MealMap #75
Where does this dish come from?
Name reveals in 2 guesses
Raw fish, eaten frozen solid, shaved into long thin ribbons. The name literally means "shavings". The fish — traditionally freshwater whitefish of the far-northern rivers, occasionally sturgeon — is caught through the ice in late autumn and frozen fresh and straight so no ice crystals form in the flesh, sometimes glazed with near-freezing water to keep it from drying out. To serve, strips of skin are cut from back and belly, the fish is stood head-down on a hard surface and skinned, and a sharp knife draws long curls of fillet down the body. The curls go straight onto a frozen, non-metallic plate or an ice-cold bowl with salt and black pepper, and are eaten with the fingers while still frozen. A variation pairs it with frozen fresh milk; reindeer meat gets the same treatment under the same name.
- frozen whitefish (nelma, muksun, chir or omul)
- sturgeon
- salt
- black pepper
- frozen fresh milk
- reindeer meat
1 / 3Photo: UR3IRS · CC BY-SA 3.0 · Modified