So, I've eaten some interesting things in my time; muktuk ranks among the top of that list. Muktuk, or whale skin and blubber, is considered a delicacy among the Inuvialuit people. Last Friday, our host, Martin, secured some muktuk from someone at work.

Muktuk is the thick leathery skin of the whale (several layers of it, similar to our however many layers of skin) and part of the layer of blubber that lies beneath it. It's served in several forms, of which I know two: stink muktuk and fresh.

Fresh muktuk is pretty straight forward: it hasn’t been cured at all and is best served when the whale has just been killed – though it will stay good for a long time in a freezer. Whales are hunted in the short summer months, when the sea ice has melted and there is open water.

Stink muktuk stinks, because it has been put away to rot for a certain amount of time. This gives it a "strong" taste. If made well, it's "delicious" and if made badly it can cause botulism - yikes! click HERE to learn about that fun disease. Apparently, some communities make stink muktuk better than others. Other communities think they make it well but don't, and the ones that do make it well send it to them so they don't start an outbreak of botulism. Neighbourly of them, no?

On this night we had fresh beluga muktuk. Beluga is more common in the central and high Arctic, but bowhead is apparently a better catch. Below you see several chunks of muktuk with the, er..."traditional" condiment of HP sauce.
No time to be squeamish (well actually, there is always time to be squeamish)! Ok...here I go!Hmm…texture is strange. The skin is like a meaty cheese and actually tastes like a mild blue cheese. The blubber however is a little on nasty side. The fishy taste I didn’t mind, but the texture was not pleasing to me. It was at this point that I gagged a little and went for a little more HP sauce to help it go down. Verdict: not half bad! Especially when compared to all the horror stories we heard, not to mention the threat of botulism! I actually went back for two more pieces, though I did cut off the blubber. Below you can see a little better how the skin actually looks like cheese, almost like a really thick rind of brie.