Muktuk

Canadian Inuit elders sharing muktuk, outside their summer tents, 2002

Expedition team of German photographer Ansgar Walk eating muktuk celebrating a young hunter's catch in the Canadian Arctic, 1997

In Greenland, muktuk (mattak) is sold commercially to fish factories,[4] and in Canada (muktaaq) to other communities.[5]

When chewed raw, the blubber becomes oily, with a nutty taste; if not diced, or at least serrated, the skin is quite rubbery.

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. When boiled, this snack is known as unaaliq.[6] Raw or cooked, the blubber and skin are served with HP Sauce,[7][8][9][10][11] a British condiment. Muktuk is occasionally finely diced, breaded, deep fried, and then served with soy sauce.

Muktuk has been found to be a good source of vitamin C, the epidermis containing up to 38 mg per 100 grams (3.5 oz).[12][13] It was used as an antiscorbutic by British Arctic explorers.[14] Blubber is also a source of vitamin D.[15]

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

The most important item of food of the Polar Eskimos [now known as the Inughuit] is the narwhal (Monodon monoceros). [...] The skin (mattak) is greatly relished and tastes like hazel-nuts; it is eaten raw and contains considerable amounts of glycogen and ascorbic acid. The White whale (Delphinupterus leucas) is almost as important...[16]

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).[17] As whales grow, mercury accumulates in the liver, kidney, muscle, and blubber, and cadmium settles in the blubber,[18] 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,[19][20] and a variety of other contaminants.[21]

Consumption of muktuk has also been associated with outbreaks of botulism.[22]

Transliterations of "muktuk", and other terms for the skin and blubber, include:

• Ikiilgin, Chukchi
• Maktaaq (ᒪᒃᑖᖅ), Siglitun, Kivalliq, Aivilik, North Baffin, East Baffin, South Baffin[23]
• Maktak (ᒪᒃᑕᒃ), Inupiat,[24] Siglitun, North Baffin[25]
• Maktaq, Inuinnaqtun,[26] Natsilingmiutut (Inuvialuktun)[27]
• Mattak, Labrador, Greenland[28]
• Mangtak, Alaskan Yup'ik[29]
• 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.[26][30]

• Nalukataq, spring whaling festival
• Marine mammals as food
• Chukchi cuisine

Look up muktuk in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

• Media related to Maktaq at Wikimedia Commons