Judging the food

We were honoured guests at the festival. It was wonderful to feel so welcomed. Such a welcome led to asking me I would be on the judging panel for a food competition. There were four competing groups, from four different University Institutes present at the festival. The food judging did not start until after 9, and the kids were getting tired, but I'm really glad we didn't leave early. I dunno, maybe I'm a bit of a cross cultural nerd, but I just relish trying new things and participating in as much culture as I can. So it was very enjoyable.

Unfortunately all of the food was cold already. I think it may have been brought there that way from the city.

The highlight from this group was their "Khamis." It's a fermented horse milk drink. It seemed to have just the right amount of fizz. I really like it.

The flag is for the Sakha Republic, an autonomous republic inside of the Russian Federation (it's in north eastern Siberia).

This group had a sweet dish made from wild berries. I'm sorry to admit that I judged with my foreign palate and they ended up winning as a result. Was my neutrality a good thing or not? They had a cow tongue dish. To me it was just meat with a different texture. But apparently after we judges moved on to the next station, the students devoured the tongues before anything else.

A couple of the groups serenaded us with song before tasting their food. Like I said, we were honoured guests!

Who do you think we should choose as the winner?

Thank you so much to the Sakha Students Association of Krasnoyarsk for having us at their Yhhyakh new year's festival. Later after the event they asked us if we could produce a self interview video for tv. They received official funding to help run the event, and a tv station back home in Yakutsk wants to report on it. Since the official Yhyakh is not until June 22nd, it may not have aired yet. So we will be on Sakha tv some time. They should be tickled to hear us attempting a few Sakha words in our thanks and words about the festival.