Muktuk

Muktuk (anglicized from various names below) is a traditional food of Inuit and other circumpolar peoples, consisting of whale skin and blubber. A part of Inuit cuisine, it is most often made from the bowhead whale, although the beluga and the narwhal are also used. It is usually consumed raw, but can also be eaten frozen, cooked, or pickled.

Names The English muktuk is a transliteration of several Inuit language terms for the skin and blubber, including:

Maktaaq (ᒪᒃᑖᖅ), Sallirmiutun (Siglitun), Kivalliq, Aivilingmiutut (Aivilik), North Baffin, East Baffin, South Baffin Maktak (ᒪᒃᑕᒃ), Iñupiaq,Uqaluktuat: 1980 Elders' Conference, Women's Session Sallirmiutun, North Baffin Maktaq, Inuinnaqtun, Natsilingmiutut (Inuvialuktun) Mattak, Labrador, Greenland Mangtak, Alaskan YupʼikJacobson, Steven A. (2012). Yup'ik Eskimo Dictionary, 2nd edition . Alaska Native Language Center. Mungtuk, Siberian Yupik Kimaq, Alutiiq (Sugpiaq)

In some dialects, such as Inuinnaqtun, the word muktuk refers only to the edible parts of the whale's skin and not to the blubber.

It is known as ikiilgin in Chukchi.

Methods of preparation

In Greenland, muktuk (mattak) is sold commercially to fish factories, and in Canada (muktaaq) to other communities.

One account of a 21st-century indigenous whale hunt describes the skin and blubber eaten as a snack while the rest of the whale meat is butchered (flensed) for later consumption. It can be eaten raw or cooked; when boiled, this snack is known as unaaliq.

In recent times, maktak are served with introduced condiments; locals have acquired the taste for HP Sauce, and soy sauce.

Nutrients and health concerns Muktuk is a good source of vitamin C (ascorbic acid), the epidermis containing up to per . British Arctic explorers used it to prevent scurvy. Blubber is also a source of vitamin D.

Proceedings of the Nutrition Society stated in the 1950s that:

Contaminants from the industrialised world have made their way to the Arctic marine food web. This poses a health risk to people who eat "country food" (traditional Inuit foodstuffs). As whales grow, mercury accumulates in the liver, kidney, muscle, and blubber, and cadmium settles in the blubber, the same process that makes mercury in fish a health issue for humans. Whale meat also bioaccumulates carcinogens such as PCBs, chemical compounds that damage human nervous, immune and reproductive systems, and a variety of other contaminants.

Consumption of muktuk has also been associated with outbreaks of botulism.

Muktuk

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