A group of Arctic and subarctic chefs have banded together to celebrate indigenous culture by creating a new type of cuisine using traditional ingredients.
It’s fitting that I’m on a boat in South Greenland when I try my first bite of fermented seal blubber, a buttery slice that tastes not unpleasantly of the sea with a lingering note of fish oil, followed by a jaw-bustingly long chew of mattak, the country’s famous delicacy of scored whale skin, cartilage, and fat.
That’s because, in the Arctic, the distance between tundra and table, or, as it is today, the sea and the serving dish, is short: only a window separates me from the clear water studded with icebergs where the food was caught. Inunnguaq Hegelund, the award-winning indigenous Greenlandic chef who introduced me to these dishes, is well-known in Greenland for his innovative use of traditional ingredients. Polar bears can be seen roaming on the rocky shoreline a few hundred metres away.
Hegelund is part of a larger revolution taking place in the Arctic and subarctic region, where he and a group of leading chefs and food entrepreneurs are reclaiming and developing indigenous food cultures from the past in order to create sustainable local food traditions for the future.
“”When I was in culinary school, we took our bible from the French kitchen,” Hegelund said. With traditional French meats, we used traditional French techniques. We never served local Greenlandic food when I was a trainee; we even served fish from Spain! Things are different now.”
The New Arctic Kitchen movement brings communities at the top of the world together to share and develop their food cultures, including Arctic Canada, the Faroe Islands, Greenland, and the Finnish land Islands. They share many characteristics, including a sense of isolation, populations dispersed in small coastal settlements, and strong hunting traditions that distinguish them from Western food cultures.
“We’re all ocean people,” said Sheila Flaherty, a chef in Nunavut, Canada’s Arctic territory. “We hunt and harvest in the same spirit, butcher in the same spirit, and eat in the same spirit. We live in the Arctic, and our Inuit homeland stretches across the region.”
Eating seal, whale, etc. In areas where you’re more likely to see a narwhal than a pig, cow, or chicken, muskox and fish make sense. Eating locally and sustainably means eating these meats from head to tail, just as their forefathers did. Polar bear, seal, and whale hunting is typically strictly regulated by quota systems. Seal population growth far outstrips hunting quotas in the land Islands, where hunters have historically never hunted the full 450 seals allowed per year; in Arctic Canada, there are no quotas for seal hunters because they are so plentiful.
The movement aims to change the narrative surrounding these traditional local food sources, to raise awareness of them, and to inspire further development.
“The main idea is to exchange ideas, to take best practises from each other and apply them to each community,” explained Viktor Eriksson, former head chef at Restaurant Silverskär in Finland’s land Islands. “There is a lot of public funding for rural areas, but doing it individually is inefficient. It is best used by building on each other’s ideas.”
Flaherty shares his philosophy, citing a desire to collaborate as critical for the development of their food cultures, as well as a way to improve health in local communities, create local jobs, and gain a better understanding of their culture. She has dedicated her working life to making indigenous Inuit food available where she lives -which includes thin-sliced caribou liver, fermented seal fat and skin, and whales – and currently runs the Sijjakkut guesthouse and restaurant in Iqaluit, Canada.
I like serving it not to be controversial, but because the more we highlight and promote the seal, the less stigma we will have around it. It supports our Inuit way of life.
“I want to share Inuit culture with the rest of the world,” she explained. “My favourite dish to prepare is ringed seal. I serve it not to be controversial, but because the more we highlight and promote the seal, the less stigma there will be associated with it. It helps to sustain our Inuit way of life.”
Other subarctic and Arctic delicacies include skerpikjt, a Faroese dish of air-dried lamb that develops a funky, fermented taste similar to blue cheese as it dries, and Greenland lamb, which grazes wild on scrubby, rocky grassland scented with thyme.
Politics is one reason why the traditional diet has fallen out of favour: Danish colonists introduced their culinary preferences to the Faroe Islands and Greenland. Before gaining its own government, Nunavut was claimed by the British and then by Canada. The desire to eat something different every night of the week has recently made “international” food more appealing.
“”Locals want variety in their diets, and they don’t want to eat the same thing every day,” Hegelund explained. So it’s all about doing something new with the same meat.” Before gaining its own government, Nunavut was claimed by the British and then by Canada. The desire to eat something different every night of the week has recently made “international” food more appealing.
“”Locals want variety in their diets, and they don’t want to eat the same thing every day,” Hegelund explained. So it’s all about doing something new with the same meat.”
The group is approaching this challenge by focusing on butchery and specific cuts of meat, beginning with seal. That is, rather than treating all of the meat on the seal in the same way, diced, cubed, and sold by weight, they have discovered that the loin and shank taste better as steaks, while other cuts work well as terrine, sausage, or jerky.
Greenhouses are another unexpected source of variety. The traditional cuisine of the far north is heavy on fish and meat: it’s a fact of life in a region where vegetables and fruit can’t be grown easily and must be flown in and sold at exorbitant prices. . However, experimental greenhouses in south Greenland and Iqaluit are producing positive results in the cultivation of vegetables, raising hopes that imports can be reduced in the future.
