Hey everyone hope you're having an amazing day. It's mark wiens, i'm in the small village of mung pam, which is in the mountains in the mehongsan province of northern thailand, and this is a karen hill tribe village, and today we are hanging out with my friend muk, who is from this village. So the plan is we're gon na go on a hike, we're gon na go on a trek through the mountains through the forest through the jungle, we're gon na go to a river we're gon na go fishing. We're gon na get some local river small fish, we're gon na harvest ingredients, we're gon na cook in the jungle, and so it's gon na be an amazing forest food, natural karen food experience.

It's gon na be a really fun day and i'm gon na share it. All with you right now it is a beautiful morning and actually the fog is just now clearing uh. When i woke up this morning at about 6 37, it's just completely blanketed and fogged, the entire village. You couldn't even see the mountains, you could barely see the the next door house, but now at about 9 a.m.

When we're setting off the sun is beginning to shine, village is warming up, and the fog is clearing that melody. All of those bells are coming from. The cows and the buffaloes that are grazing by the banks of the river - oh, that's such a beautiful, sound, oh man, i love being young like that and just jumping over fences and running everywhere at my age. Now everything i do where i stretch too far.

I got ta, i got ta, be careful of pulling a muscle or breaking something: oh okay, hello, oh my oh wow, the juiciness sweet sour, incredibly juicy so juicy on my first bite. I just sprayed the whole lens and i think it's also important to note that right now, we're here in the winter, which is the dry season. But if you come here, i think during the rainy season or right after the rainy season, when the hills and the mountains are going to be just lush green. It would also be incredibly beautiful here.

Fill your entire bag with oranges. Wow, nice, oh yeah, that water is cold, it's refreshing and it's so clear, so pure feels good ying, it's cold! It's cold, michael! Look! They eat! Even the are those the ferns, i'm not sure what type of fish exactly it is, but it's a protected fish. But there's a lot of them, though, and they're just coming all from all over the place. It's so incredibly beautiful and one of the distinguishing factors about this area of me hongsan is that it's not only mountainous, but it's rocky uh, there's huge.

I believe that they're karst mountain rocks, which add to the incredible dramatic landscape. Michael you, see the buffalo, and this is actually the location where we're gon na get started. We're gon na start fishing we're going to hang out for a while, oh cool fry, a karen style fishing net. Oh and auntie has one already set up over there very cool method of net fishing.

It has to work with a clear stream. You wait for fish to come and then you dip the net uh just trapping them in the bottom of the net. Okay, cub, oh nice, okay, some more fish look. Look! Do i turn my cup and then additionally, with the small fish uh.

Sometimes you catch tadpoles, which will also be added to the curry, that they're gon na make tadpoles are also a delicacy or a favorite here. Eventually, you just keep walking making your way upstream with the net fishing slowly gathering the fish, putting them in your basket and eventually you have enough for a meal mook. You got a lot of fish all right. Oh there's a motorbike, that's awesome and you really got to keep an eye on the net too.

There's fish parents - oh and they are, they are really slippery, just sorting the fish now, half of them, the bigger ones, are going to go for one dish and then the smaller ones are going to go in another dish and they're just taking out the guts. I think we are wrapping up the fishing huh, but a successful fishing trip walking upstream. That was a lot of fun as well. We're gon na walk a little ways.

I think uh well we're gon na walk somewhere uh, where they're then gon na prepare for us. A karen curry, local curry, with a small fish with the tadpoles everything is going in. So i think we've reached the spot. Oh wow.

This is uh rice, grass, storage for the buffaloes for the cows, a shelter uh now surrounded by corn fields, former rice fields that are now dry and harvested already we're overlooking the river overlooking the valley, and this is where the kitchen is. This is where we're gon na get started. Cooking. The natural life is, what's so beautiful, okay, and so they did actually bring some other ingredients.

That was waiting for us at the last hut and we just picked it up here. We got a catfish delivery, so we're gon na have both the fish that we went. Fishing for, plus catfish, uh and they're preparing all the ingredients gon na be cooked in bamboo, okay, so she's pounding a paste of chilies garlic, salt, lemongrass turmeric. So far, oh and that's going to go into the the catfish with the catfish, which is going to be made in bamboo as well.

They added in a bunch more chopped up, really coarsely chopped up galangal and lemongrass uh, some salt, some chopped up, tomatoes all went in and then packed into the bamboo tube and then that's gon na roast over the fire and then in the meantime, the larger fish From the from today's catch are being roasted over the fire, which is going to go into a different dish, uh kind of like a mix, a mixed salad, i believe, i'm not totally sure. Oh, oh, okay, shallots, coarsely chopped and went lemongrass a bunch of galangal chopped chilies everything just coarse and chunky, and they also added in some tuanao, which is fermented soy beans almost like a miso paste. Oh, that's going to be amazing, flavor and i think it's going to go in mixed with all of those herbs and vegetables that they foraged as well foreign well forged vegetables. They just like pack, it and stuff it in uh.

So it's airtight and that's gon na form the the seal form the cover and also we'll be able to eat it, but that goes directly on the fire to roast uh, to bake, to cook and to boil within its own juices, in the bamboo, the grilled fish. That's been roasted now those little fish but the biggest of the catch. It's gon na be made kind of like a cold water dish mixed with cold water and spices. I believe from what i from what i've learned, but we have to watch and find out what exactly they do.

Okay, after about 15 minutes on the fire, you can start to hear the contents of the bamboo starting to boil and bubble and hiss. That means it's coming along nicely with the grilled fish they're making it's called kenyan, which is called curry, especially eaten when the weather is hot. So i think - and it's going to be mixed with cold water, i believe, but something i've never never tried before. So the mix of herbs is going in galangal, coriander, green onions plus they brought from home some dried mustard greens uh, which they dry themselves.

I believe and then also some hog plums. That's also gon na go into the cold, curry, um, oh um, and then the key step here is they just pour in regular cold water uh? It's not cooked, it's all of those fresh herbs and ingredients just floating around in cold water. Another key ingredient here is tua. Now karen style fermented soybeans.

I said the final step right before we eat they're gon na add the roasted fish so that you eat it when it's still roasted and crispy. That's what you do if the bamboo lights on fire flames. Just blow it out and keep cooking so we're about ready to eat and we're gon na go upstairs here. Oh that smells so good.

Coming up after the day fishing on the river running up and down stream, i think we're all hungry uh. So a huge! Thank you to that effort, cooking this incredible meal, so we all got packets of rice, which we wrapped up this morning from the house. So the oh, the hog plum, is in there. The fish is in there the shallots, the coriander, the chilies in there, and also the all the pickled dried pickled mustard greens galangal in there, the umami of the fermented beans, it's salty, when it's hot weather outside yeah.

It's so refreshing, you taste the smoky fish. You taste all those herbs, you taste the shallots in there, the chilies. These are some of the vegetables, always some of the fish, some of the vegetables, some of the fish from the cooked in the bamboo uh - and these are the ferns mainly. I think oh wow, that is herbaceous until smoky from the bamboo and that bamboo actually like yeah.

It started to char so that releases the smoky fragrance, the lemongrass in there so much galangal, um. Okay, this one is the the catfish with all those herbs and again so much coarse, chopped up galangal and lemongrass in there oh wow yeah, the the fatty skin from the catfish there's even some tomatoes and again cooking it within bamboo is key, because that boils it. It steams it it bakes it it roasts it all at the same time and that flavor, the essence of the bamboo comes out into the curry as well in in korean. I think i mean you can just chew through the entire bone structure.

It's soft, it's cooked! It melts in your mouth and then what stands out to me is the lemongrass. That's just bumping the shallots in there that chunky herbal paste everything is superb and so natural, so fresh, and just what a spectacular memorable meal sitting here in the the rice hay silo. Overlooking the fields overlooking the buffalo's bathing superb food that they went, fishing for and yellow i'm not covered, but i think the most unique dish for me is definitely the karen coldwater fish, curry, that is just ultimate flavor herbs: blended, up, cold water; okay, what stood out To me with that meal is how herbaceous it was full of galangal. My mouth is still like almost humming, almost zinging, with the like bright citrusiness of that galangal and spiciness of that galangal, but just goes to show using ingredients locally from here.

What you could do i mean that meal was literally that was a gourmet karen meal, all local ingredients from here foraged and fished, what a just outstanding meal and just an entire gourmet culinary experience and a huge thank you to mook uh for arranging this entire experience. She's from this village she's, so nice, she's, so accommodating and so hospitable, and she actually does full tours of her village, where you can learn about the karen tribe, definitely contact her when you are in me, hong kong i'll have her link in the description box. So you can arrange tricks and food experiences and learning about traditional clothes and weaving and crafts, but all sorts of things uh definitely check her out and just contact her she's uh doing amazing things for this entire village and community. I'm gon na end the video.

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