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Vilhjamur's words on how the Inuits felt about eating plants.
The Eskimo situation varies from ours still more when it comes to vegetables. In the Mackenzie district these were eaten under three conditions:
(1) The chief occasion for vegetables here, as with most Eskimos, was a famine. There were several kinds of vegetable things known to be edible and they were resorted to in a definite succession, as prejudices were overborne by the pangs of hunger. (True famines seldom, if ever, occurred in the Mackenzie, but small groups would get short of food through some accident and then famine practice in eating
would result).
(2) Some vegetable foods were eaten because the Mackenzie River people liked them. These were chiefly berries; and among berries chiefly the salmon berry or cloudberry (Rubus chamaemorus). The Mackenzie River people ate these only during the season; but in Western Alaska, and elsewhere,
berries and some other vegetable foods were preserved in oil for winter use—sometimes as delicacies, sometimes to guard against famine, and no doubt frequently with a mixture of both motives.
(3) One form of vegetable dish is eaten strictly in connection with another that is non-vegetable—the moss, twigs and grass from a caribou's stomach are used as a base for oil. In my experience the commonest reason for this use was that someone from a distance arrived with a bag of oil that was either in a particularly delectable state of fermentation(corresponding to Camembert cheese that is just soft enough),
or else this was an oil from a favored animal not common in the district, say white whale brought into a sealing community. The question would then arise, how shall we eat this oil? Most likely there would be on hand boiled lean meat, or perhaps wind-dried fish, and the matter was simple—you cut or broke the lean meat or the fish into bite-size pieces, dipping each into the fat. But if no lean happened to be avail-
able there was perhaps the suggestion that a caribou had been killed recently, the paunch was likely still in fair condition, and why not use that to make a salad? Usually the suggestion had an uneven reception, the majority perhaps agreeing and eating the oil that way, while the remainder just dipped their fingers into the oil a few times and licked them off.
From pages 23-24
(1) The chief occasion for vegetables here, as with most Eskimos, was a famine. There were several kinds of vegetable things known to be edible and they were resorted to in a definite succession, as prejudices were overborne by the pangs of hunger. (True famines seldom, if ever, occurred in the Mackenzie, but small groups would get short of food through some accident and then famine practice in eating
would result).
(2) Some vegetable foods were eaten because the Mackenzie River people liked them. These were chiefly berries; and among berries chiefly the salmon berry or cloudberry (Rubus chamaemorus). The Mackenzie River people ate these only during the season; but in Western Alaska, and elsewhere,
berries and some other vegetable foods were preserved in oil for winter use—sometimes as delicacies, sometimes to guard against famine, and no doubt frequently with a mixture of both motives.
(3) One form of vegetable dish is eaten strictly in connection with another that is non-vegetable—the moss, twigs and grass from a caribou's stomach are used as a base for oil. In my experience the commonest reason for this use was that someone from a distance arrived with a bag of oil that was either in a particularly delectable state of fermentation(corresponding to Camembert cheese that is just soft enough),
or else this was an oil from a favored animal not common in the district, say white whale brought into a sealing community. The question would then arise, how shall we eat this oil? Most likely there would be on hand boiled lean meat, or perhaps wind-dried fish, and the matter was simple—you cut or broke the lean meat or the fish into bite-size pieces, dipping each into the fat. But if no lean happened to be avail-
able there was perhaps the suggestion that a caribou had been killed recently, the paunch was likely still in fair condition, and why not use that to make a salad? Usually the suggestion had an uneven reception, the majority perhaps agreeing and eating the oil that way, while the remainder just dipped their fingers into the oil a few times and licked them off.
From pages 23-24
The Inuit ate 4 meals a day
The Eskimos cooked whenever convenient. If they breakfasted on raw food it was either because the group did not want to waste time in cooking or else because they awoke with too keen an appetite—pre-white cooking was usually slow, requiring two or three hours. The same would be true for lunch. At dinner time, in the Eskimo way of life, there was ample leisure, and this meal was seldom eaten raw. The fourth meal of the day, just before going to bed, normally consisted of cold boiled food left over from dinner.
Page 38-39
Page 38-39