Warning: This Post May Be Hazardous to Your Stomach!
Due to an extreme lack of interesting things going on, or at least interesting things that we have pictures of, I decided to go back and post something that happened way back in August. I would have posted it then but we were in Moscow and there were other things to post, so I saved it for a rainy day. And it's snowing, which is close enough.
Anyway, I've started this post out with a picture of our cute new puppy Dexter, so you have plenty of warning if you have a weak stomach before you scroll down. Because this week, we're going to walk you through a traditional T event, the "sheep cutting," which is a bit difficult on Western sensibilities.
Still with me? Cool. Here we go:
This is A, my language helper. He knew that I had been wanting to help out in a T traditional sheep slaughter, as it's a big part of the culture. He invited me over when his family ran out of meat and were getting ready to remedy the situation. Above you can see him readying his knife, which is very important. You really need a sharp knife to properly slaughter in the T fashion.
Now, I don't have a picture of the actual killing, because I was holding down the goat (I know I promised a sheep slaughter, but it's basically the same thing). However, the thing to remember is that the T still practice the traditional central Asian slaughter method passed down since the time of Genghis Khan. The people believed at that time, and still do in fact, that the earth was sacred, and you couldn't pour blood onto it without offending the spirits. Therefore, you have to slaughter your animals without spilling their blood, which means you can't do the Western thing where we slice the animal's throat and let it bleed out.
Instead, you cut a small slit into the skin just below the rib cage, and actually put your hand into the chest cavity. When you feel the heart, you pinch the main artery just above the heart, which kills the animal quite quickly and relatively painlessly, if you know what you're doing. I had to help out by basically choking the goat at the same time A did all that, since he couldn't seem to get a firm grip on the artery, but it still went pretty quickly.
Anyway, when you're done you have a dead goat with all of its blood still inside. Then comes the hard work of skinning without tipping the animal over, so that its blood stays inside the abdominal cavity.
The skinning has to be done mostly with your fingers, as you don't want to cut the animal and risk puncturing and letting the blood out. It's a good workout for your knuckles; really hard to do in some spots.
Eventually you have a skinned goat, resting upside down on his own skin to keep the meat off the ground. Now you have to get the blood out, and since it's a major part of the feast, there are non-spiritual reasons for not letting it spill. Here you can see A carefully ladling it into a pot (more on what happens to it later).
It takes a lot of work, but I'm sure that they get at least 90% of the contents removed before putting it in the pot to cook. Leaving a mere 10% or so of the previous occupants of the intestines still there.
Leaving the ladies to their work, us men go over and start the fire to get a massive pot boiling:
While it heats up, it's time to prepare the blood. A bit of salt, a few spices and herbs, and then it's time to mix. This is my hand, mixing the blood up, which you have to do so it doesn't congeal before you can get it into the intestines. Texture? Indescribable, I'm afraid. Lucky you.
Then all the bits of guts go into this big pot, there to boil until they are a sort of grayish-brown on the outside. Very appetizing.
See? If that isn't appetizing, I don't know what is:
This is a piece of the one from the video you watched above. To my great fortune, we were having this shindig right next to A's garden, and they had dill and green onion growing there, which were served with the "hot blood," as the delicacies are known in T. I've had this dish quite a few times, but the addition of the green onion really helped to cover the flavor. Somewhat.
You can't refuse - it's simply their favorite thing to eat, and they love to serve it to guests. Imagine if someone came to your house and gagged when you gave them pizza from your favorite place or something.
Below is the cross-section of that bigger piece from above. As you can see, the blood sort of bubbles up inside, leading to an interesting texture. Actually, the blood pudding-stuff inside the intestine isn't that hard to get down - it goes straight down. It's the outer intestine that is hard to swallow, as it simply doesn't come apart as you chew.
Later that night, this is all that's left. It really is interesting to see the way that different cultures and cuisines can shape differing palates. What to me is something hard to choke down is literally most T people's favorite food.
Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this photo walkthrough on a typical T feast. To those of you brave enough to read to the end, I salute you!
As for us, only one really big bit of news: our documents were accepted to apply for permanent residency! Now that the application is in, we have to wait 6 months to find out the decision, but at least it's out of our hands. Hopefully sometime next spring/summer we'll become permanent residents of T-land, and then we can enjoy feasts like this all the time!
