Muktuk [1] (transliterated in various ways, see below), a traditional food of Inuit and other circumpolar peoples, consisting of whale skin and blubber. A part of Inuit cuisine, it is most often made from the bowhead whale, although the beluga and the narwhal are also used. It is usually consumed raw, but can also be eaten frozen, cooked, [2] or pickled. [3]
In Greenland, muktuk (mattak) is sold commercially to fish factories, [4] and in Canada (muktaaq) to other communities. [5]
When chewed raw, the blubber becomes oily, with a nutty taste; if not diced, or at least serrated, the skin is quite rubbery.[ citation needed ]
One account of a 21st century indigenous whale hunt describes the skin and blubber eaten as a snack while the rest of the whale meat is butchered (flensed) for later consumption. When boiled, this snack is known as unaaliq. [6] Raw or cooked, the blubber and skin are served with HP Sauce, [7] [8] [9] [10] [11] a British condiment, or soy sauce. [12]
Muktuk has been found to be a good source of vitamin C, the epidermis containing up to 38 mg (0.59 gr) per 100 grams (3.5 oz). [13] [14] It was used as an antiscorbutic by British Arctic explorers. [15] Blubber is also a source of vitamin D. [16]
Proceedings of the Nutrition Society stated in the 1950s that:
The most important item of food of the Polar Eskimos is the narwhal (Monodon monoceros). [...] The skin (mattak) is greatly relished and tastes like hazel-nuts; it is eaten raw and contains considerable amounts of glycogen and ascorbic acid. The White whale (Delphinupterus leucas) is almost as important... [17]
Contaminants from the industrialised world have made their way to the Arctic marine food web. This poses a health risk to people who eat "country food" (traditional Inuit foodstuffs). [18] As whales grow, mercury accumulates in the liver, kidney, muscle, and blubber, and cadmium settles in the blubber, [19] the same process that makes mercury in fish a health issue for humans. Whale meat also bioaccumulates carcinogens such as PCBs, chemical compounds that damage human nervous, immune and reproductive systems, [20] [21] and a variety of other contaminants. [22]
Consumption of muktuk has also been associated with outbreaks of botulism. [23]
Transliterations of "muktuk", and other terms for the skin and blubber, include:
In some dialects, such as Inuinnaqtun, the word muktuk refers only to the edible parts of the whale's skin and not to the blubber. [27] [31]
Eskimo is an exonym that refers to two closely related Indigenous peoples: Inuit and the Yupik of eastern Siberia and Alaska. A related third group, the Aleut, who inhabit the Aleutian Islands, are generally excluded from the definition of Eskimo. The three groups share a relatively recent common ancestor, and speak related languages belonging to the family of Eskaleut languages.
The narwhal is a species of toothed whale native to the Arctic. It is the only member of the genus Monodon, and one of two living representatives of the family Monodontidae. It is most closely related to the beluga whale, and the two species can interbreed. The narwhal is distinguished by its convex-shaped tail flukes, short, blunt snout, small flippers and stocky build. Adults range in body-to-tail length from 3.0 to 5.5 m and weigh 800 to 1,600 kg. The narwhal is sexually dimorphic, as adult males are larger and have a single tusk that can be up to 3 m (9.8 ft) long. The functions of the narwhal tusk have been debated, and include feeding, combat, sexual selection and acoustic sensory. Like beluga whales, the narwhal lacks a dorsal fin and its neck vertebrae are jointed; these characteristics facilitate movement under the ice, reduce surface area and heat loss, and allow a great range of manoeuvrability.
Blubber is a thick layer of vascularized adipose tissue under the skin of all cetaceans, pinnipeds, penguins, and sirenians. It was present in many marine reptiles, such as ichthyosaurs and plesiosaurs.
An igloo, also known as a snow house or snow hut, is a type of shelter built of suitable snow.
The umiak, umialak, umiaq, umiac, oomiac, oomiak, ongiuk, or anyak is a type of open skin boat, used by both Yupik and Inuit, and was originally found in all coastal areas from Siberia to Greenland. First used in Thule times, it has traditionally been used in summer, for moving people and possessions to seasonal hunting grounds, and for hunting whales and walrus. Although the umiak was usually propelled by oars (women) or paddles (men), sails—sometimes made from seal intestines—were also used, and, in the 20th century, outboard motors. Because the umiak has no keel, the sails cannot be used for tacking.
A tupilaq is a monster or carving of a monster.
Inuit are a group of culturally and historically similar Indigenous peoples traditionally inhabiting the Arctic and subarctic regions of North America, including Greenland, Labrador, Quebec, Nunavut, the Northwest Territories, Yukon (traditionally), Alaska, and Chukotsky District of Chukotka Autonomous Okrug, Russia. Inuit languages are part of the Eskimo–Aleut languages, also known as Inuit-Yupik-Unangan, and also as Eskaleut. Inuit Sign Language is a critically endangered language isolate used in Nunavut.
Historically Inuit cuisine, which is taken here to include Greenlandic cuisine, Yup'ik cuisine and Aleut cuisine, consisted of a diet of animal source foods that were fished, hunted, and gathered locally.
The Inuit are an indigenous people of the Arctic and subarctic regions of North America. The ancestors of the present-day Inuit are culturally related to Iñupiat, and Yupik, and the Aleut who live in the Aleutian Islands of Siberia and Alaska. The term culture of the Inuit, therefore, refers primarily to these areas; however, parallels to other Eskimo groups can also be drawn.
Greenlandic cuisine is traditionally based on meat from marine mammals, birds, and fish, and normally contains high levels of protein. Since colonization and the arrival of international trade, the cuisine has been increasingly influenced by Danish, British, American and Canadian cuisine. During the summer when the weather is milder, meals are often eaten outdoors.
Whale meat, broadly speaking, may include all cetaceans and all parts of the animal: muscle (meat), organs (offal), skin (muktuk), and fat (blubber). There is relatively little demand for whale meat, compared to farmed livestock. Commercial whaling, which has faced opposition for decades, continues today in very few countries, despite whale meat being eaten across Western Europe and colonial America previously. However, in areas where dolphin drive hunting and aboriginal whaling exist, marine mammals are eaten locally as part of a subsistence economy: the Faroe Islands, the circumpolar Arctic, other indigenous peoples of the United States, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, some of villages in Indonesia and in certain South Pacific islands.
Snow goggles are a type of eyewear traditionally used by the Inuit and the Yupik peoples of the Arctic to prevent snow blindness.
The Greenlandic Inuit are the indigenous and most populous ethnic group in Greenland. Most speak Greenlandic and consider themselves ethnically Greenlandic. People of Greenland are both citizens of Denmark and citizens of the European Union.
Inuit Nunangat refers to the land, water, and ice of the homeland of Inuit in Canada. This Arctic homeland consists of four northern Canadian regions called the Inuvialuit Settlement Region, the territory Nunavut (ᓄᓇᕗᑦ), Nunavik (ᓄᓇᕕᒃ) in northern Quebec, and Nunatsiavut of Newfoundland and Labrador.
Marine mammals are a food source in many countries around the world. Historically, they were hunted by coastal people, and in the case of aboriginal whaling, still are. This sort of subsistence hunting was on a small scale and produced only localised effects. Dolphin drive hunting continues in this vein, from the South Pacific to the North Atlantic. The commercial whaling industry and the maritime fur trade, which had devastating effects on marine mammal populations, did not focus on the animals as food, but for other resources, namely whale oil and seal fur.
The tupiq is a traditional Inuit tent made from seal or caribou skin. An Inuk was required to kill five to ten ugjuk to make a sealskin tent. When a man went hunting he would bring a small tent made out of five ugjuit. A family tent would be made of ten or more ugjuit.
Whaling in Canada encompasses both aboriginal and commercial whaling, and has existed on all three Canadian oceans, Atlantic, Pacific, and Arctic. The indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest Coast have whaling traditions dating back millennia, and the hunting of cetaceans continues by Inuit. By the late 20th century, watching whales was a more profitable enterprise than hunting them.
Margaret Pennynée Irvine was an explorer and pioneer who was the first Scottish woman to go on an expedition to Baffin Island in Nunavut, Canada.
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