Kiviak

Kiviak is a traditional wintertime Inuit food from Greenland that is made of auks preserved in the hollowed-out body of a seal.

Around 500 auks are put into the seal skin intact, including beaks, feet and feathers, before as much air as possible is removed from the seal skin, which is then sewn up and sealed with grease, with a large rock placed on top to keep the air content low. Over the course of seven months, the birds ferment, and are then eaten during the Greenlandic winter, particularly on birthdays and weddings.

The process was featured in the third episode of the BBC's Human Planet in 2011.^[1]

Attention was brought to traditional food preparation when a man died of botulism by eating a bird in a seal in Northern Greenland. A story was reported on KNR, the national news media. An English version of the story is on The Fourth Continent blog.

See also

• Surströmming
• Hákarl

References

External links

Look up kiviak in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

• "Kiviak". Food Lorists.