The DeLamar nugget. [volume] (DeLamar, Idaho) 1891-1900, 1891-06-09
ESKIMO DIET.
1t Ii Not Altogether Barbarous When
You Acquire the Taste.

I 1t Ii Not Altogether Barbarous When
You Acquire the Taste.
had read about Eskimo eating
habits, begins writer in Gold
thwaite' Magazine, how once upon a
time, for instance, an Arctic explorer
offered some Eskimo girls some
sweetmeats, which were rejected,
while tallow candles were eagerly ac-
cepted and eaten. Now l was to see
an Eskimo eat. With many smiles
Peter entered the cabin and sat down
at the table. should have apologized
to him on account of the scantiness of
our fare, for we had no candles and
there wasn't bit of tallow on deck
even, let alone in the cabin, but 1
noticed that the butter plate was heap
ing full the sight of which made me
wish for some of my friends so that we
could make a pool on the number of
bites he would take in swallowing the
roll. Then Peter sat down and with
out ceremony helped himself to lot of
baked beans, a piece of dry bread and
large piece Of very lean salt beef, all
of which he bit into and swallowed as
a hungry 'longshoreman might have
done. Then he took more beans and
more bread and more lean beef, and with
them several cups of coffee with great
deal of sugar to each cup. He was a
long time getting to it, but he finally
began on the butter. He had poured
his last cup of coffee and was looking
about for something to eat with it,
when his eye fell on a plate of cake.
Tol Mo he 40 oil
lump of butter on it and slowly ate
the combination with the coffee. To the |
reader of a geographical magazine |
1t may seem strange, but the fact is, |
until | saw this man at the table, l had |
really expected to find the Eskimos
of south Greenland showing the habits
and tastes of those living a thousand
miles farther up the coast. had not
quite expected to find them living in
snow houses, but I had misty idea
that an Eskimo was little black In
dian, whose chief delight among the
things brought from civilized country
was the tallow candle. The staple food
is seal meat and blubber. Next to that
is the little fish taken in the ford and
dried for winter use, known to them as
the augmatfat and to the learned as
salmo villosus. A favorite way of eat
ing the dried augmatfat is to take it by
the tail, poke it into the oily blubber
for awhile and then chew it down.
Awful, isn't it? 1t is almost as bad as
eating sardines. There is a deal in
name. Blubber is disgusting; oil, if for
use on salad, is delicious and indis-
pensable.. / have eaten seal oil and
found it very unexpectedly good.
had supposed it would have flavor of
fish oil. There is no such flavor about
t. 1t is equal to the best extract of
cotton seed-that quality sold as olive
iii in all American groceries. Aug
natfat and blubber, under a French
abel, would be deemed luxury in
New York as in Arsuk. For the rest
he Eskimos trade seal oil and skins
o their governor for three kinds of
lardtack, for coffee, sugar and tea.
They catch Arctic Goldfish (misarkornak
n Eskimo and gadus' navaga in the
'ooks) and salmon in the seasons; they !,
boot no end of gulls, ducks, ptarmigans
nd the Arctic hare; they have eg"s in :
ndless quantity In the season, and very =
many foxes are trapped. The fox is to !,
he Eskimo what the 'possum is to :
he plantation darby! He likes to =
moke, and under favoring circum- .
tances will swap anything he's got, :,
his wife, for rum. !,
l