For the Nanai people fish played the most important role in the nutrition. Siberian salmon were harvested in large quantities during массовый ход кеты. Gutted fish was dried in wind-blown places, obtaining various types of yukola. The fish skeleton went along with the head to feed the dogs. In winter, the fish was frozen.
The products of the hunting industry were preserved in a similar way. Often, the meat was pre-boiled and then dried and jerked. The Nanai slaughtered geese, ducks, hazel grouses, pheasants, black grouses in large numbers.
They also widely consumed plant foods: berries, nuts, wood mushrooms, wild garlic, wild onions.
Still, most of the dishes were prepared from fish. The most favorite dish was tala made from fresh raw fish, cut into thin ribbons with the addition of salt, wild garlic, wild onion and pepper. In winter, stroganina was made from frozen fish, in this case it was called PR. In its raw form, they also ate the cartilaginous parts of the head of the kimbo Siberian salmon.
Simukse fish oil was widely used in food. It was digested from the insides of the fish. They kept it in a kaluga stomach. We ate yukola with fish oil. The fattest pieces of yukola were pre-fried on coals or boiled in salt water.
Cholon soup was made from fresh fish or yukola with vegetable seasoning. If cereals were added to it, then the soup was sogdata choloni. At the fishing site, they cooked a holto fish soup. Fish soup broth was made from killer whales and served with crucian carp. Fish soups were seasoned with kalchukta water lily bulbs, kulukte quinoa, young soakta wormwood leaves, pikte nettle, and seaweed canoe. They also cooked soup with mogo mushrooms. The Nanai did not use ground mushrooms for food.
Fish was also used for second courses. Minced fish was used to make bongalika meatballs and bianci dumplings. Whole fish were sometimes baked in the form of a shashlik by the fire. Taxane fish pate was harvested in large quantities. To do this, the fish was boiled until the meat was separated from the bones. They took the bones and continued to cook until the water completely evaporated. The fish turned into flour. Then they put it in a kettle and added fish oil, mixed and fried the whole mass. They ate it with berries. Hunters took Taksan with them to hunt. One of the delicacies was considered to be ground dried caviar, diluted with birch sap; this dish was called pagdan.
Meat food was more widespread on the Amur tributaries: along the Kura, Urmi, Gorin, Bikin, Ussuri. The Nanai people ate in raw the veins from the legs of a reindeer, bone marrow, nostrils, liver, kidneys, spleen, gelatinous mass of the eyes, blood. The best cuts of meat were dried or salted. The meat was prepared in the same way as the fish.
Juices were made from berries, they were eaten fresh. The dough for dutun flat cakes was made from Hackberry berries. Their surface was decorated with ornaments and dried in the sun. For preservation, the cakes were poured with fish oil. In the spring, edible plants are eaten in the form of salads or condiments. The narcotic drink was prepared from wild rosemary and young branches of black birch.
