Traditional dishes of indigenous peoples of Yamal will be included into the arctic cookbook

Yamal polar agro-economic college received guests of the international youth seminar “Traditional Knowledge and Food Culture of Indigenous Peoples of Yamal-Nenets Autonomous Okrug: Towards a Safe and Sustainable Future”.

A separate chapter of the arctic cookbook, which will unite traditional knowledge of indigenous people of Yamal and not only recipes of their national dishes, will become one of the results of this meeting. This information was given to IA “Sever-Press” by the press secretary of the department of agriculture, trade and foodstuff Anna Sokolova. Different peoples of the North have a special approach to food cooking and eating. As the director of the Northern forum, the Chairman of the Board of the Association “World Reindeer Herders” and one of the curators of the project on creation of the arctic cookbook Mikhail Pogodayev says, for Yamal raw foodism is typical, in Yakutia mainly Chukchi people like to eat raw fish or meat, other northerners prefer cooked food. Basic attention in the new book will be focused exactly on the phenomenon of raw foodism in Yamal. Every nation’s cuisine is a whole world, it is very important to convey this precious knowledge to young people, as he underlines. The Association “World Reindeer Herders” unites more than twenty indigenous peoples of the North from ten countries. The organization was created in Yamal in 1997. The training seminar for youth was organized within the large project on development of domestic reindeer husbandry. A Norwegian scientist, Professor, doctor of sciences Svein Mathisen was looking forward to a trip to Yamal - the largest reindeer herding region in the world. Knowledge about reindeer husbandry concentrated here is very important for the whole world, as he notes. At that, the bigger part of knowledge about culture of reindeer herders is not documented yet – it is necessary to fill in this gap. In tundra of Yamal this knowledge is preserved perfectly, for reindeer herders from all over the world it would be useful to come here and learn from the local population, as the researcher says. If to talk about raw foodism, it is a very profitable business in the world today. People pay a lot of money to try sushi, or perhaps Italian Carpaccio. Traditional cuisine of Yamal does not yield to these cultures, because here raw foodism is still as popular as 2000 years ago. The executive director of the International Centre for Reindeer Husbandry Anders Oskal, a representative of the Sami people, whose national cuisine is also very diverse, agrees with him. He says that he prefers smoked venison. The project on food culture, in his opinion, is a very important initiative. Anders hopes on cooperation with educational institutions of Yamal at fulfillment of the project. The guests of the seminar were treated to national dishes. The students of the college under the guidance of experienced chefs laid the table for tasting. Mostly there were cooked dishes: salted and stuffed fish, smoked venison, boiled wildfowl and pies with northern berries. Perhaps, these and other recipes will be included in the arctic cookbook. The work should be completed in 2017.