Tlingit cuisine

"[1] This refers to the richness of intertidal life found on the beaches of Southeast Alaska, most of which can be harvested for food.

Since food is so easy to gather from the beaches, a person who cannot feed himself at least enough to stay alive is considered a fool, perhaps mentally incompetent or suffering from very bad luck.

Thus for both spiritual reasons as well as to add some variety to the diet, the Tlingit harvest many other resources for food besides what they easily find outside their front doors.

Rice (koox) has long been a staple, as have pilot crackers (gháatl), and both have specific terms in Tlingit that are adapted from now-uneaten foods (Kamchatka lily and a type of tree fungus).

Archaeological work has uncovered a number of sites where long rows of sharpened stakes were hammered into the gravel and mud.

They have the particular advantage of working without constant attendance, and harvesters can come by a few times a day to remove the caught fish and process them.

Their disadvantage is that they are slow, and depend largely on luck to catch salmon being pushed downstream by the current; placement in well-known channels increases the recovery, but still does not compare to more active means of harvest.

This is in contrast to commercial fish traps used in Alaska in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, which devastated runs, and in some cases completely destroyed spawning populations.

The boat then slowly motors around areas where salmon, usually kings, are known to school during the winter, aided by ultrasonic fish-finders.

The harvest by this method is fairly small as it depends more on luck; salmon are not guaranteed to bite at lures and bait, unlike the certainty in catching them while spawning.

Because of this limited take, trolling is usually avoided during spawning season and only used to bring home fresh fish in the winter.

The most common storage methods today are vacuum-sealed freezing of raw fish, and either hard or soft smoking, the latter often followed by canning.

Salmon are cleaned as soon as they are harvested from the stream or river, and split along the back and left to hang dry on large racks for a few days.

Some claim it is best to let the salmon soak in salt water overnight before drying, to further reduce the slime and soften the flesh.

Once dry, the fish are further cut apart from head to tail and belly to back, then placed in a smokehouse for some period of time.

The Tlingit ate freshly caught halibut and also dried the fish for consumption in the winter and also as a trade commodity.

The wooden hooks had carvings of various creatures and shaman images intended both to frighten the halibut and to show respect for them.

[7][8] Herring (Clupea pallasii) and hooligan (Thaleichthys pacificus) both provide important foods in the Tlingit diet.

Cleaning and removal of the viscera is optional, and if being frozen whole many do not bother due to the diminutive size of the fish.

Either ribbon kelp or (preferably) hemlock branches are submerged in an area where herring are known to spawn, and are marked with a buoy.

The branches or kelp are removed and boiled in large cauldrons or fifty-five gallon drums on the beach, often as part of a family or community event.

The cooked eggs may be salted, frozen, dried in cakes, or submerged in seal oil to preserve them for use throughout the year.

Some Tlingit are connoisseurs, knowing certain regions by their flavor or texture, and good harvest grounds are often jealously guarded secrets.

Today hooligan are, when not tried for their oil, most often vacuum-sealed and frozen, kept in large freezers found outside many Tlingit households.

As with salmon, they may be pierced with a stick and set over a fire to roast; this is a particularly common practice during the harvest when overnighting at a remote location, or at a beach party or picnic.

[10] Research by archeologists has shown that Tlingit peoples have been hunting harbor seals with harpoons for almost 600 years or longer.

A more practical explanation follows from the tendency of the Tlingit to harvest and eat in moderation despite the surrounding abundance of foodstuffs.

[12] Many Tlingit explain the Gulf Coast whale hunt as an areal influence of the Eyak and the Alutiiq Eskimos of Prince William Sound further north.

Game forms a sizable component of the traditional Tlingit diet, and the majority of food that is not derived from the sea.

[13] A Tlingit elder was quoted as saying "Gathering eggs in Glacier Bay was something especially the family looked forward to.