Smoked whale

[Trond C]

Whale is meat, meat can be smoked, and whalemeat is nice smoked. The animal is a minke whale, they shoot it with equipment like this under here, a local whaler. I live at the coast and there is an island out here famous for whaling - but the demand is smaller than before, and the hunters only take out 1/3 of their quota. 


It's not always easy to get whale meat, but I bought 2 kilos when I had the chance, very black, low fat and tender.


When I was a child we ate a lot of whale meat, but then it was not so carefully treated as now, it was looked upon as everyday food, often a taste like cod liver oil (we had to drink a spoonful of that oil every morning, very good for your health, I still try to do so in fact, in winter  :) ) Now it is rather expensive and is carefully treated before sold.

It is best either raw in thin slices, or carefully on high temperature in the frying pan, and served rare. It's also nice in stews, gives a very good sauce, but gets dry if cooked just a little to much.

After one hour bath in coarse salt I had it in the Bradley at 185 F until an internal temperature of 113, around one hour in there, with alder smoke. So more or less raw.


I have a little strait passing our house here, a lot of smaller vessels pass, now before I ate my whale a nice tugboat passed by


I cut the meat in thin slices, had on bread with lettuce, a mix of sour cream and mayonnaise, some lime, ground pepper, onion rings and  some sort of "caviar" - not Russian caviar but very reasonable priced fish eggs treated to a nice salty taste  ;D

Then my whale looked like this, and tasted very nice  :)

[TestRocket]

Very interesting and I'm sure a very touchy subject for some! But I myself would try the meat but please man don't let any of my food touch mayonnaise or sour cream!    :o  ;D

[iceman]

Heck Trond that looks good. I'd give it a try for sure but like TR said, hold the mayo.  ;D

[ronbeaux]

I got no problem eating a whale. Great post!!

[NePaSmoKer]

Very nice and one whale of a view  ;D

[Quarlow]

Well I really don't know how to respond to this. Yes a touchy subject. I suppose I would not have a problem if you were Inuit as they need whale to survive. But seen as you are not I ...............I guess I should just keep my opinion to myself. I am a hunter (although I have not hunted for some 20 odd years) and I have worked on the commercial fishboats, I have harvest oysters from the beaches and muscles from the pilings, I have eaten kelp from the sea and been an avid sport fishermen enjoying the fruits of my efforts. But I see no need to eat Minke whales or any other whales. Be they from Norway or Japan I do believe there should be no whales taken from the oceans. Please don't take this as hostile as I am writting this with very calm abandon, not wanting to offend you cause it is obviously cultural tradition. And I know our country has fished the cod on the east coast to the point of near destruction and that the salmon stocks of the west coast have at times been well below what ever should have been allowed to get to (though the seem to be having record returns lately) and that is the fault of DFO for allowing it to get this bad. Having said all this I know there are other things that are harvested and should not be and if someone posted that they were about to eat there neighbours dogs I would have something to say about that also. I am not the kind to go out hugging trees cause they want to cut some down although if there were eagle nests at risk I just might hug a tree or 2, ...........wait a minute... this is not keeping my opinion to my self is it. OK I will shut up now. Trond Very creative and nice presentation.

[OU812]

That kinda looks like deer meat.

[ghost9mm]

Well since you are in Norway and the Norwegian whaling has a history stretching at least one thousand years back, heck I'll try it... :D

[Keymaster]

I respect your upbringing and traditions TrondC and if it is acceptable to eat whale in your country , right on!!! I don't think a mammal should eat a water Mammal, but thats my 2 cents and I like your posts and look forward to more!!!!

[KyNola]

Hey Q, got your back on this one. 8)

[3rensho]

Looks great Trond C.  Last time I was in Oslo I had some whale carpaccio in a restaurant and scored some smoked whale from a truck down by the harbor.  Great stuff.

[La Quinta]

Whale...really...I'm not doing a Cali thing but whale? I just think they are beautiful creatures...I like cows and pigs too...but I eat them...and fish...but whales? I'm not sure I could do it...but...OK...have at it... ??? It looks good... :o

[Trond C]

Thanks for nice comments! I know there is different opinions on shooting and eating whale, I respect that, was afraid of aggressive comments but no, that´s a quality forum sign  :) The mayo though, no mercy for mayo I see. Ok, some use it to much beside all sorts of food, but used carefully it´s nice, mayo is just egg yolks and oil/olive oil most of times, some vinegar and here, with garlic. Some places they call i Aioli, and here mixed with a bigger amount of sour cream - maybe that word is not quite on the point, we call it "roemme" and it is more or less like Cremefraiche, if my french is as it should  :) This mix is very good as cold salads with shrimps, scampi, cold salted herring etc.

Anyhow, I like pictures, and here is one of the pilot boat going out from this island with the whaling boat, I think there is only one left, one fine summer day in 2007.



And when I talk about boats, some weekends ago KNM Hitra went by here. She is now a working museum vessel, was given from USA to Norway in 1943 to use on an important route between here Norway west coast north of city Bergen to Scalloway in islands Shetland out west. Originally a sumbarine chaser built in 1942/43 at Fisher Boats Works in Detroit, it and two sister ships was used in stead of the small and slow fishing wessels used before, to carry agents, weapon etc.  More here : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HNoMS_Hitra

[Bigbirdoffroad]

I've eaten whale a few times on my trips to Greenland. Also had seal meat too.

[OU812]

Cool pictures my friend.

Never seen or put foot in the ocean but been to some big lakes.

Meat  is meat mans gotta eat.  ;D