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Arctic and Antarctic Exploration Food & The role of Inuits
Hello!
New episode is out!
Firstly, remember my news? Our first and possibly only food history festival is happening this year! October 18th , Saturday all day, and of course online! So you can all attend virtually! Get your tickets at eventbrite at serve it forth food history festival. It’s going to be an amazing day, with some fantastic guests, and of course my three fellow food historians, Alessandra Pino, Sam Bilton and Neil Buttery!
Tickets here, with 25% discount!
But let's go back to our adventure!
There’s a vast, uninhabited desert, a huge continental mass than no humans colonised…. A desolate, white, freezing cold land mass, with millions of penguins and seals but no human beings, no permanent settlement by our species, not unless one counts the scientific stations established in the mid of the last century or so.
The Arctic was inhabited for many centuries before the Vikings ventured to Greenland. These people survived and thrived even on occasion! Of course the Antarctic is so much more extreme than the Arctic. And so far and isolated from any other place. But explorers, navigators, and sailors from European Colonial powers who were brave enough, curious enough and driven by some bizarre desire to be the first to reach the south pole or explore the continent from one end to the other, these humans had to learn how to first survive in these extreme, inhuman conditions! And learn, copy, improvise and improve from societies and nations who lived in similar conditions…These adventurers needed to survive for months, many many months on end on ice! Perhaps without ever reaching for outside help. And of course food is paramount!
Some links about stuff on this episode:
How does kiviaq taste like?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DhPCJOaE4ZM&t=132s
Indigenous fish techniques from Canada's First Nations:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6li84mjUZT8
Kerguelen cabbage:
https://www.britannica.com/plant/Kerguelen-cabbage
Macquarie Island cabbage:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Azorella_polaris
The Flora, Vegetation, and Soils of Macquarie Island:
https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/The_Flora_Vegetation_and_Soils_of_Macqua/fEtEAAAAYAAJ?hl=en
Music by Pavlos Kapralos
Much love,
Thom & The Delicious Legacy Podcast
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