Greenlandic Cuisine - Seafood

Seafood

The majority of Greenland is covered by permanent glaciers, the sea is the source for most food. Seafood dishes include various fishes (often smoked), mussels, and shrimp. Ammassat or capelin, a fish in the salmon family is commonly eaten and can easily be dried. Atlantic halibut, redfish, deepwater redfish, Greenland halibut, and lumpfish are fished from the west coast, as are Greenland cod (Gadus ogac) and shorthorn sculpin (Myoxocephalus scorpius), but these two are eaten only as a last resort. Arctic char is fished off the east coast. The Greenland shark (Somniosus microcephalus) is rarely eaten because it is poisonous but can be edible after a complicated preparation of either boiling the meat repeatedly or fermenting the meat.

Global warming has shifted the migration of Atlantic cod, allowing for commercial fishing off Greenland's east coast. Drift ice can create problems during fishing season, and the Danish government has not invested in large-scale fish processing plants.

Sea mammals provide important staples to Greenlandic diets. A traditional Inuit specialty is mattak, a Greenlandic term for the raw hide of narwhal or white whale. Mattak can be prepared with blubber, and occasionally dried reindeer meet. When eaten raw, mattak is an important source of vitamin C. Hunting hooded seals were traditionally an important annual social event as well as subsistence activity, which included men, women, and children. Also popular is arvik, or Bowhead whale, smoked whale meat served with onions and potato. Dried cod and whale with whale blubber is a popular lunch and snack food. Bearded and ringed seals are hunted year round, especially by Polar Inuit, while narwhals and white whales are hunting during the summer. Subsistence whale hunting by indigenous peoples is legal, but some animal rights organization are concerned about commercial whale hunting in Greenland, with one company, Arctic Green Food freezing and distributing a quarter of Greenland's whale meat.