Out of the cold

Summer brings the Arctic to life, nowhere more so than in home and restaurant kitchens. Mike Peters hops off a cruise ship touring Greenland to sample the local bounty.

I must have been a polar bear in a previous life. I have been eating seal and whale for three days in a row.

That's just one amazing aspect of a trip to Greenland, where the population is small and indigenous, and the land is huge and largely inhospitable. Locals have hunted and eaten seal and whale for centuries. Seal fur is used to make warm clothing and shelter, though environmental groups often criticize the trade in hides abroad.

"Seal meat is the most delicious in world," says Salik, who guided our group from a Silversea cruise ship to see the sights of the capital, Nuuk. He insists that seal is hunted in a sustainable way for meat, noting that there are 3 million seals in Greenland and only about 200,000 are consumed annually.

So many Greenlanders say this, in fact, that I set aside my scruples and tried it. We stopped by a community center, where we were also offered fresh-caught shrimp - delectably like we'd find in a top sushi restaurant - and air-dried whale, the black flesh chewy like a thick slice of beef jerky or fruit leather.

The cubes of seal meat were bright pink, greasy with fat, and fairly bland.

Two nights later I am eating seal again, this time at one of the few gourmet restaurants in Greenland. Chef Jeppe Nielsen, who has built an international reputation at the Ulo restaurant in Illulisat, reduces the seal flesh, onion and potato into a soup called suaasat, which is often described as the national dish of Greenland. Nielsen's version is a splash of the thick reduction in a plate, topped with green salad, fresh rings of white onion, and a heavy dusting of angelica "snow", a deconstruction of a local herb he says is a sure sign summer has arrived.

"I will always associate its characteristic aroma and taste with sunshine and warmth," Nielsen tells Air Greenland's inflight magazine, Suluk. "It is always a good day when the first angelica gets to the kitchen and its fragrance spreads though the air."

In the summer, Nielsen says, hardscrabble Greenland really lives up to its name, becoming a fruitful herb garden that his kitchen team eagerly harvests. Labrador tea, a rosemarylike herb with spiky leaves and a piney taste, favors a melt-in-your-mouth slab of halibut prepared with miso emulsion, bacon and burned heather. The plants never grow tall because of the short growing season near the Arctic Circle, but the low-to-the ground landscape also offers mushrooms like the birch bolete and the Arctic puffball, ubiquitous lichen (used mainly in desserts) and harebells, tiny blue wildflowers that "taste a little like strongly perfumed nuts".

The meatiest moments on the menu come from hearty musk ox - most famous for its oddly curling horns and the warmth of its fur - and Greenlandic lamb, wonderfully tender thanks to grass feeding in a pesticide-free landscape. The salt-crusted lamb in a thick pea puree is the hit of a seven-course tasting menu, but the medium-rare musk ox gets its share of raves, too.

One night earlier in the capital, Nuuk, the musk ox came in a fussier, more molecular presentation at Sarfalik, the acclaimed restaurant at Hotel Hans Egede. We nibbled slices of haunch and heart - the latter served as a pair of crisps - with musk-ox mayonnaise, spelt and buckthorn.

That tasting menu also featured whale and scallops from the nearby fjord, served with the piney Labrador tea, lime and yoghurt.

Dessert at both restaurants featured fresh berries: Late-summer's bounty includes crowberries, blueberries and cranberries. We savor them at a window seat, as another spectacular Arctic sunset washes the horizon with crimson and gold.

"It is not unusual to meet people who are completely blue around the mouth after a trip in the fells where they have eaten crowberries," says Nielsen. "The summer is short, intense - and filled with taste."

Contact the writer at michaelpeters@chinadaily.com.cn

(China Daily 09/11/2015 page19)