Yup'ik Cuisine

Yup'ik cuisine (''Yupiit neqait'' in Yup'ik language, literally "Yup'iks' foods" or "Yup'iks' fishes") refers to the Eskimo style traditional subsistence food and cuisine of the Yup'ik people from the western and southwestern Alaska. Also known as Cup'ik cuisine for the Chevak Cup'ik dialect speaking Eskimos of Chevak and Cup'ig cuisine for the Nunivak Cup'ig dialect speaking Eskimos of Nunivak Island. This cuisine is traditionally based on meat from fish, birds, sea and land mammals, and normally contains high levels of protein. Subsistence foods are generally considered by many to be nutritionally superior superfoods. Yup’ik diet is different from Alaskan Inupiat, Canadian Inuit, and Greenlandic diets. Fish as food (especially Salmonidae species, such as salmon and whitefish) are primary food for Yup'ik Eskimos. Both food and fish called ''neqa'' in Yup'ik. Food preparation techniques are fermentation and cooking, also uncooked raw. Cooking methods are baking, roasting, barbecuing, frying, smoking, boiling, and steaming. Food preservation methods are mostly drying and less often frozen. Dried fish is usually eaten with seal oil. The ulu or fan-shaped knife used for cutting up fish, meat, food, and such.

The Yup'ik, like other Eskimo groups, were semi-nomadic hunter-fisher-gatherers who moved seasonally throughout the year within a reasonably well-defined territory to harvest fish, bird, sea and land mammal, berry and other renewable resources. Yup'ik cuisine is based on traditional subsistence food harvests (hunting, fishing and berry gathering) supplemented by seasonal subsistence activities. The Yup'ik region is rich with waterfowl, fish, and sea and land mammals. The coastal settlements rely more heavily on sea mammals (seals, walrusses, beluga whales), many species of fish (Pacific salmon, herring, halibut, flounder, trout, burbot, Alaska blackfish), shellfish, crabs, and seaweed. The inland settlements rely more heavily on Pacific salmon and freshwater whitefish, land mammals (moose, caribou), migratory waterfowl, bird eggs, berries, greens, and roots help sustain people throughout the region.

The akutaq (Eskimo ice cream), tepa (stinkheads), mangtak (muktuk) some of the most well-known traditional Yup'ik delicacies.

Traditional subsistence foods are mixed with what is commercially available. Today about half the food is supplied by subsistence activities (subsistence foods), the other half is purchased from the commercial stores (market foods, store-bought foods).

Yupik Cuisine

Both the Yup'ik (and Siberian Yupik) and cuisines are also known as Eskimo cuisine in Alaska. The oldest, most stable cuisine in North America is found above the Arctic Circle in Alaska. Long overlooked and pitifully misunderstood, the cuisine's roots lie buried in Eastern Asia, whence Iñupiaq and Yupik ancestors ventured to Siberia, across Beringia, and on to Alaska during the last ice age, 50,000 to 15,000 years ago. The remoteness of the Inupiat and Yupik cultures accounts for their rich and intact food history. The Yupik-Inupiaq split probably occurred about one thousand years ago. The Arctic cuisine is composed of a high-protein diet without grains, supplemented with wild greens, roots, and berries. Fortunately, dietitians consider the diet nutritious and balanced with abundant vitamins, minerals, proteins and valuable unsaturated fats derived from a vast array of sea and land mammals, fish, fowl, wild plants and berries.

Yup’ik cuisine is different from Alaskan , Canadian Inuit, and Greenlandic diets. Yup'ik communities varied widely in what foods were available to them, but everyone used similar food processing and food preservation methods, including air drying and smoking, food storage in cold water and oil, fermentation, and freezing. Some foods were eaten raw.Yuungnaqpiallerput
Neqkiuryaraq Neqnek-llu Qemagciyaraq = Food preparation and storage
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Prehistoric Yup'ik Eskimos probably relied upon a mix of anadromous fish (salmon and char), terrestrial mammals (caribou), and marine mammals (seal and walrus) for subsistence foods.Janet Schichnes and Molly Chythlook (1988),
Use of fish and wildlife in Manokotak, Alaska
'. Technical Paper No. 152, Alaska Department of Fish and Game, Division of Subsistence, Dillingham, Alaska, December 1988.

What meals the Yupik eat

The type of meal () eaten at any given time varies by custom and location.

*Breakfast (''unuakutaq'') is eaten within an hour or two after a person wakes in the morning.
*Lunch or dinner ( from Russian обе́д ) is eaten around mid-day.
*Supper or dinner (''atakutaq'') is eaten in the evening.

The Nunivak Eskimos ( in Cup'ig, ''Nunivaarmiut'' in Yup'ik and Cup'ik) eat frequently in the course of a 24-hour period. They go to bed at sundown or early evening in the spring and fall, and well before sundown in summer, but arise early, often at 3:00 or 4:00 a.m. and regularly at 5:00 or 5:30. The time of rising depended on the sea tide and the time when tomcod or other fish are running. The first meal of the day is eaten at this time and another about 11:00 a.m., with snacks once or twice in between depending on the work schedule and the availability of food. The evening meal is usually at 4:30 or 5:00 p.m. with additional snacks between the main meals. In winter the entire meal schedule is likely to be moved forward, with the first meal of the day being eaten at 10:00 or 10:30 a.m. The most common food is dried or frozen fish dipped in seal oil. The evening or late afternoon meal, the hot meal of the day, frequently consisted of boiled fish or other boiled food and tea.James W. VanStone (1989),
Nunivak Island Eskimo (Yuit) technology and material culture
'. Chicago: Field Museum of Natural History, 1989. Fieldiana, Anthropology, New Series, No. 12. 108 p.

Food preservation and preparations

Food preparation techniques are uncooked raw (''Cassar-'' "to eat raw flesh or meat", ''arepa-'' "to eat raw food"), fermentation, and cooking (''keir-''). In the past, the Yup'ik nourishment consisted of raw meat, including its blood, and sometimes the meat was cooked.

Food preservation

Meat or Flesh (''kemek'' in Yup'ik and Cup'ik, ''kemeg'' in Cup'ig) is primary main food.

Fish in the food industry

Fish as food, especially Pacific salmon of the subfamily Salmoninae in the family Salmonidae or in some places, non-salmon species, such as freshwater whitefish of the subfamily Coregoninae in the family Salmonidae, are primary main subsistence food for Yup'ik Eskimos. Both food and fish (and salmon) called ''neqa'' sg ''neqet'' pl in Yup'ik.Jacobson, Steven A. (2012)
Yup'ik Eskimo Dictionary, 2nd edition
Alaska Native Language Center.Nuniwarmiut Piciryarata Tamaryalkuti : Nunivak Island Cup'ig Language Preliminary Dictionary Also for salmon called ''neqpik ~ neqpiaq'' sg ''neqpiit ~ neqpiat'' pl in Yup'ik, means literally “real, genuine food”. But, main food for Iñupiaq Eskimos is meat of whale and caribou (both food and meat called ''niqi'' in Iñupiaq, also for meat called ''niqipiaq'' “real, genuine food”).

Salmon as food, herring as food, smelt, halibut, flounder, tomcod, pike, and capelin were gutted and air dried or smoked. The fish heads they made into ''qamiqurrluk'' (cut and dried fish heads), and some they made into ''tepa'' (aged fish heads). Fish eggs (roe) were dried and stored.

Uncooked

''Qassaq'' or ''Qassaulria'' is raw food, raw flesh or raw meat.

''Quaq'' (in the Inuit languages: Iñupiaq ''quaq'', Nunavut Inuktitut and Nunavik Inuttitut ᖁᐊᖅ ''quaq'', South Baffin Kingarmiut ''xuaq'', Labrador Inuttitut ''ĸuak'', Greenlandic ''quaq'') is meat or fish to be eaten raw and frozen

''Nutaqaq'' is frozen raw fish.

''Qassayaaq'' or ''Qassayagaq'' (lit. «baby raw fish») frozen raw whitefish aged (fermented) before freezing and served frozen.

''Kumlaciq'' (in Yup'ik, ''kumlacir'' in Cup'ig) is frozen meat (of frozen fish, blackfish, and others as well) to be eaten in that state. Frozen food is a method for preserving fish or meat.

''Kumlaneq'' (in Yup'ik, ''kumlanaq'' in Hooper Bay-Chevak Cup'ik; but, ''kumlaner'' in Nunivak Cup'ig means "cold water, cold spring water; permafrost, frozen soil") is frozen fish to be eaten in that state. Freezing of chinook and particularly coho salmon was relatively common. Chinook salmon were usually cut up into smaller pieces before being placed into plastic Ziploc bags. Smaller species, such as chum, sockeye, coho, and pink salmon were frequently frozen uncut and whole.

''Kumlivirluuki'' is stored in freezer (''kumlivik'').

''Qercuqaq'' is hard frozen fish (blackfish or the like).

Fermented fish is a traditional preparation of fish as fermented food.

''Ciss'uq'' (''Ciss'ur'' in Nunivak Cup'ig) is fermented herring or capelin that have been buried underground for two weeks.

''Tepcuaraq'' (''tepcuar(aq)'' or ''tepcuaraq kumlaneq'') is fish that has been frozen after being allowed to age slightly, eaten uncooked and frozen. ''Kumlaneq'' is aged spawned out salmon.Judith M. Morris (1985),
The use of fish and wildlife resources by residents of the Bristol Bay Borough, Alaska
'. Technical Paper No. 123, Alaska Department of Fish and Game, Division of Subsistence, Juneau, Alaska, December 1985. ''Tepcuaraq kumlaneq'' is aged and frozen fish. The whole fish can be either cleaned of their entrails or left intact, then buried under ground in a pit lined with grass and left for about a week depending on the temperature. If the fish are caught in the late fall, they are stored in a wooden or cardboard box until they are aged, and then frozen. Tepcuaraq kumlaneq are eaten frozen with seal oil.James A. Fall, Molly Chythlook, Janet C. Schichnes, and Judith M. Morris (1996),
An overview of the harvest and use of freshwater fish by the communities of the Bristol Bay Region, Southwest Alaska
'. Technical Paper No. 166, Alaska Department of Fish and Game, Division of Subsistence, Juneau, Alaska, July 1996.

''Tepngayaaq'' is fermented a little frozen fish.

''Tepa'' (sg ''Tepet'' pl; lit. «odor, smell, aroma, scent») is aged or fermented salmon fish head. Known as ''aged fish head'' or ''fermented fish head'', commonly called as ''stinkheads, stink heads, stinky heads''. Tepas were considered a traditional special Yup'ik delicacy, but really the dish is something favored mostly by older Alaska Natives.
Traditionally, most people continued to make tepa in the summer. Heads (''pakegvissaaq'' is head of fish including pectoral fins) of chinook (king), sokeye (red), chum (dog), and occasionally, coho (silver) salmon were prepared by burying them in the ground and allowed them to ferment before eating. The traditional way to prepare tepa was to bury the heads in the ground along with most of the fish guts in a wooden barrel covered with burlap material.Jody Seitz (199
''Subsistence salmon fishing in Nushagak Bay, Southwest Alaska''
Technical Paper No. 195, Alaska Department of Fish and Game, Division of Subsistence, Juneau, Alaska, December 1990. Earthen pits lined with grass were used for this process. Salmon milt and eggs were added to the heads which were then covered with another layer of grass before being covered over with earth. The fermenting process took from one to two weeks depending on temperature of the ground. One salmon production unit prepared four pits of tepa. The pits measured approximately 18 inches deep and 2 feet square and contained approximately 75 salmon heads each. The heads of 1,000 chinook, 726 sockeye, 1,246 chum, and 41 coho salmon were prepared as tepa by Kwethluk households during 1986. One resident told the researchers, "to the Native it's like candy or bubblegum, sweet and sour, in between the two." However, with the introduction of plastic buckets, the danger of botulism has surfaced and informants stressed the importance of avoiding these types of modern containers since the "oldfashioned" methods allowed oxygen to circulate and prevented the growth of bacteria which causes botulism. Heads stored underground in plastic bags are more likely to develop botulism than fish stored in grasses. It was soon discovered that the traditional method of preparing the tepas was safer than the modern way.Angayuqaq Oscar Kawagley, Delena Norris-Tull, and Roger A. Norris-Tull (1998)
The indigenous worldview of Yupiaq culture: its scientific nature and relevance to the practice and teaching of science
''Journal of Research in Science Teaching'' Vol. 35, #2

''Arumaarrluk'' (''arumarrluk'') or ''arumaarrluaq'' is poke fish or poked fish slightly smoked and stored in seal oil.

''Uqumaarrluk'' is poke fish slightly aged and stored in seal oil.

''Uqumelnguq'' (in Yup'ik, ''uqumelzngur'' in Cup'ig) is smoked fish soaked in seal oil.

Most of the salmon that was dried and smoked was eaten without any further preparation. Dried salmon sometimes eaten with seal oil.

''Niinamayak'' (in Yup'ik, ''nin'amayuk'' in Canineq Yup'ik, ''nin'amayag'' in Nunivak Cup'ig) is partially (half) dried aged (fermented) herring.

''Cin'aq'' (Yukon, Hooper Bay and Chevak, Lake Iliamna, and Nunivak) is cheese-like fish aged in a pit. This fish is usually dog (chum) or king (chinook) salmon. The salmon whole (except the guts) aged through the process of burying them into the marshy, muddy lowland (''maraq''). The hole is dug until the permafrost is exposed. The bottom of the hole is then covered with dry grass, moss, and cardboard. Then several salmon are placed in. The top of the salmon is again covered with grass, moss and or cardboard, then the remaining dug up groung is placed back into the hole, tightly covering the contents. The aged salmon fish are usually dug out during the early winter, and eaten as a delicacy.John Pingayak (1998),
The Cup'ik People of the Western Tundra: A Curriculum
'. University of Alaska Anchorage, Institute of Social and Economic Research (ISER); Kashunamiut School District, Chevak, AK. Also

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''Melucuaq'' (lit. «small roe») or ''Elquaq'' (lit. «seaweed») is herring roe-on-kelp, herring spawn-on-kelp, or herring eggs on kelp. This is the fertilized eggs or roe (''qaarsat, meluk, imlauk'') of the Pacific herring attached to eelgrass