SC - Cooking, anthropology, anthropophagy, OOP partly OT

[Nanna Rognvaldardottir]

Thorvald wrote:

>
>Mr. Freuchen was a Dane who lived for many years with and among
>the Inuit of Greenland and northern Canada from about 1906 to
>about 1933, with frequent visits in later years, being in so far
>as it was possible one of them.  He was _not_ an anthropologist,
>nor an academic.


You know, this is a remarkable coincidence. I hadn't thought about Peter
Freuchen in several years, then only this morning I mentioned to a coworker
that I ordered a new book on Greenlandic cooking yesterday in the ensuing
discussion, Freuchen's name of course came up - his books used to be very
popular here and we had both read several of them as children. There are
many references to food and cooking throughout his books and here is a short
article that covers some of the things you mentioned:

http://www.greenginger.com/north.html

Peter Freuchen was a remarkable character, and not just because of his
wooden leg and three-foot-long beard. In the early 20th century, marriage
between an Inuit and a white man was unheard of but many Danes in Greenland
had Inuit concubines or lovers. Freuchen fell in love with and married a
Inuit girl, Navarana, who accompanied him on many of his expeditions. When
she died of influenza in 1920, she was at first refused burial in the
cementary because she was a heathen, and the local missionary managed to
keep almost everyone away from the burial. Freuchen's heartbreaking account
of his young wife's burial always brought tears to my eyes when I read it.

Nanna