count to ten in the noon language [Music] the known people in vietnam largely emigrated from china a few hundred years ago different from vietnam's thai people who settled nearby rivers the gnome people tend to populate the more hilly regions carving stepped out paddy fields into the mountainsides so they can still grow rice in the northwest most of the houses are made out of wood but here the houses are made out of clay they take advantage of their surroundings using clay and dirt from the field to build their own distinct two-story houses this thing is powerful the only issue is that with clay over time it can deteriorate and break down and cracks start to form so as soon as cracks form they fill it in with cement eventually they either need to cement the whole house or build a new one the noon people are known as hard-working farmers it's not unusual for them to spend all day in the fields these days this routine is starting to change every day she goes to the farm every morning she goes to feed the animal to eat wednesday friday she makes a third to sell andrew yes i'm very excited about what we're about to see me too far is one of these iconic dishes in vietnam people around the world have tried this dish but few people actually see what banfa even is and how it's made it just comes in noodle form they think that's what it is right they think it just started as noodles yeah but it starts as these big sheets of rice batter and this is the original way it was made before factories before mass production you ready i'm ready let's do this they don't seem as pumped as us a typical vietnamese phone noodle is usually made out of soaked rice that's left in water overnight before grinding here she uses white rice and red rice as a base how many kilograms of bun fud does she have to make one day she just sell like 20 kilos 44 pounds just the noodles yeah that's a ton of food next a portion of this very same batter is cooked then mixed back with more uncooked batter the batter is ready time to steam it essentially what we have here is like a giant wood fired steamer i see we've got a bbq right between my legs and this giant bowl just steaming up water through this very finely stretched cheesecloth and as you can see the rice batter is going to be thinly spread across the top here and it's going to harden up as the steam comes through [Music] so hot as hell and i don't know why i always get the jobs when i'm standing right next to the barbecue in under two minutes the liquefied rice has turned solid again she rolls it using a giant pvc tube then lets it cool before the next step and there you see it one whole sheet of flour and this is where fog comes from it's just a big sheet of noodles oh no my sheet this big sheet right here is going to make about two to three bowls of noodles please show us the way what's really unique you know if you go to a fa restaurant in california or saigon the floor is going to be purely white but here they've mixed together two different types of rice one of them that gives it this kind of slightly pinkish hue something you're only gonna really find up here in the mountains of northern vietnam so carby it tastes about like what you would think it would taste like among 46 nearby noob families 10 of them are in the same noodle steaming business as miss yui where is she selling the banfa and do you make more money selling pho at the market or just doing your farming duties so this should have more money then you can do it wow or more substantial why doesn't she do it every day the market is not helping every day okay when you see pink far in the northwest there's a good chance it was made by a newman family don't kill anybody i'm trying my best tonight we're in the middle of can cal market it's just right on this tree yeah you could buy a head of cabbage right from your vehicle this is nuts do you think it's drive-through do you think we could order something we should try it this is the biggest cattle market in this region a multitude of ethnic men and women from around this area gather here to trade not just cattle but also common goods like clothing plants and of course food can we get a cabbage please okay okay there's four thousand it's pretty cheap here you can keep the change you just bought a cabbage yeah from the car i like it so the markets in this area kind of rotate there's like a sunday market a saturday market so it's not like this every day it's about once a week but some of these vendors are just market hoppers they'll go from city to city or street to street hitting up different markets on different days of the week in order to reserve this dining area year round miss yui pays a yearly sum of 20 while she sets up her restaurant andrew and i have something we have to check out this market is actually famous for its buffalo pit a buffalo pit they are the highest ticket farm animal you can buy it makes sense big animal so we're going to go to the buffalo market as soon as we can find a parking spot oh great each saturday nearby villagers bring their buffalo here to sell depending on its health and age the acquired buffalo can either be used as food or as a living tractor to help plow the fields we're in a buffalo mosh pit and you ma'am you're a buffalo seller this lady has sold one buffalo already is this hers right here so this is a albino is that still okay to say but instead of selling her own cattle she bought it from another farmer and will resell it here using her negotiation skills can we do a practice negotiation hello i like your buffalo i would like to buy it how much are you offering it for um it's 32 million credit cards no no uh what about bitcoin bitcoin each of these buffalo will be sold for about fifteen hundred dollars in the village we have no atm so they only have cash so people are rocking up to the market with thousands of dollars in cash yes [Music] in the meantime i'm told there is sometimes bull fighting even here in the market is that true yes they have do they bet money money and how do you know which buffalo won watch buffalo run away is the losers oh has this buffalo ever fought no buy now [Music] these pools require no provocation fighting is in their dna and it's even part of herd life in the wild but even in the wild there are two buffalo there's one up here there's one down there one or both animals can wind up badly injured or dead oh [ __ ] buddy oh no [Music] oh buddy i don't think this is going as planned dude this is right in someone's yard yeah this isn't where we're supposed to go down no i think they were trying to conduct a buffalo fight but the buffalo just did it on their own before any budding of heads folks place small bets on who they believe the victor will be it's over here they're bringing it down right now this is going down dude oh enough what what dude look at the size of these things man oh man he's powering it around they didn't have to do anything these buffalo wanted to fight this doesn't seem like a great thing to do with your tractor like you just spent a large amount of money on this giant creature and now you're gonna let it go at it there's some blood oh man it's bleeding it's true what just happened they still need to use these animals turns out this is more like buffalo fighting light i think that's the case i mean i just had to pull them apart damage may be inevitable but as soon as these beastly bovines start actually hurting each other the owners call the fight one drew a little bit of blood on the other one so they're saying this one's a winner after all a buffalo that can't work isn't of much value although they seem pretty fine well considering but i mean that one's got a hole punched in the side of it oh god it's definitely a guy sport i don't see any women who's 100 ah guys around the world never disappointed kind of morons right earl [ __ ] yeah all this unnecessary violence has gotten me famished time to see what miss yui is up to good morning first for me this is a dry pot my first question i mean off the bat why pig face typically vietnamese fla is proteined up with beef or chicken but here she's combining her pink mountain noodles with pig face this is like a special dish the people like to eat this part early this morning she purchased pork at the market and prepared it in her hillside diner kitchen what is her favorite part of the pig face the part of the cheek [Music] it's really tender and surprised pink is like the perfect food you don't really have to add a lot to it yeah that's tasty when it's ready she combines the noodles with peanuts mint basil msg and some seasoning powder finally top that with a combination of unusual meat cuts from an unusual meat part i know that the color comes from the mixing types of rice but why do they make it the pink color smell and the little bit of the taste you can tell the white noodle are tastes a little bit different i think it does taste different it has more of like a whole meal type flavor as opposed to like you know white bread versus full grain bread i can see that picks up some flavor for the peanuts yeah from the herbs and you're supposed to be mixing a little bit of the meat in there too put that all together you got a little bit of fat a little bit of carb a little bit of protein and that's all your macros i mean i'm fascinated by this because it's kind of this whole region is eating this type of food or this type of noodle that's cool so that's like their twist their innovation is it their innovation or did people here invent fog oh wow vietnamese people make first are you sure if you want to you just publish a video and you can say that you guys invented it i wanted to try the eye oh crazy i thought that was a black olive eyeball do you have any eyeball in yours she already eats it already cheers little bit of cornea in there i like it a lot generic porky flavor just a different texture it's all about the texture yeah when she was young her parents tell her that this business is good to go on the farm don't earn so much money so she like to sell fun you went from farming to running this far selling business what would be the next level after that she don't think she's gonna go any further she know how to cook so she said this is the best for her are you happy with the work that you do now is it satisfying when you see someone try your food for the first time and they're smiling and they really love it does that give you some satisfaction she's very happy when other people are like that's awesome people from my country might look at miss yui's life and feel bad for her but she might feel the same when she looks at you life here isn't perfect but miss yui lives among nature she eats healthy food she has a family she has a community and she has an occupation that gives her purpose in the land where 401ks and vacation homes don't exist miss yui is more rich and more happy than most [Music] today our journey comes to an end wait is this a as andrew and i said okay take the skills we've learned during this trip and apply them to some country cooking andrew man what are we doing here um i think we're kind of in the middle of a road i think we made it we're here this is baka market once a week everybody comes here it's a place to be the mother of all markets [Music] this is the convergence of pretty much every ethnic group in northwest vietnam 18 different tribes well represented here 18. [Music] baka is an intersection of ethnic tribes the flower hmong people give this area a unique vibrancy but you'll also find the noon people the fulan and the tay tribe as well here's the thing we've met a lot of different ethnic groups so far right but we haven't met the dai people we're starting at the market we're going to meet a thai couple who has a very unique job but first parking no no breakfast breakfast actually yeah parking i don't where can i go there's no way to drive i don't think i was supposed to come in this way yeah i'm just gonna leave it here i don't need it yeah let's go okay [Music] once a week folks from various tribes and backgrounds come here to sell what they have or buy what they need plants liquor produce live animals as pets and not it's also a great time to socialize but above all this place is a treasured trove of ethnic foods you can't find anywhere else good morning from vodka market to start the day andrew and i are getting our own separate breakfast starting here can we see what's inside here this right here sold all around this market is a delicacy in this region i like this she's got sticky rice it's covered with a blanket to keep it all warm and steamy inside five-color sticky rice naturally dyed naturally delicious oh she's gonna what we have here is something i have never seen before from what i understand this is almost the exact same process behind making a tofu except instead of using the soybeans they've used the kind of cornmeal to make the tofu we're gonna jump in and find out what it's like the corn cake is sliced then topped with pickled cabbage ground peanuts fresh herbs and pickle juice yum oh now i was kind of expecting it to be a sweet mixture but this looks like a savory meal i've really got no idea what to expect this is gorgeous i see blue purple yellow and then here i'm getting some crushed peanuts i'm gonna get one more of those i'll pay a little extra if i need to there you go what's great about sticky rice is you can just eat it with your hand it's steamy but it's not wet look no residue i want to try one of these pieces of corn tofu let's see what this tastes like cheers i don't know what it is but that's so delicious the texture of the rice is so chewy it's just fun to sink your teeth through i love it and that is completely flavorless i don't know that i've ever tried anything else that has as little flavor so let's mix in some herbs we've got some of the sawtooth grass peanuts some spices on top wow heaps of flavor heaps of spices what's interesting about this is it's cold that's super weird in the south and elsewhere in vietnam it's pretty much always just rice as a base but up here the corn is a real cornerstone of the diet up here corn couscous now corn tofu and that's super interesting [Music] the food here is diverse and varied depending on the tribe who prepares it the hmong prepared this a horse organ stew the known people have their pink far the tay people they're known for this we got a couple things here what is this this one is the sticky rice made out of the powdered rice inside there that have the cinnamon seed peanuts and sugar in here we've had pounded rice a couple times on this trip now do you think pounded rice was invented in vietnam or japan sitting across from us a tay couple they're the reason we're here it's luin and her husband mr keith is from vietnam because from the old generation we're always making in the new year all special education fantastic well let's try it out [Music] that's really good dude i was not expecting that flavor i already love fried pounded rice right here there's kind of a sweet treat inside a little bit crunchy from the sesame and peanut peanuts and sugar if this is thai breakfast and i was a kid i would have eaten this all day every day yeah you'd be 400 pounds i want to talk about you too you two have a very unique job can you explain what your job is living mostly in the hills of vietnam's northwestern region the tay people have specialized in rice farming and racing cattle but these two are different they've made a career out of catering traditional tank cuisine her job is to prepare the food for the waiting or for the restaurant for you guys what is the biggest wedding you've ever done we started this trip in among village where an unorganized but eager troupe of villagers just barely finished a wedding feast in time for the ceremony with these two it's a different story wow wow so 800 people are in people a lot of home wedding we also use vietnamese people cook for us because they're made better dish but for thai people is have to be thai food is it just you two doing that or do you have a team also have a team composed countryside cooking for your wedding the new year or for today's event a death anniversary a death day is the anniversary of a loved one it's the opposite of a birthday the tay people take this day to pray for and pay their respects to a dear loved one who's passed away well listen andrew they've actually come here to get ingredients that they're gonna need for this feast today we need to help them they'll lead the way you just have to stand next to them and say what's happening okay preparation for this evening's event are under our way first we got to buy some protein wait is this a this is a pig how come some of these get a cage and some get a bag i don't understand what do you think yes no okay does he understand like a thumb up thumb down system he said this one's gonna be yummy it turns out a lot of people here are used to eating pigs are a little bit smaller they cost about 110 roughly that's it for my shopping list i'm not sure what andrew is up to but pig protein we got it so i'm here with chi luin i've been tasked with picking up the rest of the ingredients to make a black hay sticky rice we're going to cook the rice within this it's not really going to impart any flavor but it is going to impart color on the right so instead of having white rice maybe this is what makes it the black sticky rice andrew is doing a little bit of shopping so i'm doing a little bit of self-care have you guys ever got a haircut for a dollar that's a great deal don't take off the bandana that cannot come off okay guys we're now looking for the rice this really fat round rice is going to make for a really really intensely sticky rice chico great this is it time for sweet treats right here honeycomb you know this is fresh because there's still some bees on here oh really okay thank you that's so delicious it tastes like honey have you ever had honey it's like that but very very fresh and what we have here is a bunch of varieties of beans and we're here to buy some mung beans i've seen this yellow mung bean here used in a bunch of different ways whether it be sweet or savory i've even seen it used to be ground up into a paste i think that's what we're going to be doing here right here these are local routes that can help men with little issues that they might have can i just eat this [Applause] listen stamina comes at a price it's not good it's very bitter it feels like the plant has bones inside i don't know if it works if you just eat it directly but i'm told you buy this put it in some corn wine or rice wine for three to twelve months then you drink it and you're unstoppable as a man with another consenting adult the tay people are the earliest known ethnic group in vietnam they're believed to have migrated from the islands of southeast asia in 500 bc they have their own language wardrobe and food you've absolutely never seen before this here is just the start this is apparently a traditional die way of preparing a roasted pig the piglet is stuffed with indica leaves seasoned with salt and pepper then roasted for four hours i've never seen a pig this tiny yeah get roasted you could microwave this pig it's so small you can put it in a toaster oven like an airfryer i think it would taste better oh that's a good point maybe it's like the veal of pigs this is a part i've not seen before a stick with a little towel on it not butter not oil water i think it's a good strategy we've got to keep the skin moist make sure it doesn't burn keep some of the juices inside we're doing great by the way we just have like maybe another hour to go your back getting sore three hours from now there's gonna be over 20 people here to come to eat and to celebrate it's a two pig party although they're two small pigs you're gonna help prepare whatever it is you're shopping for i'm gonna help with the pig okay deal wait did you get a haircut andrew there's no time to talk about that today under the guidance of ms lewin and her husband mr keem everyone is pitching in the men prepare the meat and the women prepare the sticky rice cakes one two three i finally found out what's been giving the black color to this rice essentially what's happened is we've taken this which is the wood of the black tree they burn it down into a charcoal and then ground it into this black powder i can't believe we're going to be eating ash okay it tastes like ash like ash that better just be for the color huge moment because the pig is finally done rotisserizing men let's get to work let's do what guys do and begin i need to learn something to me step one we're undoing the stitches the sutures i'm not sure why they're opening up the stomach first maybe they're pulling out something maybe they cooked a chicken on the inside or a quail i don't think a chicken would fit now we're gonna mix it in with the rice spreading everything around making sure all of the rice grains are covered oh there's another nail in its butt so now they can pull out the bamboo and then we have just a pig left oh now he's shaking it he pulled off the legs and he's taking the head off right now the skin looks delicious and crispy you hear that oh we're sort of rubbing it in a little bit to the bottom here okay that's it the smell is delicious they're taking all these herbs out right now these are going to get squeezed out and drained and used as a sauce during the meal and we're going to enjoy this very soon we've got everything we need for the black sticky rice cakes time for the build on top of fernium leaves add a layer of ash dyed sticky rice then mung bean then slices of pork belly more mung bean more rice wrap it up seal it shut with bamboo strips and boil for six hours in the meantime the piggy we got from the market is being made into several dishes there's fried pork nuggets boiled pork and fried pork shoulder this looks absolutely delicious with every cut of the knife you can hear the skin kind of crackle and break apart oh are you sure i couldn't wow it doesn't even need seasoning i'm telling you a pig comes pre-season just heat up and it's ready to go that's delicious finally braised pork belly this is the pride of the tay people with an elaborate preparation and mesmerizing 5 star quality results first the meat is blanched then poked so the skin can better absorb a vinegar honey mixture then it fried until it's golden perfect but there's still more to do it gets boiled then cut into slices season with ground pepper thai pepper ginger rice wine taste fermented soybean fish sauce msg and seasoning powder this gets added to a bowl containing pickled cabbage and the whole thing is braised for two hours finally flip the bowl to reveal a layer of melted pork skin on top serve and eat [Music] this is fantastic and not only did they make all this in just a few hours they made this too we got here i love the shirts the men wear here i said can i get one of these taylor made they just brought it two hours later they didn't measure me they just looked at me everybody angry oh we're starting with this shot yeah let's go all right i feel healthy that's got to be corn yeah now i sound like dmx and corn wine turned me to tmx they have cooked five dishes from that one pig they also have a pig they rotisserize everything looks amazing man of all the dishes here which one is your favorite the roasted pig we helped make that yeah for at least five minutes however long that filming was i think we should try it out and there's skin here this looks super delicious give it a little bit of a dip andrew this is the sauce they squeezed out of the herbs from inside the pig cheers let's go it makes me want to sing but all the songs i want to sing are copyrighted so i'm just going to sing in my head that is amazing we got to start cooking baby pigs more often that is really good it is the veal of pigs this sauce is incredible it's oily and fatty from the pink meat itself but it's just full of fresh delicious herbs it's very fragrant again bro you wanna try some of this yes andrew kind of helped make this oh that is like a dense cake there's mung bean in some of this there's big pieces of pork fat how many of these do you eat in a meal like just like two slices you can eat half of that really does say the ass is good for your stomach i'm sorry the ash the ash it's unbelievably dense it's almost all the same texture it's pretty hard to distinguish between the rice the mung bean and the pork back because the pork fats just melted into the mouth i think this is the balance with all this heavy meat this is the braised pork it looks like a meatloaf have you had that before no because we are hmong and we don't make them i think you should consider it andrew let's try this mean let's go [Music] in the last two weeks andrew and i have lived beside and dined with six of vietnam's 54 different ethnic groups tribes whose traditions have been preserved partially due to the isolating nature of these mountains but i wonder how much longer can these traditions last wow what just happened shut the heck up that just melts i've never seen anything like that one of the best things we ate this trip so the vegetable base it's almost like a mix of these deliciously seasoned mashed potatoes with pickled vegetables that have been fried or something and then on top in the pork belly it's just tender it's soft it melts in your mouth i can't get over the texture that's like the texture of fish like melts in your mouth is an understatement i've never ever seen anything just fall apart like that remarkable can you do my wedding is the natural order of things that which is not tended to tends to break down and fall apart the same goes for culture and traditions but here the tay people they put in the work they're deliberate about maintaining and strengthening the traditions that have brought them this far from the old generation and to now black people just like to hold strong for their culture and they never like to change so do you think your kids or your kids kids are going to keep the same traditions just like you and your husband she was training her kids to keep the culture i think there's no way to maintain culture casually right it just has to be very deliberate you can see the way everyone's dressed the food they're eating the traditions the language it's very impressive to me i think that is the key to holding on to tradition is to care and to work at it every day so it doesn't fade away and to that i say cheers across my face when i look out at the horizon guys we are buzzed and happy and i hope you are too what an amazing adventure it's ben andrew my friend buddy thank you so much that was wild thank you man guys you can check out andrew's youtube channel right here see his videos and what he is up to right now please go subscribe that is it for this adventure thank you so much for watching we will see you next time oh some more corn wine awaits from an old fanta bottle i can't wait to drink that up as long as it comes with some of that pork

Channel: Best Ever Food Review Show

Views: 6,058,477

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, Lao Cai province, ethnic people food, Tay people, Tay unique food, Tay traditional cuisine, Hmong people, Thai People, Nung people, Bac Ha city, alive fish, eating bugs, bizarre food, Pink pho, Horse meat, aged pork, aged buffalo meat, buffalo fight, travelling by jeep, hmong wedding, eating spider

Id: 81aLMRK1ris

Length: 144min 6sec (8646 seconds)

Published: Sun Jun 20 2021