These past few chilly days have been the perfect chance to catch up a bit on the literature of Arctic exploration.
Exploring the Kamchatka in the early 1740s, Georg Wilhelm Steller observed murrelets on their breeding cliffs:
At night these birds stand in long rows on the edges of the cliffs, from which in their sleep they often fall into the water, and are in great peril of being caught by Arctic foxes, which commonly lie in wait for them at the base of cliffs. They breed in June; their eggs are green and almost as large as those of a hen; boiled, they harden somewhat, but they have an unpleasant taste; that notwithstanding, the inhabitants of the Kamchatka climb the highest cliffs in search of them, even risking their lives.
The adults, too, were highly sought after:
They capture them with nets, and in the evening with nooses, too, fastened to long, sturdy sticks; and these birds are so stupid and careless that even thought they see birds being taken right next to them, they keep standing still until they too have the noose around their neck.
Steller even preserves the local recipe:
They dig pits in the ground and roast the whole bird there, without plucking it or removing the innards, and when it is sufficiently cooked, they strip off the skin and eat it that way.
And so did Steller and his shipmates.
The meat is tough and sinewy, but … not bad, by the culinary standards of Kamchatka.
Me, I’ve been drinking a lot of hot chocolate and eating a lot of gingerbread.
