Our Native Feast

Yesterday was my last full day in Kotzebue.
So I went out burping fish all night long...

One of our school secretaries is a Native Alaskan, from the Bethel area and thus Yupik rather than Inupiaq, however she is quite a native chef. Months ago we asked her to make us a ntive meal. On our last day in town she wouldn't stand for us leaving without a feast.

We had a mixture of items that are native to the Kotzebue area as well as thee Bethel area. Some of them were delicious, some of them were less than delicious. Through the entirety of the meal we were told to use only one hand, and to NOT touch anything but the food and our napkin. This was due to the fact that everything was dipped in seal oil, and stains things very badly. The family we ate with actually put on their "Native meal t-shirts" that they use specifically for eating seal oil so as to not ruin their other clothing.

Here is what was included in our main course of the meal:

*Quaq- frozen trout ("popsicle fish") -GOOD
*Maktak- beluga while (white), bowhead whale (black), chased with a slice of apple- NOT GOOD, very mushy
*Dried Whitefish -good
*Dried Salmon - good
*Dried Pike -good
*Smoked and Dried Salmon -REALLY GOOD
*Oogruk- dried bearded seal -not very good

Then came desert:
Ahpik (Salmon berries)
Blueberries
Blackberries, all of which came from the tundra outside of town.

Then came the "Agutak" or Eskimo ice cream. We had two kinds of ice cream (blueberry and Salmon berry), both came from recipes from the Bethel area. This includes: fish flakes (which amazingly, you could not taste much, especially in the blueberry one!), crisco, berries (of any kind), and sugar. This differs from the recipes from the Kotzebue area in the fish flakes. In Kotzebue, generally they use seal oil in place of the fish.

These traditional meals are often eaten before going out into the cold on a snow machine because it has so much fat it helps keep you warm on the long days in the cold weather. Cool, huh? Only, we didn't go out aftewards, so we are just working towards getting fat.

All in all, the meal, though not glorious tasting at times, was fascinating. I learned a lot, and experienced a lot. It was a wonderful way to say goodbye to Kotzebue!!