SC - Apician Teriyaki Chicken 8-); and ostrich sauces

[Gerekr@aol.com]

How to cook a whale found dead.
 
This is my 1995 translation of the George Hunt 1914
      translation of a old Kwakuitl receipe given by Elie Hunt in the
      Kwakuitl language. Click herefor a text transcript of the
      George Hunt translation. A brief biograpy and history of the
      recipe collection is here. 

      Most importantly, you cannot eat it all by yourself! So the first
      step is to call for a party and invite all your friends, relatives, and
      local dignitaries. 

      A special occasion, like the finding of a whale, calls for the use of
      ceremonial names. Though a hunter, a man, has found the whale,
      preparing food is women's work, and therefore the daughter of the
      hunter has the rights to prepare the whale. She is given the
      ceremonial name, Place-of-cutting-Blubber. Note that it is the
      daughter who has the rights, not the wife(s), due to the family
      rights in a matrilineal society. 

      Once everybody is ready, you bring tools, and the hunter who
      found the whale leads everybody in their canoes to the spot where
      he found it. The father of the hunter has the honor of speaking for
      the daughter of the hunter to "make a toast" for the occasion. It is
      customary to first declare how wonderful the whale is, being full of
      delicious blubber, etc.. Then you should give the choicest piece
      (the dorsal fin) to the ranking dignitary, who is typically the chief of
      the village. 

      Everybody else gets an equal size piece of the whale according to
      the order of their rank. The first piece starts at the whale neck, and
      they work from the top down and from the head to the tail.
      Generally the pieces are cut about a fathom (6 feet) in width. After
      the ceremonial pieces are given out, the women go to work to
      gather the remaining fat from the whale. The last step is cut off a
      piece of the tale of the whale. 

      When this is done, the pieces are loaded in the canoes, and
      everybody goes home to do the remainder of the preparation. The
      hunks of blubber are split into strips four fingers thick (two inches).
      These pieces are then cut into half inch strips. 

      A kettle of water is set to boil on the beach, and the strips are
      boiled to render the oil. The oil is ladled off and stored in
      watertight storage boxes. Whale oil is best stored in the corner of
      your house. 

      Then, you take cedar bark, and split it into long strips. Poke holes
      in the middle of the boiled pieces of whale blubber, and thread
      them onto the long strips of bark. When finish these strings of
      blubber are now called "tied-in-the-middle". 

      Dry these strips in the smoky rafters of your house for at least a
      month. When you want to eat some "tied-in-the-middle" take it
      down from the rafters, and boil it in a kettle until tender. This takes
      a lot of boiling. Be sure to eat it hot, because when it is cold, it is
      really tough. If you boil more than you can eat, you can dry it
      again, and reheat it later. This dish is called "eating boiled blubber
      tied in the middle", a real treat! 


To Bruce Hallman's home page. Send comments and suggestions to: 
bruce at hallman.org


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