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Iqaluich Niginaqtuat, The Fish That We Eat
by Anore Jones, US Fish and Wildlife Service
Review by Sally Fallon
While the food industry does its best to wipe out traditional foods,
Anore Jones, with the US Fish and Wildlife Service, has spent the last
40 years saving food lore and recipes from the Inupiat of northwest
Alaska. The volume reviewed here--over 300 pages long--deals only with
fish, with tomes on land animals and plant foods to follow.
What a gift! Jones has thoroughly and meticulously described every
fish in the Inupiat diet, and detailed every way in which it is prepared--drying
(including smoking), freezing, fermenting, cooking, salting and pickling.
The practice of eating frozen fish--both freshly frozen and fermented
and frozen--is particularly common. Interestingly, botulism seldom occurs
in traditionally fermented foods unless they are fermented in or under
plastic.
Jones summarizes: "Two main factors which have contributed to
the excellent health of the Inupiat through the ages are the availability
of fresh, naturally fed fish and in how they ate their fish, seeking
out the fat- and nutrient-dense parts: invariably the eggs and often
the liver, head, skin and edible parts of the stomach and intestines."
From this marvelous compendium you will learn when various species
of fish are fattest (hence desirable); how to dry herring; how to eat
dried herring row preserved in oil; how to prepare tomcod liver (eaten
hot or cold with seal oil or berries); why you need to take the guts
out of flounder (because this fish has strong and bitter bile); how
to make fish broth (a traditional drink of choice for the Inupiat);
how to eat boiled fish heads (start with the best pieces, the large
cheek muscles and the fatty part behind the ball of the eyes); how to
make fermented salmon heads in a two-foot deep hole lined with green
grass; how to prepare trout livers with blackberries; how to render
oil from sheefish and then make a meal of sheefish stomach followed
by dessert of sheefish spleen.
Fish eggs are prepared in numerous ways--fresh raw, boiled and baked,
dried, frozen, fermented, stored in oil. "They are eaten because
people love them, and incidentally, they also happen to be extremely
nutritious." The Inupiat even enjoy fish eggs for dessert, mixed
with blueberries, whipped with cranberries or mashed into snow to make
fish egg ice cream! Talk about a nutrient-dense diet!
Serious students of traditional diets need this book in their libraries.
In fact, The Fish That We Eat may prove to be a lifesaving
manual should Earth experience a pole shift! Congratulations to Anore
Jones for her valuable confirmation of Dr. Price's findings.
The Fish That We Eat can be accessed and printed out at http://alaska.fws.gov/asm/fisreportdetail.cfm?fisrep=21.
Click on Northwest Arctic and then on Iqaliuch Niginaqtuat, Fish
That We Eat.
About the Reviewer
 Sally
Fallon is the author of
Nourishing Traditions: The Cookbook that Challenges Politically Correct
Nutrition and the Diet Dictocrats (with Mary G. Enig, PhD), a well-researched,
thought-provoking guide to traditional foods with a startling message: Animal
fats and cholesterol are not villains but vital factors in the diet, necessary
for normal growth, proper function of the brain and nervous system, protection
from disease and optimum energy levels. She joined forces with Enig again to
write Eat Fat, Lose Fat, and has authored numerous articles on the
subject of diet and health. The President of the Weston A. Price Foundation
and founder of A Campaign for Real Milk,
Sally is also a journalist, chef, nutrition researcher, homemaker, and community
activist. Her four healthy children were raised on whole foods including butter,
cream, eggs and meat.
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