Greenland: whale skin and stuffed seal skins (1)
The residents of Greenland serve traditional Eskimo dishes on the festive Christmas table – matak and kiviak. Matak is frozen whale skin with blubber. It is cut into cubes and eaten both thawed and frozen. It also comes dried.
Kiviak is an extremely exotic dish. Let's just say it's an acquired taste. It is prepared like this: local birds of the auk family are stuffed into a decapitated seal carcass. The carcass is sealed with fat and buried in the ground for several months. Then it is dug up and the bird meat is eaten in the open air – the smell of this delicacy is, as you can imagine, peculiar.
Japan: fried chicken from KFC (2)
Most residents of the Land of the Rising Sun are Shintoists or Buddhists, and in theory should not celebrate Christmas. However, every December 25, Japanese families with their children head in orderly rows to the nearest KFC fast food restaurant to taste the chain's signature dish – fried chicken.
The tradition of celebrating the Christian holiday originated in Japan thanks to a KFC marketing campaign. In 1974, a commercial aired in which a group of foreigners unsuccessfully tried to find a Christmas turkey in Tokyo. A KFC restaurant came to their rescue. For about $10 at the 1974 exchange rate (2,920 yen), one could order chicken wings and a glass of wine. Today, the holiday set includes a cake and a bottle of champagne in addition to chicken, and its price has risen to almost $40 (3,336 yen).
Norway: stewed sheep's head (3)
Traditionally, smalahove – a dish made from a sheep's head – was eaten in Norway by the poor who could not afford to buy more expensive cuts of meat. To prepare smalahove, the sheep's head is salted, then smoked and dried. After that, it is boiled for several hours. It is served with a side of mashed potatoes or swede. Some local gourmets even eat the eyes and brains, which are scooped out of the skull with a spoon. The dish is washed down, of course, with akvavit – a traditional strong Scandinavian drink.
Sweden: sprats with potatoes (4)
In Sweden, for Christmas they serve Janssons frestelse ("Jansson's Temptation"). The dish owes its name to the opera singer Adolf Jansson, who was famous for his passion for food and was a true gourmet. The traditional "Temptation" is baked potatoes with pickled anchovies. Today, when preparing the dish, sprats, sprat, or small herring are used instead of anchovies.
South Africa: fried caterpillars (5)
In South Africa and some other Southern African countries, the Christmas table features perhaps the most unusual delicacy from a European perspective. Fried caterpillars of peacock butterflies (locals call them "mopane") here cost several times more than ordinary meat. The caterpillars are dried, smoked, preserved for winter, and, of course, fried fresh for holidays. Fortunately, the caterpillar harvesting season coincides with the Christmas holidays.
Timur YUSUPOV.
«Lenta.ru»