Thoughts About Food #2

Manaq'ing with Roland and Lady was an amazing experience. I never expected to catch anything, let alone two fish...especially from a hole in a frozen river with a stick and some line...most especially not dinner.

:)

Actually, the entire afternoon with Roland and Lady was pretty amazing. I have never seen a kitchen stocked with such a variety of wild foodstuffs. They were so friendly and open, so glad to share what they knew and to teach someone else those things, it was a great conversation.

Lady was giggling as much as I was and was snapping photos right and left. After I caught the lush and the pike, Roland strung them on a tree branch for me to carry back to the house. Once there, Roland and Lady gave me a very patient tutorial in cutting up fish. They demonstrated on one and let me take my time doing the same with the other. Meanwhile, Roland's mother was cleaning pallas buttercup shoots on the floor beside us. We had a whispered conversation while waiting for the fish head soup to cook up about her time in the mission schools and how she first learned English.

Roland took some thin slices of filet, the roe from the lush (which was about the spawn), the raw lungs and some of the cleaned stomach, which he placed in a small bowl of seal oil and salted. This was one of those "wall" moments for me; where I had to step outside of myself and the things I normally preferred in order to try something completely outside of my experience. It was also outside of my comfort zone, which was the harder thing to overcome. It felt like forever (it always does) but in reality it was all in a matter of seconds. It was exhilarating and scary, the combination of which has permanently seared the moment into my memory.

Lady showed me how to clean out the organs and how to knot them below the head for the fish head soup. Lady and Roland filleted the fishes and dusted the meat in seasoned flour for pan frying. While we were talking and getting everything situated, I apologized for taking so long. Lady told me that she learned how to cut fish from her mother-in-law after she was married.

The soup was delicious, the pan fried fish excellent as can be imagined, and the raw fish was exhilarating. When the time came to leave, I didn't want to.
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On another note: it's so interesting to learn what food is most important to people and how it came to be so.

• James Charles' favorite food is his mother's frybread. Now and forever. When I asked him what other foods he loved, he brought out Nancy's delicious smoked teriyaki salmon.
  
• Lisa Olick loves fish head soup, seal oil, salmon strips and Mexican food. She is getting into spicy foods and wants to move to Bethel for more food options. However, moving to Bethel means not being able to partake of many of the tundra foodstuffs she loves so much.
  
• Roland White loves moose, caribou, seal, salmon and a host of other wild game. His top five desert island list wavers a bit between moose and caribou, so he can't say exactly what is on it.