(upbeat music) - Hi, I'm Beryl.
And the theme for today's episode is toast.
This is our seventh toast episode.
(Beryl claps) (crowd applauds)
I've included the playlist in the description
if you wanna catch up.
Today, we have five awesome toasts
from five awesome countries.
Let's begin.
(lively music)
- Hi Beryl,
my name is Remi.
I'm originally from Tokyo, Japan
and I currently reside in Hawaii, America.
The toast I wanna talk to you about today
is Natto Tamago Toast.
In English,
it is translated into fermented soybean egg toast.
It doesn't sound very pleasing,
but trust me it is very good.
For those of that has never had natto before,
All I could say is
it's a fermented soybean.
It's served any time of day in Japan.
People typically eat it with rice, obviously.
The flavor of the natto is hard to describe.
It's savory, mild savory,
with a soy sauce flavor, with a hint of bitterness.
A lot of people who try natto gets put off
because the first thing they see is how slimy it is
and the aroma it gives off isn't pleasant.
It is definitely an acquired taste.
The reason why I like this toast
is because the flavor of the natto and the egg
is just so harmonious to me.
And I guess a little bit of mayo just tops it off.
And plus it's kind of a comfort food
and easy food for me to make when I'm lazy.
And why people should try this themselves
is because of the fact that
it's a quintessential food of Japan
and not, you know,
you can't really think of anything to pair it with,
and then if you pair the egg with the toast,
it kind of gives natto another chance
because the egg kind of counter offs
the smell of the natto,
but definitely the sliminess is there.
So I hope you try it out and enjoy.
(lively music)
- This is my first time trying natto.
And I am very excited.
By the way,
I realize that I have done so many Japanese dishes
and every time I forget to do this,
(speaks in Japanese). (laughs)
(toast crunches)
(lively music)
Oh my God.
I think that the natto itself tastes really good.
And the egg salad, of course, mwa, perfection
because of the kewpie.
I had to look up because I was about to say slime.
And then I thought, no, there's gotta be a better word.
The better word is polyglutamic acid.
There's that kind of stickiness in the natto.
And the toasting did not do anything to change that.
So when you eat it,
your mouth becomes very sticky and soft.
It's a very interesting feeling.
I've never eaten a food that's done this before.
It's a textural thing, right?
(lively music)
I feel like it's like,
it makes even my lips stick together.
I agree with Remi in that eating the natto
with the eggs is kind of be like dipping your toe
into the pool of eating something
that I feel a lot of people talk smack about
and are like, "Ew, look at this."
Which we don't do that on this channel.
I will, however,
give people that this is a food
that I think might scare some people.
So if you're interested in trying it
combining it with something else to kind of
lessen the intensity of it
is actually quite a good idea.
(laughs)
I like that using the medium of toast,
it gives you a way to explore
a lot of types of specialty foods
without having to like make something
that might feel really overwhelming and difficult.
You can just make toast.
Before we go to the next dish
I wanna say thank you to Remi,
because she has an Etsy shop where she sells earrings
including these toast ones
and the other earrings that I'm gonna wear in the episode.
I'm gonna link all of them, obviously in the description.
And she gave us a discount code
if you guys wanna buy a pair of her cute earrings.
(mellow music)
- Hi, my name is Angelina.
I am from Odessa in Ukraine
but I'm currently living in Mexico.
So my favorite way to enjoy toast
is this dish called forshmak.
Forshmak is a Yiddish word
that basically means appetizer
but it's commonly used to refer to this dish.
So forshmak is a type of herring pate,
and it's really common with Jewish communities
across Eastern Europe.
I think each country makes it a little bit differently
but the recipe that I'm used to
is the one that's common in Ukraine
and especially so in Odessa
because we have a really big Jewish community there.
So this dish is quite iconic.
Herring is like, it's a little bit fishy,
but not overpoweringly so.
And it's really fatty.
So the spread is like super creamy and buttery,
especially thanks to the butter and the egg yolks,
and the apple adds a lot of sweetness.
So it's a really good blend
of this fatty, sweet, salty pate
that's on top of a crunchy, dark toast.
I really love this dish because it reminds me of my hometown
and usually going out to eat with my family or my friends.
We all really like this dish.
So we always order it as a appetizer.
And sometimes you can eat it in someone's home as well.
It's not too uncommon.
Some people are kind of intimidated by cured fish
because it can be quite like fishy,
but you might be surprised and you might really like it.
So I do recommend trying to make it at home.
(lively music concludes)
- Making this was really fun for me
because in order to make it,
I needed to buy the smoked herring,
so I got to go to Brighton Beach in Brooklyn
which is right on the Atlantic Ocean coast.
It's one of my favorite neighborhoods.
It's a very Russian/Ukrainian/Georgian neighborhood.
And whenever I go there, man, I buy a lot of stuff.
(laughs)
I have never had this before,
but I love smoked herring so...
(toast crunches)
Oh my God, yeah,
this is awesome.
This tastes like something that my dad would definitely love
so I might have to save some for him. (laughs)
So, like Angelina said, that this is forshmak,
which is a Yiddish word.
My name, Beryl, is also a Yiddish word.
In Yiddish, Beryl means little bear.
The name actually comes from my grandfather.
That was his nickname when he was growing up in Poland.
Thought that was kind of a fun fact about me. (laughs)
I totally agree with what Angelina said
that the flavor of this is not very fishy,
but the smell is very fishy.
My kitchen definitely smells interesting.
My dog was like, "Oh my gosh, what is going on in here?
Can I have whatever it is?"
No, she can't have this.
I think the sourness from the white onion
and the Granny Smith apple,
and a little bit of lemon juice
helps it balance everything out.
But at the same time,
you know that you're eating a fish spread.
So if you like fish, it's like the best of both worlds,
the beautiful fish
and the nice kind of sour saltiness of flavor
to balance it out.
I also wanna say that I love
that this is Angelina's great-grandmother's recipe
that like here I am, in New York City,
making her great-grandmother's recipe.
And because I don't have another recipe for it
and I loved it so much, I'll be making it again.
And in this small way,
I'm continuing a family legacy in a place very far away.
And if that's not the spirit of community
I don't know what is.
So, Angelina, thank you for sharing
your great-grandmother's recipe with me
and with anybody else who decides to make this
wonderful, wonderful dish.
A big thank you to the sponsor of today's video,
Function of Beauty.
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like shampoos and conditioners.
And for me, somebody with quite a lot of hair, pfft,
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I have always been somebody with very long hair,
except for the brief time
that I had very, very short hair.
Look how cool I was. (laughs)
And having long hair means
you go through a lot of shampoo and conditioner.
It just takes a lot.
But I actually don't wash my hair every day.
I maybe wash it once or twice a week.
And because of that,
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What I like about Function of Beauty
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You can pick your own scent.
I picked peach.
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And they create a custom formula
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I actually just washed my hair
and I do think it's looking very nice.
If you're interested,
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Okay, let's get back to the toasts.
(lively music)
- Hey there.
My name is Laura and I am from Lithuania
and I would like to present to you my favorite toast.
Cottage cheese deluxe, as we call it in Lithuania.
Probably I'm the first ever Lithuanian to ever say that.
Anyway, it is a very simple recipe.
We take a few big spoons of cottage cheese
and just put it on top of the bread.
I add a little bit of cinnamon, a little pinch of salt.
We add a little drizzle of honey.
I love honey so much.
And sometimes I even dunk the entire toast
in the jar of honey.
Okay, I think I've said too much. Anyway.
Then we take a few strawberries.
We slice them up and we place them nicely on the top
and it is sweet.
It is delicious.
It's pretty healthy.
So chef's kiss.
I usually eat this toast in the summer
because that is when I have
my own personal fresh strawberry supplier.
That is my grandma.
Fun fact: pretty much every single grandma
in Lithuania grows strawberries.
And also cottage cheese, here, is a huge deal.
Probably around 80% of everything I consumed as a child
somehow included cottage cheese.
I really recommend this recipe to everyone,
except those people who don't like cottage cheese.
I dunno how that is even possible.
And Beryl, I really, really hope you like it.
I am really nervous.
(lively music)
- (laughs) Okay, before we begin, I just wanna say,
Laura, you cracked me up.
I mean, everything about you.
I love that your grandmother is your strawberry supplier.
My strawberry supplier is D'Agostino's,
the gross grocery store in New York City. (laughs)
I think this might be one of the first times
that we are using cottage cheese on my show.
And I fricking love cottage cheese.
I feel like it gets a bad rap of being like a diet food
from the eighties and nineties,
at least in America.
But I'm a stan.
I love it.
I like the high fat cottage cheese.
It is just (grunts).
I've had it on toast, but I've never done it sweet.
I always do it savory with tomatoes.
So, cheers.
(toast crunches)
Oh my God, yes.
Okay.
Hold on now.
(inhales deeply)
(exhales sharply)
I'm obviously biased going into this
because I love the main ingredient plus strawberries
but yeah, we should all be putting cottage cheese
on our toast with fruit.
If you like strawberries, by the way,
we did just do a strawberry episode, which is really good.
Here's a quick clip.
It tastes like strawberry, like a strawberry wine.
After this video, you should watch the strawberry episode
because if you wanna make this,
you can then make all these other dishes
with your strawberries.
Eh?
(lively music)
Sometimes I forget that I'm supposed to talk
and I'm just eating.
And then I look up and I'm like,
"Oh God, there's a camera.
I'm recording myself alone in my living room
just eating now.
I should say something."
(toast crunches)
I think that this is the perfect blend of sweetness.
If you have spicy honey
I think that would be really good on this as well.
And I just feel like it's a really great way
to show the world
how everyone should be eating cottage cheese.
(laughs)
Mm-hm-hm.
Mwa.
(lively music)
- Hi, everyone.
I'm Oshini from Sri Lanka.
My favorite way to have toast
is toasted coconut sambol.
In Sri Lanka,
it's common to pair a coconut sambol with bread
and we call this toast as pol sambola roshba,
which translates into toasted bread with coconut sambol.
The smell that comes when this bread is in the toaster,
it's so good.
And the taste is savory, spicy,
and a little bit tangy from the lime juice,
but together with the bread
it's so flavorful all together.
In our household it's not that common
to have bread in a regular basis
because we eat rice for all three of our meals.
But whenever we do get it,
it is one of those simple pleasures
for both me and my brother
if my mom decides on making these toast
because we both love it.
And I do hope you all will also give it a try
if you can get your hands on the ingredients
and enjoy it as much as I do.
(lively music)
- I love it when this works out.
It just so happened that I had pol sambol in my house
because of my instant noodle episode,
where somebody from Sri Lanka
put it on top of their instant noodles.
So I have had this type of chutney before.
But obviously not as a toast.
I also like that I got to use my jaffle maker again.
It's always a fun time when you bust that out.
(toast crunches)
Interesting.
It's spicy.
I feel like maybe some of the sugars
inside of the chutney caramelized a little bit,
'cause there's like a crust.
It's also in my teeth.
I was trying to talk through it and be cool.
But the whole time I was like, "Argh."
I think we're good.
I think pol sambol is one of the most interesting things
that I've tried in a very long time,
because it takes a flavor, coconut,
you then add all of these spices,
so all of a sudden the coconut is spicy
and your whole mouth is like (chews loudly)
dancing a little bit.
It's honestly an experience.
And so if you are curious in having this experience
I've linked a online store where I bought mine
because couldn't find it in New York City.
(toast crunches)
I obviously know to put it on top of instant noodles,
now to put it in toast,
but what's a more traditional way to use this?
If anybody from Sri Lanka is watching,
will you leave it in the comments,
some other ways to use this so that I can
and if anybody else is interested in trying it
can have some other uses other than just,
you know, carb parties. (laughs)
I feel like this channel has just given me
such an amazing opportunity
to learn so much about all of you as well.
When Oshini was saying that having bread
was out of the ordinary,
she traditionally has rice for her three meals a day,
I was like, "That is so the opposite of my life."
And you could look at this as something to say like,
"Oh, this makes us different."
But this channel is about people sharing
and about coming together.
And I just feel like sometimes on the internet
everyone's yelling at each other all the time
and here it just feels like this amazing place
where I can learn about you all
and you all can maybe learn a little bit about me
and about everybody else.
And it's just like (exhales sharply)
I don't know this toast is making me sappy
but it also is making me happy.
You all just make me really happy.
(laughs)
(lively music)
- Hi, Beryl.
My name is Shelley and I live in Toronto, Canada.
Today I would like to share with you my favorite toast.
It doesn't really have a formal name,
perhaps it's a sister to the more popular
codfish salad from Barbados.
So I guess I'd call it sardine salad on toast.
The toast uses canned sardines,
tomatoes, red onion, olive oil,
lime, and a bit of hot sauce.
This is also a dish that my mother would eat
in Barbados as a child.
Even though fish is quite plentiful in Barbados,
convenience products like canned sardines and salted cod
are quite common ingredients in dishes there.
And the thing that makes it
sort of like a full circle food for me
is that those convenience products
were usually brought over from fisheries and canneries
in the East Coast of Canada.
These canneries were particularly located in New Brunswick,
where my partner is from.
So he and I, in the course of being together,
have found a lot of common foods and meals
that are very similar,
with only like slight variations between our two cultures.
This is likely a result of sort of the cultural exchange
from being sort of historic trading partners.
I guess overall, it's a lot of meaning in a little toast
but I think people should try this dish
as it is really simple to prepare.
I think it tastes more complex than it is.
And although I'm sure for some
fish for breakfast sounds really odd.
But I'd say try it
on a warmer spring day or a summer day.
So I hope you enjoy.
Thanks. Bye.
(upbeat music)
- I feel like in the course of this show
I have really learned to love different types of canned fish
outside of tuna.
I think past Beryl would've been like,
"Oh man, canned sardines."
But present day Beryl
after all of these episodes is like,
"Yes, I love canned sardines."
(upbeat music)
Hm!
(upbeat music)
This is so much better than canned tuna.
This feels super vibrant, fresh,
spicy from that hot sauce.
Woo.
Sardines are just not as fishy
as I think people might expect them to be.
I feel like sardines have a stereotype to me
of being like the fishiest fish
but I don't think they are the fishiest fish.
(upbeat music)
I love slicing onions into thin rings,
but why are they so difficult to eat?
If you've never had canned sardines
I actually think that this toast
is a really great entry point
because the flavors are so refreshing
and fun and lively.
And I do feel like it makes the fish sing.
This is a great toast.
Oh, crap.
I just cleaned the carpet.
I don't get many submissions from the Caribbean
but when I do, man, they never disappoint.
Mm-mm.
We've done seven of these episodes.
I don't think we need to stop.
Do you?
Let me know.
I'll see you guys in my next video.
Mm!