At The Edge of The World

Unrivalled cuisine of Primorye is based on taiga foods and seafood, while the peoples of extreme north have to rely on a tough but diverse selection of natural products and their unforgiving cooking practices. 

Launched by the Zuma restaurant in Vladivostok, the festival’s original aim was to get more people to know about local food and offer them a cheaper bite.

When well prepared for the market, Kamchatka crabs are considered one of the best in the world. 

Wishing to bring up the subject of distances or huge differences, a Russian may say ‘It’s midnight in Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky’, a perfectly apt expression given that they are 9 time zones between that city and Moscow, or that it will take 9 hours to fly from one to the other.

A Kamchatka summer vacation is a thing to boast about, however, with a selection of must-see sights and landmarks not limited to the geyser alley or a dozen active volcanoes.

Crabs, caviar and sea urchins will complement any popular tourist activity such as a trip to one of the ethnic villages where you can immerse yourself into the lifestyles of local peoples, speak with shamans, and taste more or less authentic local foods.

Some of these tourist attractions are a short bus drive from the capital, others are reachable by plane. 

Common in Taiga, this wild fern holds a special place in Far Eastern cuisine where it is a staple for many dishes. The fern will be collected young in May and June and preserved for the year ahead either by being soaked in two consecutive baths and heavily salted, or boiled and frozen.

Foal meat is Yakutia’s most common meat variety and a true local culinary brand with horses bred on an industrial scale. Unlike other nomadic and Turkic people who eat horse meat, the Yakuts have a predilection for foal, and there’s a bevy of dishes cooked from foal meat.

The one that has received prominence outside Yakutia is oyogos, or foal ribs that are either boiled or baked with mustard. Khaan, a bloody horse sausage, is another local favourite. 

An important Far Eastern taste is that of fermented and spicy kimchi. 

A staple of Primorye street food, these spicy steamed buns stuffed with cabbage and meat have been cooked there since the 1980s.

Believed to be of Korean origin, pyanse are made much in the same way as Central Asian manty dumplings or Buryat pozi, not to mention Chinese baoczi. In the Far East, however, yeast rice dough is used to make a whole, steamed and thick bun that can be filled with minced meat mixed with Napa cabbage or kimchi-style cabbage.

Far Eastern diet is heavy on seafood, not just crabs, that Russians generally consider gourmet, along with shrimps, mussels, true whelks, surf clams, anadars and oysters. 

Oyster lovers mainly live in the country’s west, while Vladivostok residents enjoy sea cucumbers, squids and scallops.

Scallops may be farmed on Russky Isle, for instance, but locals will always prefer the wild variety, and they can tell the difference between the two with their eyes closed. 

Sakhalin and Kamchatka red caviar is not one product, but several. Any local will readily tell the difference between pink salmon caviar and chinook salmon, sockeye salmon or coho salmon varieties. Any local will also have a friend selling the best product in the region.