THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 231 



heads. But not poor Ole, who sat eating steaks of caribou ten- 

 derloin and wishing he had salt or onions to make it less insipid. It 

 must be said for Ole, however, that he learned more quickly than 

 most tenderfcet, for we had not been in Banks Island more than a 

 week when he quit frying steaks for himself and began to join 

 us in the eating of boiled heads and briskets and ribs. 



The tastes of the northern hunters who live on meat alone are 

 nearly uniform whether they be Indians, Eskimos, or white men 

 resident with either people, though they differ strikingly from the 

 tastes in meat acquired in connection with modern European cook- 

 ing. These northerners eat their meat by taste, as our ancestors 

 must have done when originated the saying, "The nearer the bone 

 the sweeter the meat." Nowadays we do not judge meat with our 

 palates according to its flavor but with our teeth according to its 

 "tenderness." To aid our teeth in the judgment of meat we call 

 on our eyes to differentiate between dark and light meats. One 

 of the main difficulties in trying to introduce a new meat into the 

 dietary of a "civilized" people is the problem of matching it in color 

 with some meat already in favor. 



I have known white hunters who carried salt with them to 

 stick for a surprisingly long time to European ideas of cooking. 

 But if one has no salt the organs of taste recover rapidly from 

 even scores of years of abuse with seasonings and sauces. When 

 the sense of taste has regained a moderate delicacy, white men fall 

 naturally into agreement with the Eskimos and northern Indians 

 in classifying the parts of caribou about in the following descend- 

 ing order of excellence: 



The head is best, and except the marrow the most delicious fat 

 is back of the eyes. These flavors are the strongest and most pleas- 

 ing of the whole caribou. Then comes the tongue. Next are brisket, 

 ribs and vertebras, but in all of these we usually remove for dog 

 feed some of the outer meat, reserving for ourselves the "sweet 

 meat near the bone." Next come hearts, kidneys, and the meat 

 near the bone on the neck. Shoulders are next. These are more 

 often eaten by the Indians than the Eskimos, as are also the hearts, 

 apparently because the Indians use roasting now and then as a 

 method of cooking, and these parts seem better roasted. 



Here it may be remarked that frying is a method of cooking 

 unknown to the natives of northern North America and they take 

 very badly to it, except the frying of bacon, ham and imported 

 meats generally. I have known both Indians and Eskimos pro- 

 ficient enough in white men's cooking to have jobs as cooks in 



