Oogrook

Melody and I heard early this afternoon that there was someone butchering a seal down near the store. We went down to see. They were outside the house of the mom of the guy who had killed it. We watched her (Helga) cut off the meat she wanted. The guy who killed it said he would probably give most of it away because it was the first one and they would catch more seals (and belugas, too!).



Just from watching her, I could tell she had been carving up seals and other animals for most of her (long) life. She was so quick to find where the bones where and where to best carve out the slabs of meat.

Helga taught us the Eskimo word for seal: oogrook. There were a couple of garbage bags of blubber sitting on the guy's sled. Helga and Ruth (another elder who was standing there talking with us) told us that they would put the blubber in a bucket and just let it sit. It would render into seal oil. Seal oil is what they used to use to light their lamps, and they still use it in a lot of recipes. We also learned that seal intestines are a delicacy.



Apparently, they scrape the meat part away from the skin of it and boil it up. Talk about using every part of the animal! :-)