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Inuit aged meats and fish (seal, walrus, narwhal, whale, caribou, char)igunaq (aged walrus or seal)
Inuit age many animal foods without salt or starter, in skin pouches or modern containers kept in caches under pebbles, in sheds or outdoors. The family covers walrus, seal, beluga and caribou igunaq, aged flippers, fish, narwhal and aged fat oil. It is decomposition more than acid fermentation, and field batches studied in Nunavik were not reliably cold.
Fully documentedMeat14 days – 42 days
Recipe
No fixed amounts recordedTraditional practice with no fixed amounts. Recipes, ageing places and times vary within and among communities.
Meat, fat or fish from one animal
Meat and fat pieces are aged without any other ingredient; most often no salt and no starter are added[leclair2008][campbell2022]
Skin pouch or a modern container
A pouch made from the animal's hide, or a plastic bag, hard plastic container, wooden box, galvanized barrel or glass container[leclair2008]
Starter
none added; most often no salt and no starter culture
Total time across the recorded steps: 14 days – 42 days
Start
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What changes:Starting material: meat, fat, flippers or fish, butchered at the shore
Step 1 of 4
Butcher and portion the animal
Time
Not documented
Temperature
Not documented
Salt
None given
Acidity
Not documented
Output: meat, fat, flippers or fish pieces.
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
Inuit age many animal foods without salt or starter, in skin pouches or modern containers kept in caches under pebbles, in sheds or outdoors. The family covers walrus, seal, beluga and caribou igunaq, aged flippers, fish, narwhal and aged fat oil. It is decomposition more than acid fermentation, and field batches studied in Nunavik were not reliably cold. Made in 4 steps over 14 days – 42 days. The longest step, cache and age, takes 14–42 days (Leclair D. 2008) and runs at 2–23 °C (Leclair D. 2008). Clostridium and Clostridium and Bacteroidales do most of the fermenting.
This entry groups the whole Inuit family of aged foods. Its best-studied member, walrus and seal igunaq, has its own page; others include puurtaq, aged flippers and paws (utjaq), aged fish and misiraq oil.
Igunaq (walrus, seal)Meat and fat sewn into skin and cached; see its own entry.
PuurtaqSeal meat and fat aged in a seal-skin pouch.
Utjaq (seal flippers and paws)Flippers and paws only, aged in a skin pouch or a modern container; still made in Nunavik.
Misiraq (aged fat oil)Seal or beluga fat stored in a skin pouch, or in a glass or plastic container, for several weeks until the soluble fat separates from the tissue; used as a condiment.
Aged fish and muktukThe thesis lists fish igunaq and an aged-fish-head outbreak in Nunavut, and says aged muktuk (beluga skin) is eaten in Nunavut and the Northwest Territories.
Safety
In the thesis, all type E botulism outbreaks in Nunavik with a known food source involved marine mammals, and at least 81.4 % of them involved aged products from seal, beluga or walrus. In its challenge study on seal igunaq, no preparation aged at 4 °C formed type E toxin, though two samples tested positive for type B toxin. Type E toxin did form at 10 and 20 °C, and the surface pH mostly rose toward neutral instead of falling as in acid fermentation. A later Canadian review says storage below 3 °C prevents toxin during ageing. Field batches averaged 10 °C, and toxin was found in two batches the producer had judged edible. Producers cited in the thesis name plastic bags, high temperature, lack of fat and still air as factors that may lead to poisonous igunaq. The thesis also notes that botulinum toxin is destroyed by boiling the food for 5 minutes, and CDC advises 10 minutes for home-fermented Alaska Native foods. These foods are commonly eaten uncooked, so they get no such protection. Botulism can kill, and the toxin cannot be seen, smelled or tasted (CDC). This page records a traditional practice; it is not a recipe to follow.
Hazards the sources name: Clostridium botulinum type E (aged marine mammal meat); Trichinella nativa (walrus; infective in frozen meat, none infective in 4–5 and 10-month field igunaq in one preliminary study).
Tigullaraq (2008) names Igloolik and Hall Beach as the communities known for the best igunaq on Baffin Island. Weetaluktuk surveyed Nunavik igunaq producers in 1997, and Leclair's thesis (2008) interviewed 20 producers of seal igunaq in five Nunavik villages. Campbell and colleagues (2022) report 16S sequencing of aged meats and fish and cell counts on 47 food samples, work commissioned by the Government of Nunavut.