Stink Eggs

Yesterday I wrote about Alaskan artificial honey and today I’d like to explore one of the weirdest foods I’ve ever heard of.

My wife’s first husband is a native Alaskan. She lived with him in his village for a time and she got to observe some strange stuff. Their diet consisted of a lot that the local items found in their natural environment. There were berries and roots and all sorts of fish and seals. There were deer, birds and bear.

Strangest of all was one food item called stink eggs. This is where you take salmon eggs, soak them in seal oil and place them in a porous cloth (seal skin) and bury them. They stay underground for two or three months at which time they ferment. Then they are dug up and eaten. In present day they put them in a jar and leave them in a warm room. When the lid blows off they are ready.

After hearing this tale I looked it up on the internet and found that stink eggs made in plastic or glass jars often causes an anaerobic environment which grew Botulism. The Botulism bacterium causes muscle paralysis.

So the next time your kids don’t want to eat their peas you can tell them how lucky they are to eat peas because if they lived in Alaska they’d have to eat stink eggs.