Traditional food is certainly one of the main and most recognizable differences between our culture and that of the Yup'ik village. It has required an adventurous spirit on our part to try many of their traditional dishes, but we continue to want to try new things, and they are always interested to see how we react to the food that they give us. Of course, with the continued infusion of our own culture into theirs we often see things that are common to us (especially spaghetti, they love it, and it's cheap), but there are always things that we probably would never have even dreamed of making. Here are a few that we have tried so far.
Salunuk
Salmon is a huge part of the village diet for a number of reasons, not the least of which is that they can harvest large amounts of it to see them through the winter. For the most part they treat it somehow in order to preserve it, and many of them smoke all or most of it, but a few still make Salunuk. Essentially the fresh salmon is buried in rock salt until the salt "cooks" the fish. The meat changes color from the typical reddish/orange of raw salmon to the pinkish/orange of cooked. However, it retains the moisture of the raw meat, and certainly comes out very salty. It brings to mind eating sashimi in a sushi restaurant...if you had a notion to cover it in salt first!
Moose Heart Soup
Unfortunately we didn't catch the Yup'ik name for this dish, but this is one that we would make at home! According to them, if two men are working together and take a moose, there is often a fight (sometimes with fists) over who gets the heart. We were lucky enough to get to see why. This soup is really very simple with the only other ingredients being rice and possibly a few vegetables, but the small cubes of moose meat are what make it so memorable. The meat has the distinctive moose flavor that we got to know through some moose ribs and steaks that we were given, but it is so fine, dense, and tender that it is easy to see why people fight over it. This is definitely a favorite thus far, and if we manage to take a moose next year it will be a meal that we savor!
Agutuk
This traditional food reflects a number of the needs of living in the cold interior Alaskan wilderness: it is high in protein, can be stored outside during the winter, contains ingredients that the villagers harvest every year (plus a couple of modern additions), and is SUPER high in calories. This dish is often called "Eskimo Ice Cream", but it is far from what we would recognize as ice cream, because it starts with salmon. The salmon meat is first boiled, and then fluffed, making it easy to mix with the other ingredients. Next they add a liberal amount of sugar, berries (usually blueberries but sometimes they use salmon berries), and Crisco. All of these ingredients are mixed together and then frozen. In the end, so much other flavor has been added that the fish taste from the salmon is only faintly distinguishable, but every once in a while you remember that you are not only eating fish, but fish mixed with enough Crisco to give it a creamy texture! Sugar is the one major addition to the traditional recipe, obviously giving a sweet taste and further masking the fish flavor, and Crisco replaced the moose fat that was used originally. We had an opportunity to try some Agutuk made from moose fat on Ben's birthday, and although it has a gamey taste, in some ways the fact that it was more traditional made it a little less unsettling. Either way, it is definitely an interesting staple of their diet, and although I actually must admit to enjoying it once in a while, it's not something that we will find ourselves making at home!There are certainly many things that we have not yet tried, but there is one that we're sure neither of us will be able to bring ourselves to sample. The kids have told us that this is something that they don't even eat, and the only ones that still make it are some of the elders. They take the heads of the salmon and bury them in the ground for a period of time; long enough that they begin to ferment and the normally solid salmon head takes on a consistency more like that of cheese. This is the point at which they eat it...enough said.
There are a number of infusions from our own culture that have become a regular part of the village diet, probably the most popular of which is spaghetti. Just about every event that we have attended where food was served has had huge amounts of spaghetti available, and it is always gone by the end!
An open mind has certainly gone a long way for us, and we look forward to the surprises that the future will most certainly bring!
