Banquets in the Alaskan Bush

I really haven't ventured out of the typical realm of American cuisine.  I've never gotten to visit far away, foreign place where they eat bugs and drink cow's blood.  However I have had a lot of secondhand experience with traditional Alaskan foods of the Inuit, Aleut, and Yupik native tribes. I myself have not sampled any of these dishes, besides wild salmon, but through friends I have heard a lot about the typical dishes of these native people.

Now these Bush people don't eat "bush meat," but they have their own anomalous dishes as well.  Geography has definitely influenced their diets as well.  Animals that thrive in the cold seas and rivers surrounding the villages are the main staple meats because of they are abundant supplies.

My cousin, Erin, taught high school in a bush village called Manokotak for a year. While she was there I got to hear all about the crazy foods she was given by her very hospitable neighbors and co-workers.  

Some of the strangest food she had was walrus.  The villagers did about one walrus hunt a year and from that hunt got most of the meat they needed to for that year's meals.  The day of the hunt was a big deal.  They ended up getting three. They hunted and cleaned them together as a village. She said that they ate the walrus fried and sometimes in stews.  She also said that it had a very fishy taste.  Needless to say, it wasn't her favorite, but the Natives loved it!

Another unwonted dish that she actually sampled at a wedding was seal.  It was cooked in a stew and is another typical part of their diets.  Seafood is the most prominent part of the Alaskan diet.  Salmon and halibut are two of my favorite types of Alaskan cuisine. 

It is interesting to look at how geography affects what people eat around the world.  Although these are the traditional Alaskan foods, the culture's orthodoxy is being transformed with the breaking of geographical barriers.  Manokotak people eat frozen pizzas as well as muktuk (frozen whale blubber, usually eaten with salt).  Globalization is bringing McDonalds and other western foods to places that had not even heard of a hamburger twenty years ago.  Although MickyD's hasn't made it's way out to the Alaskan Bush, fast food is becoming a global source of food.  

As a result of this, people will become fatter and fatter. But I say: Eat, drink, and be merry that God has provided us with this variety of foods! It is also important for us as rich Americans to realize that our abundance of food is a blessing and that we should help those who go hungry.  World Vision and Compassion International are organizations that specifically deal with the hungry around the world.  Hopefully as communication and travel are expanding world-wide, aid to those in need can as well! What wonderful foods God has given us!