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Fish and seafood from United States

Ciss'uq (pit-fermented herring or capelin)ciss'uq (Yup'ik)

Ciss'uq is Yup'ik herring or capelin fermented by burying the fish underground, recorded as about two weeks in the ground. No salt is described. At Buckland, Iñupiaq makers also ferment herring in grass-lined holes under soil.

A short entry: the sources we found record only what is said here about Ciss'uq itself.

Short entryFish and seafood14 days

Recipe

No fixed amounts recordedNo amounts are recorded.
Herring or capelin[wiki-yupik-cuisine]

Total time across the recorded steps: 14 days

Start
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What changes: Starting material: herring or capelin

Step 1 of 3
Catch the fish
Time
Not documented
Temperature
Not documented
Salt
None given
Acidity
Not documented
Flavour
Not documented
Texture
Not documented
Colour
Not documented

Microbes at work in this step

Not documented for this step.

Method

Measured measured in a studySet fixed by a specification or tested recipeReported one source reports itTypical a general value, not sourced for this fermentUnconfirmed not yet checked against a source

At a glance

Ciss'uq is Yup'ik herring or capelin fermented by burying the fish underground, recorded as about two weeks in the ground. No salt is described. At Buckland, Iñupiaq makers also ferment herring in grass-lined holes under soil. Made in 3 steps over 14 days. The longest step, bury the fish in the ground, takes 14 days (English Wikipedia 2026).

Key numbers
Main step14 daysReported[wiki-yupik-cuisine]Bury the fish in the ground

What makes this one different

Ciss'uq uses herring or capelin, while tepa (stinkheads) uses salmon heads. Both are buried in the ground.

Related ferments

Safety

Most foodborne botulism in Alaska is type E, which comes only from aquatic animals, and all cases have been linked to traditional Alaska Native foods, including fermented ones. Storing such foods in airtight plastic is a modern change thought to be partly behind the rise in cases (McLaughlin et al. 2004). A US Fish and Wildlife Service report says traditional foods made properly without plastic do not generally form the toxin (Jones 2006). That is not a guarantee. Alaska's botulism guide says traditional preparation will not always prevent toxin production. It says outbreak foods were aged in pits in the ground as well as in closed or airtight containers, and its 1950–2010 table lists herring as the implicated food in one outbreak, though no food from it tested positive. CDC advises boiling all home-fermented Alaska Native foods for 10 minutes before eating, with 1 more minute for each additional 1,000 feet of elevation. You cannot see, smell or taste the toxin, and even a small taste can be deadly.

Hazards the sources name: Clostridium botulinum type E, linked to aquatic animal foods and to fermented foods in Alaska.

History and sources

Every number is labelled with how it is known. How this atlas is made

  1. [wiki-yupik-cuisine] English Wikipedia, Yup'ik cuisine, section on fermented fish (read 2026-10-23)wiki
  2. [jones2006] Jones A. 2006, Iqaluich Niġiñaqtuat, Fish That We Eat, Final Report FIS02-023, US Fish and Wildlife Service, Office of Subsistence Managementgov
  3. [mclaughlin2004] McLaughlin J.B., Sobel J., Lynn T., Funk E., Middaugh J.P. 2004, Botulism type E outbreak associated with eating a beached whale, Alaska, Emerging Infectious Diseases 10(9)paper
  4. [akdph2011] Alaska Division of Public Health, Section of Epidemiology 2011, Botulism in Alaska, a guide for physicians and health care providers, 2011 updategov
  5. [cdc-botulism] US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Botulism Prevention (updated 26 February 2026)gov