In the cold Arctic, the environment is very bad, but the Inuit people have lived here for generations, with a history of at least 4,000 years.

They live in a spherical igloo, and the food they eat every day is very different from ours. The most unique thing is the local specialty food "pickled puffins".

This delicious food has a special meaning in Inuit people's minds, but it is not so easy to accept in foreigners' eyes because it really stinks. If you travel here, most tourists want to escape immediately when they see this "delicious food".

So, how smelly is the pickled puffin? You know, there are many foods that are famous for their "smelly" in the world, such as stinky tofu, snail powder, durian, etc., and everyone hates it and loves it.

Canned herring is a heavyweight and was once called "the most smelly food in the world". It is a special product of Sweden. It is made by boiling herring in concentrated salt water and then canning it for natural fermentation.

Canned herring is sticky and juicy and stinks. People who haven't eaten it will subconsciously cover their noses as long as they smell it. Even the Swedish government has clearly stipulated that canned herring should not be opened in residential areas.

Out of curiosity, many people challenged to eat canned herring, and the audience seemed to smell the bad smell through the screen.

But in fact, canned herring is not the most smelly. In front of pickled puffins, it can only admit defeat and raise its hand to admit defeat.

A Japanese program once measured canned herring and other foods, and found that the odor value of canned herring was 8 100 Alabaster (odor measurement unit), while it was estimated that the odor value of pickled puffins was as high as 9,500 Alabaster.

Of course, whether it's canned herring or pickled puffins, it's actually the same in many people's eyes: they are all "biochemical weapons", which stink to make people vomit. But in Inuit's mind, pickled puffins are precious food, which has to start from their living environment.

Inuit people used to be called Eskimos. Most of them live in Greenland in the Arctic Circle, Alaska in the United States and other places, and their environment is very bad.

In the Arctic, it is conceivable that the climate will not be too warm. Inuit people live in places where the temperature is rarely above zero all year round, the winter is very long and cold, and the days and nights are also very long.

In the coldest month, the average temperature is only -29 to -34, and the lowest temperature in February is as low as -53. Because of the cold climate and being covered with ice and snow, they live in a spherical windbreak snow house, which is made of dense snow blocks.

The growth period of plants here is very short, only 20-90 days. There are no trees and crops can't be planted, only moss and some creeping plants.

Animals around Inuit can adapt to the cold environment, such as reindeer, seals, albatrosses and so on. Among them, seals, reindeer and fish are their main foods.

However, if there is an extreme shortage of fruits and vegetables, vitamin deficiency will occur. Even in the last century, the expedition fleet was threatened by diseases such as scurvy, and the reason was the lack of vitamin C.

But the Inuit who have lived in the polar regions for thousands of years have not suffered from scurvy. They obviously have no fresh fruits and vegetables such as oranges. How did they do it?

Studies have shown that in the traditional Inuit diet, foods such as whale fat can supplement the vitamin C needed by the human body. They like to eat frozen meat and fish, and often eat them raw, so vitamin C is not so easy to lose.

In order to supplement nutrients, Inuit people ate reindeer liver and seal brain, and also invented "pickled puffins", which was made directly and rudely.

The official name of pickled puffins is Kiviak, which is a special food of Inuit people. There are two main raw materials, one is dwarf puffins and the other is seals.

These two materials are hard to obtain for ordinary people, but they both live around Inuit. Dwarf puffins are a bit like penguins in color matching. Every summer, they fly to the North Pole to brood.

During the breeding season, millions of them will fly to the rocks to lay eggs. It is no exaggeration to say that the Inuit can catch a few birds by picking up a bird net.

Seals are containers for puffins. A seal weighs a lot. If it is an adult, it needs the cooperation of several Inuit to catch it successfully.

After killing the seal, you need to take out the liver and eat it. One is to make room for pickled puffins, and the other is to fill your stomach.

Puffins don't need to be depilated. After killing, they are put in the shade for one day, and then they are stuffed into the seals' stomachs one by one. A seal can pack about 100 puffins.

After loading, sew up the seal's belly, and remember to empty the air in its belly. At the same time, the seam should be coated with dried seal oil to avoid maggots.

After that, the seals filled with puffins can be buried under the permafrost. As time goes by, the seal's stomach acid will ferment puffins, and the higher the temperature, the shorter the waiting time. If it is in Alaska, it will take 2-3 years.

High-end ingredients often only need simple cooking and enjoyment, and the method of eating pickled puffins is as direct and rough as its production process.

Take the pickled puffins out of the seal's stomach and take as much as you eat.

The first way to eat is the most original and traditional way: pull out the puffin's tail and suck it with your mouth aimed at its tail, and you can eat the viscera fermented into a paste, which tastes very sour and refreshing.

If you think this is too unacceptable, you can try a more elegant way to eat it: smear the paste from the pickled puffins on the barbecue.

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