Let’s have a giviak party
A while back I wrote about the slimy fermented soy product known as natto. Well, as a public service, I’d like to introduce you to another revolting food: the Inuit delicacy known as giviak.
I confess that I’ve never eaten giviak. But I was introduced to it—in the imaginative sense, that is—many years ago, when I first read Arctic explorer Peter Freuchen’s informative Book of the Eskimos.
Unfortunately, I can’t locate my copy, so I won’t quote Freuchen on the matter. This will have to do (and you may thank me for not offering Freuchen’s even more graphic and evocative description):
A giviak is an Inuit delicacy, made by stuffing a whole sealskin with whole raw auks, and letting it ferment underground.
First you need a dead seal with an undamaged hide. With your flensing knife, reach in through the seal’s mouth and carefully separate the carcass from the skin and blubber. Pull the seal carcass out of the skin, through the mouth, without breaking the sealskin.
Then stuff the dead auks – feathers, feet, and all – into the sealskin. Sew up the mouth, and bury the bloated skin. During the summer months, the seal blubber on the inside liquifies, melting slowly into the dead birds. Fermentation occurs. Months later, dig it up.
Bring the giviak to a party. Guaranteed fun!
To eat one of the little birds from the giviak, hold it by its feet, and eat the feathers first by shucking them off with your teeth. Then crunch up the rest of the oily, delicious morsel — bones included. The heart and the coagulated blood inside it are the best part, with a texture and taste reminiscent of the finest cheese — according to Peter Freuchen in his book “My Life in the Frozen North”.
Warning: In Inuit culture, refusing to eat what is offered you is very insulting to your hosts!
A giviak bears a certain resemblance to the Scottish bagged meal known as haggis. But—never having tasted either—I think giviak sounds as though it wins the disgust sweepstakes, hands down. However, these dishes are/were greatly beloved by the groups that originated them, as this excerpt from “Address to a Haggis” by the great Scottish poet Robert Burns attests, in a burst of culinary chauvinism [a handy guide to the meaning of the poem is at the link]:
…Is there that ower his French ragout,
Or olio that wad staw a sow,
Or fricassee wad mak her spew
Wi perfect scunner,
Looks down wi’ sneering, scornfu view
On sic a dinner?Poor devil! see him ower his trash,
As feckless as a wither’d rash,
His spindle shank a guid whip-lash,
His nieve a nit:
Thro bloody flood or field to dash,
Oh how unfit!But mark the Rustic, haggis-fed,
The trembling earth resounds his tread,
Clap in his wallie nieve a blade,
He’ll make it whissle;
An legs an arms, an heads will sned,
Like taps o thrissle.Ye Pow’rs, wha mak mankind your care,
And dish them out their bill o fare,
Auld Scotland wants nae skinking ware
That jaups in luggies:
But, if Ye wish her gratefu prayer,
Gie her a Haggis!
Or a giviak.
[NOTE: I actually Googled for images of giviak, and found a couple. I refuse to link to them, but I will say they were very, very, very disturbing.]
Sounds more disgusting to me than the habit of eating semi-incubated chicken eggs (half chick/half egg) done somewhere in South America.
Of course you know my next Google search will be for “giviak” 🙂
I will be first on line to try it… 🙂
however, i have tried haggis, and i like it…
i have also tried dropped fowl (what the main character in James Clavels novel tried to do with the peasant).
We REGULARLY eat Durian in my home…
The foodie show specializing in eating strange foods around the world couldn’t hack it… twice he tried.=
The pulp is pale yellow, with shape and consistency of raw brains. Smell has been compared to rotting flesh, old gym socks, or sewage.
Yet the taste has been called so exquisite that a European explorer of the 1700’s claimed it was worth the journey to experience it; “the King of fruits.”
some hotels in Indonesia will NOT let you eat it there.
even Indonesians have a love hate relationship with it, some like it, some hate it, with more who had it as a child liking it (but its not a rule).
I wont try baby mice rice wine, but i WILL and am looking forward to live octopus. (both Korean specialties)
German Bierkase, and Limburger cheese (and some mighty strong blue cheeses) are interesting
I have had the traditional (and lucky) birds nest soup… made from a real birds nest… [a gift from family]
and i was very lucky in a friend giving us enough of some very high quality kopi luwak (the coffee that has to pass through a “Asian Palm Civet (Paradoxurus hermaphroditus) “). I still have enough for a couple of cups. 🙂
Belachan, while not being all that exotic will lay most people on the floor.. (fish paste)
Also Indonesian and Bangla deshi traditional foods are VERY hot. EXPERT hot… habanero sauce is light comparatively.
have eaten a large selection of oysters, which i highly recommend the Oyster Bar in NY Grand Central station. i have been going there my whole life… you enter, sit down at the counter, and there is a board with a huge selection of different oysters (and some clams). you basically pick what you want until there is no more and the name is removed from the rack.
Steak and kidney pie is to die for…
and my mom loves head cheese (though i can take it or leave it)
Chicken feet are common at dim sum, and some middle european dishes… pigs feet too.
I work in an office and we have a wonderful group of african people here. they look at me funny as i sometimes go get the oxtail for lunch from the jamaican place. (though the oxtail you can get down south is better. so is real barbecue… )
So much i haven’t mentioned… and there is still a huge selection out there for me to try… 🙂
(before age makes me eat oatmeal).
with so many ways to enjoy living its so hard to understand how people can think that stuff is so limited.
and before any one says anything about poverty, i will point out that some of my most memorable food moments and feasting good times was when i had scratch and everyone had almost nothing, and we pooled what we had to have that. Humans commiserate (as primates do) over food, and we enjoy that very much if we give ourselves the opportunity to –
most of the exotic stuff i have tasted and enjoyed have been cheap or free, and just a part of the synchronicity and serendipity of a life lived open to people and interested in them and the way they live.
People love to share that…
Neo,
I tried haggis in 1994 at Oxford. It was actually very good and not slimy at all. I think I’ll pass on the auks though.
Haggis is nothing more than a big sausage. I don’t know why people get so squeamish about it.
Mike, I think you’re thinking of Balut, from the Phillipines.
Gee…
Thanks for sharing.
And I mean that in the nicest possible way.
That’s one of the bits of Freuchen’s book that stuck in my mind too. Another was his description of his first leaving on a trip with a lent wife, where she made a scene to entertain the rest of the women and they all came out to, um, pee so they could watch the fun. Another was… anyway, I recommend the book.
What about giviak jello? 🙂
In honor of a variety of tasty food from all over the world, Allan Sherman serenaded us with Hungarian Goulash No. 5
Hey!
I hope to try Durian before I die. I will take a pass on Inuit delicacies.
That stuff sounds more disgusting than Lutefisk.
http://www.ci.madison.mn.us/index.asp?Type=B_BASIC&SEC={4FF8C874-F890-4CC6-B28F-B1E8D3D5D662}
I lived in Alaska for three years and never tried or heard of giviak. I’m glad.
I spent a short time working with SE Asian refugees, primarily Laotian, in the 80s. Being involved with the local Laotian community, I ate all kinds of unusual food: blood soup (goose blood), bull genitalia, pickled mud fish (think fermented cat breath) and bovine entrails.
But I do want to take issue with this whole “refusing any food is insulting to the culture” issue. Absurd! I drew the line at cooked goose embryo – a whole goose egg with a gosling inside days away from birth is boiled. You gently break away the shell to reveal the grayish brain of the embryo and ya just dig in – at that point I had to bail. I simply explained I didn’t like it. AND NOTHING HAPPENED TO ME! Someone else was glad to have the extra embryo.
Who the hell started this idea that you had to eat what ever somebody put in front of you? Probably somebody’s overbearing mother way back in ancient times.
Thanks, neo! I’ve just recently gotten serious about learning how to cook, so I’m always on the lookout for new recipes.
ALP
But I do want to take issue with this whole “refusing any food is insulting to the culture” issue.
It depends. One year I invited an Argentine friend, who was then studying in the States, to Thanksgiving at my parents’ house. He declined to try my mother’s cranberry/orange relish, which as we all know, goes very well with turkey.
Twenty years later, I mentioned the guy’s name to my sister, who replied, “He was the guy who refused to try Mom’s cranberry relish.”
Perhaps he should have said he didn’t like cranberry relish. Though I doubt he could have gotten away with it.
John– Lutefisk is best described as the piece of cod that passeth understanding.
rickl– just wait until Neo recommends Jeffrey Dahmer’s personal recipe collection– it’s titled How to Serve Your Fellow Man.
One word response to the description of eating giviak (and balut, too – which I already knew about, having military friends who were stationed in the PI.)
*barf*
Fish heads
Fish Heads
Rolly Polly Fish heads
eat them up yum!
When I was in the ME a couple months ago I ate kibbe nayyeh, fresh fruit off a roadside stand w/o washing it, and lemonade with ice. I did not get sick off of anything. I drew the line at lamb fat.
That being said, I will not eat any animal parts except actual meat. I will not even eat tongue, though I will eat liver.
So giviak and lutefisk are out.
Gringo:
Your story helped me prove my theory: somebody’s mom, feeling put out at slaving over a hot fire all day, way back in the mists of time, started this: “if I put it in front of you – you’d better eat it.”
I must be the only person that thinks that concept is intrusive – just because somebody wants you to eat something, you absolutely MUST to spare somebody’s delicate feelings.
Oooogh. Could we get back to jello and necco wafers, pretty please?
“I must be the only person that thinks that concept is intrusive – just because somebody wants you to eat something, you absolutely MUST to spare somebody’s delicate feelings.”
No, your not the only one – my whole family thinks that. Further we all tend to think it rude of the host to try and force you to eat something you do not like.
For the record I wouldn’t have ate the cranberry relish either, I do not like it.
strcpy:
I had a friend from Lebanon that was just AWFUL. She would offer me something, I’d say “no thanks” (our tastes were not similar), she’d say “come on, just have some” (usually something I had already tried and knew if I liked or not) and we’d go on like this for 5 minutes or so, until I had to yell at her to STFU – “NO, I don’t want any”. Hmmm, no wonder this makes me uncomfortable – its all HER fault! LOL!
strcpy
No, your not the only one – my whole family thinks that. Further we all tend to think it rude of the host to try and force you to eat something you do not like.
For the record I wouldn’t have ate the cranberry relish either, I do not like it.
strpcy: At least you have tried cranberry relish. The Argentine guest at my parents’ Thanks giving had never tried cranberry relish before he came to my parents’ house. Nor did he try it at my parents’ house.
I have eaten plenty of food overseas before that I had never tried before. Nearly all of it I liked. I have eaten material at asados/barbecues in Argentina that after eating them, I did not like, such as morcilla/blood sausage, or liver[at least grilled]. But the point is that I tried it.
The Argentine guest likewise refused the oysters at the thanksgiving dinner, which didn’t offend us, because he had tried them before and didn’t like it. “No me gustan mariscos.” He had a track record with oysters. He had no track record whatsoever with cranberry relish.
I wrote his English teacher, a NH native who has now spent about a half century in Latin America, about his refusal. Her reply was that she had eaten stuff at asados that had later made her sick. “His refusal to eat food he had never tried before showed he was from an underdeveloped country.”
My uncle spent a lot of time with the people who used to be called Eskimos. He said that when they slaughtered a cariboo they would take the heart, liver, and neck meat and give the rest (the “good stuff”in our estimation) to their dogs.
Oh, yeah. They also took the tongue.
And don’t forget my favorite English dish – jellied eel. To make it taste better, the English wash it with vinegar. Now I know why the English went halfway around the world to conquer India – to find decent food!
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I can accept the refusal to eat food made from weird and unusual parts of animals, or even whole animals. Refusal to eat food made from unfamiliar fruits and vegetables is harder to understand.
“Have some goats’ brains marinated in lye. It’s a delicacy.”
“Um, OK.”
“Have some cranberry relish.”
“No, sorry, I have to draw the line at cranberries.”
I remember chancing upon a group of eskimos one summer long ago in the Northern Yukon. Mucktuck – fermented whale blubber was offered and eaten with great enthusiasm by the group. I did my best not wishing to give offence. It was the most horrible
meal of my life. I concealed my disgust and made the best of it. When the time came around for the obligatory wife sharing I tactfully made my escape.
Thanks for the memories of Peter Freuchen. As a boy I read all his books and dreamed of northern adventures – which thankfully I was able to live out.
How different boys are brought up today. What a loss.
rickl, thanks for reminder: today I give a dinner party (to celebrate my return to the workforce) and have to go look in my recipe book.
Afraid, I won’t find anything as exotic there…just chicken.
So how do you get a dead seal with an intact hide?
Dead of some kind of disease, is my guess.
One day breasts the next giviak.
“At least you have tried cranberry relish. The Argentine guest at my parents’ Thanks giving had never tried cranberry relish before he came to my parents’ house. Nor did he try it at my parents’ house.”
I will also have to add that one can not dismiss the idea of smell interacting strongly with taste. Further smell tends to be even more socially sensitive yet shouldn’t be – it is even more sensitive and a stronger memory marker than taste. It is rare that something that smells truly revolting tastes good – even if we take strong blue cheese’s they taste as they smell. If you find them disgusting you will not like the cheese, if you find them “strange” you will most likely find a combination of flavors with them you like.
Even further, as someone who developed an allergy later in life (I was 30 at the time) I can smell when I can’t eat something (for me I’m unlucky enough to be the first person my allergist has seen that is allergic to *everything* that primarily lives in the water). i can clearly smell when I shouldn’t eat something – whilst smelling good doesn’t mean it is fine for me (as I clearly know from a stuffed chicken from a Spanish Restaurant that was obviously contaminated by some seafood), but if it triggers a certain smell I know I can not eat it, nor will I under any circumstances. Even in smaller cases such as I will not touch the fish food we use – I react strongly to it and can smell it too (it turns out it has a large dried shrimp component). Any one offended by me fearing I will die if I eat their food can just be offended – indeed if they declare a family vendetta over me not wishing to die over their fish concoction I have to note that we are all competitive firearm and archery shooters 🙂
So, if someone doesn’t want to try something they do not have too – it isn’t a big deal. I do agree that if they simply do not like some class of food at least take a bite – I’ll do that. I’ve found a few such places where I will eat some food I like at no other place I have visited on the planet. But even then if you know you *really* dislike it then still no big deal.
However I can tell you if I visit Boston I know of a restaurant that I’ll eat spinach greens and it is the only place on the planet that hasn’t turned my stomach eating them – indeed I like them (though I have to be with the people I work for to know how to get there). I’ve never been able to do a good enough job at home to duplicate it.
I learned so from a willingness to try things when a skilled and obviously highly payed staff recommended something despite me saying I didn’t like it. Someone at Shoney’s declaring food good doesn’t normally get it, nor does someone who thinks their mother’s food is the best-est out there. It may be the best-est on the planet, but your mothers cranberry sauce probably isn’t. I’ll more than likely give it a go, but truthfully I know I do not like cranberry sauce so it better smell quite good.
If it is something I have no experience with smell will play a large part. I suspect that is more true than not.
Son #3 just moved to Nome. I have a feeling I may be hearing about this.
I basically try the stuff i don’t like over and over, and over time, suddenly its good..
given this habit, i have acquired tastes for lots of things, and now often take it in stride and find it odd and funny when i decide i don’t like something when i keep in mind what i have eaten, and eventually liked.
So much of human life revolves around food, its memory, its sharing, its being withheld, even its being thrown at you.