We're surrounded by about 17 people selling this right now.
If I buy one from one person is it gonna be okay?
Welcome to Madagascar.
Over this six-video series, we are diving into Malagasy cuisine and culture,
starting in the nation's capital of Antananarivo.
Here, the food can be served really quick
You say, like "I wanna have zebu", and *flap* your food is ready
Then heading south through the island's vibrant highlands.
A simple preparation, but it's awesome. And really you appreciate it a lot more when you have this little piece
We'll hop aboard one of the country's few remaining trains, left over from the French occupation.
It's a little bumpy, man! You got to be careful when you're eating!
Ending our adventure in Madagascar's coastal city of Manakara,
where you'll witness village life never documented before
Shut up. It is like a felt material all around this crab
This vibrant island was first settled 1000 years ago by Polynesians at East Africans.
Outside metropolitan areas, traditional lifestyles in the countryside resembled that of centuries past.
What's happening up? They're gonna cut it
but they still need to find a way to hold it well.
Considering the lack of infrastructure, a guide here is an absolute must.
And Joel is one of the best.
The reason why they need these sausages? We can find it a bit up there
It's gonna be a surprise
Fasalamana (cheers)
That is the kind of rhum that makes you go blind
Today, we're just a few miles from Antananarivo.
Checking out Madagascar's sprawling early morning markets
This is like a different world!
Then heading to a nearby village where they're exclusively selling sausage... and this:
Madagascar's national snack.
And you will never guess what's inside.
I could even eat this raw. Just eating it with a spoon
So, get your sausages in a row and pack up your chickens. Cuz today we're taking on Madagascar
Every morning just four miles from the capital
locals near and far will walk or push their produce
Fresh meat ,and anything else you could think to sell, here:
the morning market in Talatamaty city
We come to this little village very early in the morning. It's about 5 a.m. here.
The streets are going wild already.
People are bringing stuff, they're selling stuff and they're buying stuff
- Can you tell me, what is the name of this market?
- The name of this market is Tsenan'ny Tansaha (Tansaha Market)
This market gets cranking at 3 a.m. each day
Continuing until 7 a.m., or whenever the police kick everyone out.
Is there food we can eat here?
Of course, because a lot of those sellers are like living 10 kilometer
20 kilometer further from here so they can only have something to eat here
So there is a lot of ton of things that we can eat. So from here, we're just going to check it out. Let's go
Hello man, you do high-fives?
Booom! Hey! (laughs)
Excuse-me, wow! They're pears!
Look at all this bread! That guy has a crate of bread
Wow, this place is wild! So much action, so much going on!
Hello. - Okay.
What have you got here, man? What are you buying?
I'm here to buy onions. -Are you making soup?
- We prepare soup with it. - Oh!
It's (??) for Malagasy people. - Is this your onion lady? The best onions are here?
- Yeah! And it's very cheap
Good tips! Guys: next time you're in this village, this is the onion lady to go to.
Very cheap onions. Okay. Thank you.
Boom!
Can we get a ride on this?
Wait, really? He just told us to get on. Okay.
Hey, this is really the way to travel in town here
Thank you, sir. You're doing a lot of work!
They have geese and a flippin turkey over here!
Is turkey very common here?
Yeah, especially now that we are going to celebrate New Year's and the Christmas
There is still so much here
If they don't sell this they need a pack of all these animals and bring them back home, right?
Yeah
But I'm telling you:
They will sell those easily because Malagasy people they prefer to buy all things alive
- They want to make sure it's fresh? Is that why?
- Yes
All this looking at food is making me hungry, but I'm in luck
Each morning this woman wakes up insanely early,
sets her charcoal ablaze and begins the long process of preparing
mass amounts of porridge for hungry vendors and locals alike.
What time did you start here this morning?
At 1
1 a.m. Oh man!
This is like a different world the market light.
Ok, so there's so much to choose from: sausage,
And then there's some rice porridge - and some fried meat as well
And what animal is this meat? - Zebu. All zebu.
I really want to try this meat
It feels kind of crispy and almost, like, dried out. Let's try it out
Mmm, it's got that like spicy kind of nice gaminess.
Matsiro! (Tasty!) very yummy
Rice porridge is a common breakfast in this area. Spice it up with a bit of fried zebu meat,
and sausage and this is the Malagasy breakfast of champions.
What does she season this with?
This is mixed with those green leaves that we saw on the market there,
and a bit of ginger.
- But what is this red part? - That's a special type of Malagasy rice.
- Ok, let's try it out!
Mmm really fatty broth. I mean the flavor it's just really meaty and oily.
And it has that distinct zebu flavor,
which reminds me of goat a little bit.
I'm gonna put some spice in... Is this too much?
- Betsaka loatra koa ve io? (Is this too much?) - Ah! Betsaka loatra!! (Yeah it's really too much!)
-Yes, it's too much - I don't care about the rules man. I'm going for it
Whoo! That is spicy!
But that is a good breakfast. Ma'am, your Chili's waking me up more than coffee
We're going into this narrow enclave of the market
that gets to stay here longer because they're not in the way of the main highway
and then here we got everything.
- Is this...? - That's tobacco.
- Wait, that's tobacco? - Yeah - So you put this in a cigarette or something?
- Nah, just under your... - Chewing tobacco. - Yeah.
- Is this one portion? - People can have it in two times.
Well last time I had chewing tobacco
I was 15 years old and I went behind a tree and I threw up. So not today chewing tobacco.
Ma'am! Look at that! She's got like a giant mortar and pestle here.
What is inside? - Cassava leaves - Cassava leaves?
She's making kind of a powder out of it. - Yeah - Or like a fine puree, almost.
Yeah, this is the end product for it. - Wow!
Is this for seasoning food? - People mainly mix it with peanuts or Zebu or coconuts.
To add flavor? - Yeah. - Would she let me try a little pinch of it?
Okay, thank you. I mean you can see it is very dense and kind of wet. It's just kind of beat to a pulp
Let's try it out.
Fresh earthy and kind of that chlorophyll flavour and a little bitter at the end, but I like it!
Matsiro! (Tasty!) mmm
Oh, she's so confident. I like that.
I'm like, "it's yummy" and she's like: "yeah, no shit? I know"
My men, we just stumbled upon another food here
We call it the Chinese soup. So it's like those noodle soups that Chinese people are doing
But now we do it like in the Malagasy way. - Oh? - Yes. - Where'd she go?
Markets like this have their own underground economy. That isn't so obvious on the surface.
This lady, she's long-established her territory in the market.
But what if you're starting from the very beginning?
-Hi! -Ohatrinona? (How much money?)
- What does that mean? - How much do you wanna have for pasta
-Oh! Two bowls
Anja is a stateless entrepreneur,
a new food vendor who's always on the move from police or other competitive sellers
This is a zebu skin, and she said she cooked it this morning, so it should still be a bit fresh
This is her own creation: pasta and macaroni with a mix of potato and mayonnaise
Plus a zebu skin add-on if you choose.
Is this safe to eat, you think? - We never know...
I'm gonna start with just some noodle and some salad
Mmm yummy!
It's super simple. It's just like kind of mayonnaise and salt and noodle... I like it!
- Tsara? (Is it good? Do you like it?)
-Good food?
Yeah, you have a beautiful smile!
-Tsara tsiky hony ianao. ("He says you have a beautiful smile")
By the way, this lady knows how to eat! Check out this shot from earlier
Yeah, that's her.
Oh, yeah, this is what we're really waiting for here
The zebu skin - You can still see some little of the hair on mine.
Ah, mine shaved. My zebu is much more hygienic
Mmm! That's good! That's like pig skin: a little gelatinous,
a little gooey, not gamey at all. Good flavor.
What's next for Anja?
Maybe she drops out of the street food game
or maybe she sells enough zebu skin pasta to one day afford her own lot
in this crowded chaotic maze of commerce here, in Talatamaty city.
After the market we head here:
Two hours outside Antananarivo, this village.
A place where knife wielding men chase down cars and vans
Upon closer inspection, I noticed these men are actually trying to sell something.
And they call it Koba
He's named Andre. - Hello Andre. How's the Koba selling going today?
- It's a good business for him
- Oh, that's awesome to hear! How much is a slice?
1000 Ariary, 2000 Ariary...
This village specializes in two things:
Sausage and Koba.
And since there's a ton of traffic coming through the center of town,
It happens to be the perfect place to chase down hungry travelers and offer them some food
Here, they have 2 types of sausages because, you know, in Madagascar there are some Muslim people as well
- Oh! - So, for example, you have Zebu and pork sausages and there is only potatoes on it
- And so that's "halal". - Yes.
The meaty Zebu-pork sausage is more pricey than the potato sausage.
In both, the main seasonings are salt and pepper,
and the casing is made with zebu intestine
So we have both kinds here and we'll kind of work our way up to the expensive one
First is the potato and it's still warm.
Ma'am, can I ask when were these cooked?
Yeah, they fry it every time it's getting cold
It's like throwing it in the microwave for 10 seconds, right? Same kind of thing
Mmm, that is really good.
No joke, like the fat from the intestine makes the potato juicy.
It tastes hearty, it like has a meaty feeling to it.
Let's try this one. A little pork, a little zebu
How much is it just for this much?
- This size? You can have it like for 500 Ariary - Let's try it out
Oh. That's really good! A little salty, but
This nice, meaty, super fatty flavor by tons of fat
These sausages serve a greater purpose and it's not to be eaten alone
Fasalamana! (cheers) - Fasamalana!
That is the kind of rum that makes you go blind
My new friend Rody lives just a few hundred meters from here.
And this is what guys do while their wives are shopping
Grab some rum, grab some sausage and wait to get yelled at.
I gotta say men
This sausage goes perfect with it because it is just fat and oily, salty and delicious
So as the wife and the kids are doing the shopping, the men are like staying in a bar like this
I just wish there was some version of this in the US because the most a guy can ask for in the u.s
Is to have a place to sit down and look at his phone.
But here this gives men a reason to look forward to shopping, really!
Rody is actually one of the Koba suppliers for this area
and he's offered to take us to his mini Koba factory to see how this
ubiquitous and strange-looking food is made
Less than a mile away, this hillside collection of houses is licensed to produce kuba can see that sign behind
- This is like a license? - Yeah, just to make everything official and clear
So when you want to complain like your kuba doesn't really taste nice you can complain to the local
government, and they will give a fine to them. Whoa. I like that. It's not just a random
There's some governing body around the kuba making here. That's amazing.
This is the final product we're going for.
Step 1: layer the bottom with banana-leaf spines then stack banana leaves on top of that
So this one that they're making now it's the type of kuba that you carry around
So you need to make a really thick leaf, so that when you carry
- It doesn't fall off. - It does not break easily.
This classic Koba has three main ingredients
Rice flour on the outside to prevent it from sticking to the banana leaf
Then loads of crushed raw peanuts and sugar mixed in the center. So this is a peanut with the sugar alone
Mmm, very nice
I could even eat this raw. Just eating it with a spoon
Then another layer of rice flour on top
More leaves, then tie it shut.
It's really strong. You can tie it as hard as you can
Okay, he lost interest
It's like my dad. And then you do kind of a slipknot and then BAM.
That's the finished product
Finally after you have a bunch of these Koba logs, they're boiled in this huge drum for three days.
Luckily, they have the finished version for us to taste now
I'm telling you guys don't make a joke with that knife. - Oh my god, that is very sharp
That just went through it like butter. All right. So the big reveal BAM, there it is
You can see that little bit of rice flour on the edges actually
Expanded from the moisture inside when they cooked it. And then you see it just gets darker towards the inside that looks incredible
I don't know about you, but I wanna taste!
- And where do you bite? I guess, go right for the center?
That's the best. All right, it's super sticky
Mmm, it's become like molasses!
We almost have a burnt, kind of sugary flavor. I don't even taste much peanut
Do you taste the peanut? It's much more on the edge
It's like all the sugar is going in the middle
Right! On the outside, it tastes a little lighter.
That first bite, right in the middle is the most intense
- Wanna have more?
- Yeah!
- The reason why the local people like to eat it, is that most Malagasy people walk a lot.
When we are tired of walking, you can have some snacks.
- This is hearty food!
I think two pieces of this you feel full already - And we can walk for the next ten kilometers! - Yeah
Sir, first of all, I want to thank you and your lovely wife. This is tremendous and so fun to try it. Okay
Thank you very much. Second of all, where do you keep the booze?
Can I just have a little drink? I mean, you know the boys we go on back
We are just getting started with our Madagascar food series
If you liked this video be sure to subscribe and stay tuned for so much more
And Joel, thank you so much for this amazing experience
I want to give a huge shout out to Ramartour for putting this whole itinerary together for us
We got to make the most of our time and see so many amazing things and have so many great experiences
While we were here in Madagascar also for you guys
This video was made possible by one trip Vietnam one trip is the highest rated tour company in
Vietnam doing tours from north to south in all major cities including hanoi new
Chang-dong Hoi An and Saigon you can experience food tours adventure tours and more.
To learn more about one trip
Check out the links in the description down below. I will see you next time. Peace!
Alright, let's go eat again or some I don't know which video is this after cut?