THE OTTAWA NATURALIST 



Vol. XXXII. 



OCTOBER, 1918. 



No. 4. 



RSKIMO FOOD HOW IT TASTES TO A WHITE MAN.'^ 



By Rudolph Martin Anderson. Zoologist, Biological Division, 

 Geological Survey, Ottawa. 



How the food of the Eskimo, or, indeed, the food 

 of any race, tribe, or people, tastes, depends largely 

 upon the taste, the natural or acquired habits, or 

 'nost important of all, the appetite at meal-time. 

 The old proverb that "hunger is the best sauce," 

 loses none of its force in Eskimo-land. Having in 

 my time sampled most of the numerous varieties of 

 Eskimo foods,** sometimes for reasons of diplomacy 

 and sometimes out of politeness to kind hosts, and 

 at other times from a scientific curiosity to test the 

 palatability and food value of them all, I have 

 occasionally thought myself qualified as a northern 

 food expert. Some foods I have considered delica- 

 cies on the wilderness trail, but later, when trying 

 the same articles at a well-stocked house or ship, 

 the salt seemed somehow to have "lost its savour," 

 and I came to doubt my competence as an un- 

 prejudiced witness. 



The palatability and delectability of foods, and 

 probably to a certain extent their digestibility, must 

 be judged in connection with the circumstances 

 under which they are consumed. As an example, 

 after accepting the Eskimo dictum that the large 

 Snowy Owl of the north is an excellent game bird, 

 proven by experience to be almost invariably fat, 

 and with clean, white meat more like that of the 

 domestic fowl than any other Arctic bird, and 

 having one served for a morning short order in a 

 white man's camp, we have been obliged to admit 

 that "boiled owl," except for travellers with ex- 

 ceptionally strong teeth and powerful jaws, is not 

 to be recommended as a breakfast food. The pro- 

 longed boiling required for an aged owl makes the 

 bird more suitable for an afternoon tea or a supper 

 dish. However, I never knew anybody who had 



*Published by permission of tlie Director of the 

 Geological Survey of Canada 



**Western Eskimo, from Bering Strait, Alaslva, 

 to Bathurst Inlet, N.W.T. 



tried the Snowy Owl to complain of any ill 

 flavour. 



What does the Eskimo eat? The home of the 

 Eskimo is beyond the limits of the cultivation of 

 vegetable feeds, and consequently in his native state, 

 he IS by compulsion very largely a meat and fish- 

 eater. Normally he eats but a few of the watery, 

 rather tasteless Arctic berries (cloudberries, crow- 

 berries, alpine bearberries, and occasionally blue- 

 berries and cranberries), digs an occasional mess of 

 stringy wild roots, or plucks a few succulent green 

 leaves of sorrel or scurvy-grass. Meat or fish com- 

 prise the standard menu. The Eskimo will eat 

 practically anything that walks, flys, or swims (un- 

 less there is some local taboo on a particular species 

 or part of an animal), and the food-list embraces 

 a pretty comprehensive list of the fauna of the region. 

 He may be called an all-around practical naturalist 

 or economic biologist. 



The Eskimo as a rule lives well, and though 

 seldom corpulent, as a rule is a robust, plump, and 

 well-nourished individual. He knows nothing of 

 the icy terrors of the frozen North his country is 

 more bounteously supplied with food than the inland 

 wooded country for hundreds of miles to the south- 

 ward. The Eskimo gets most of the game animals 

 and fish that the northern Indian gets, and in ad- 

 dition to these, has the seals nearly everywhere (and 

 in some parts walrus and whales) to supply in 

 sufficient abundance the blubber and oil, the fatty, 

 heat-producing elements which every one craves in 

 some form in a cold climate, and for which the 

 northern Indian is usually "starving." In these 

 meatless, wheatless, and other kinds of food con- 

 servation days, an Eskimo feast of fat, crackly 

 brown caribou ribs roasted, a stew of mountain 

 sheep mutton, or sweet, juicy, boiled caribou tongues, 

 briskets, or hearts, tenderloin or "back-sinew meat" 

 steaks, or even fried seal livers, are not unpleasant 



