Планета вкусов - Season 2

Anton Zaitsev knows for sure: there is never too much borsch! And he knows exactly where to find it - at the borsch festival in Borshchev, of course!

In Soviet times, this delicacy was famous throughout the whole country. You couldn't buy it anywhere else, exept the capital of the Ukrainian SSR. Only travelers brought this cake to another cities (of course, if they hadn't eaten it along the way). Anton Zaitsev tries to find this famous dessert and it's recipe!

Anton Zaitsev is just like a soldier from an old fairytale who cooked porridge with an ax in it. Today Anton is going to cook pilaf with the majestic name "fisinjan shah" adding ... horseshoe! This is an ancient culinary technique. Experts say: every human body needs iron. In the old days there were no vitamins, no iron plates and forks - so, adding a horseshoe in porrige was (at first glance) strange but rather effective way to fill up the blood with iron.

One of the most ancient Caucasian settlements is the Azerbaijani city of Sheki. It is believed that it was founded in the first millennium BC. Anton Zaitsev came here to taste a dish, which is rather famous in Azerbaijan. It is called Pity Sheki - a meat dish and soup at the same time. Sounds strange, but it was banned in the USSR! The thing is that Pity Sheki is not only cooked, but also eaten according to strict traditional rules!

The Sea of Galilee is a freshwater lake in northeast Israel. This is a truly biblical place: the apostles Peter and Andrew fished here and Christ himself lived and preached in the coastal city of Capernaum. Anton Zaitsev wants to cook a dish that has been popular since the evangelists. And it is St. Peter's fish!

Anton Zaitsev tries to cook an ancient dish called "Sacrifice for the temple". It was reconstructed by historians studying the biblical era. To recreate the recipe, they used both archaeological methods and written sources, including the Bible itself.

Anton Zaitsev tries to cook an ancient Azerbaijani dish - "saj", food born in the fire. It requires a very special pan, which is called in the same way - "Saj".

Nowruz is the oldest holiday on Earth. It was already celebrated in the preliterate period of human existence. Nowruz means New Year for the Iranian and Turkic people and usually is celebrated on the day of vernal equinox. The name of the holiday itself varies among different nations. The Bashkirs call it "nawrez", the Kurds - "neuroz", the Kazakhs - "nauryz"! But whatever the name, the main part of this holiday is a big feast. Anton Zaitsev tries to cook a dish which can be made just once a year, only for this holiday. It is called nauryz-kozhey.

Anton Zaitsev arrived in Helsinki on a very unusual day - the day when the number of restaurants in the city increases tenfold! What makes people of different professions and status suddenly tie up their aprons and become chiefs for a day?

Can you imagine a restaurant serving just one dish - one and only? And the menu that has not been changed for 35 years? This amazing place is located near the Finnish city of Lappeenranta, near the Russian border. Despite it is quite far from big roads, gourmets from 100 countries strive there to try a very unusual dish called "Syarya"!

The Gyeongbokgung Palace, which has belonged to the Joseon Dynasty, is located in the center of Seoul. Kings of this dynasty ruled the country from the fourteenth to the twentieth century. It would be so interesting to find out how they lived and what secrets were hidden behind these walls ... But it's even more interesting to find out what did the kings eat! Anton Zaitsev decides to have a really royal feast!

La Manga sand spit in Spanish province of Murcia is, by far, one of the most beautiful places in Europe. Some might say that there is just the good old Mediterranean Sea, which lies on both sides of the 22-kilometer spit, but the locals have a different point of view. They see Mar Minor (the small sea) waves on the right, and Mar Mayor (the big sea) on the left. Today we are going to find out how do mar minor and mar major dishes differ!

Nowadays, seafood is quite common - everything is grown and caught commercially. However, there is one sea creature that can only be collected by hands - to be precise, by hands of women divers called "henyo". Anton Zaitsev came to the Convando province in Korea to try a dish, which is called "haemul modeum". Roughly speaking, it means "seafood platter."

Today our culinary journey led us to Tyrol. Anton Zaitsev hunts an interesting local dish, which once made a brilliant career - from a poor man's plate directly to the royal table. This dish is called "tafelspitz", which means "the top of the feast."

Even on a very large world map the island of Saipan, the Mariana archipelago, easily can be mistaken for crumbs accidentally sticking to an atlas in the Pacific Ocean, three thousand kilometers from the nearest mainland!

In their notes about the Mariana Islands Spanish travelers mentioned one quite strange culinary tradition of the Indians of the Chamorro tribe - the indigenous inhabitants of this tropical paradise. Not only wealth and power were symbols of social status here, but also the right to eat a special dish called "kelogwin". Its main ingredient is a particular freshwater shrimp that can be found only in the streams of Saipan.

Our culinary journey led us to Vietnam. Anton Zaitsev wants to find the secrets of an interesting dish with a tender name "la-u".

Usually we eat familiar common food. Less often we come across exquisite delicacies. But the most interesting thing for every gourmet is to find legendary dishes, which are, in many ways, the food for both mind and stomach. Anton Zaitsev goes in search of .... truffles. Ancient philosophers believed that they appear from lightning strikes to the ground and called them "divine." These mushrooms were adored by the rulers of the past, from the emperor Augustus to Napoleon Bonaparte. And Louis the 14th ate them raw without any side dish!