- for
Simon Ortiz, and for all our friends and relatives who
love it
It's best made in dry-fish camp on a beach by a fish stream
on sticks over an open fire, or during fishing or during
cannery season.
In this case, we'll make it in the city, baked in an electric
oven on a black fry pan.
INGREDIENTS Bar-b-q sticks of alder wood. In this case the
oven will do. Salmon: River salmon, current super market
cost $4.99 a pound. In this case, salmon poached from river.
Seal oil or hooligan oil. In this case, butter or Wesson
oil, if available.
DIRECTIONS To butcher, split head up the jaw. Cut through.
Remove gills. Split from throat down the belly.
Gut, but make sure you toss all to the seagulls and the
ravens, because they're your kin, and make sure you speak
to them while you're feeding them. Then split down along
the back bone and through the skin. Enjoy how nice it looks
when it's split.
Push stake through flesh and skin like pushing a needle
through cloth, so that it hangs on stakes while cooking
over fire made from alder wood.
Then sit around and watch the slime on the salmon begin
to dry out. Notice how red the flesh is, and how silvery
the skin looks. Watch and listen how the grease crackles,
and smell its delicious aroma drifting around on a breeze.
Mash some fresh berries to go along for dessert. Pour seal
oil in with a little water. Set aside.
In this case, put the poached salmon in a fry pan. Smell
how good it smells while it's cooking, because it's soooooooooooo
important.
Cut up an onion. Put in a small dish. Notice how nice this
smells too, and how good it will taste. Cook a pot of rice
to go along with salmon. Find some soy sauce to put on rice,
or maybe borrow some.
In this case, think about how nice the berries would have
been after the salmon, but open a can of fruit cocktail
instead.
Then go out by the cool stream and get some skunk cabbage,
because it's biodegradable, to serve the salmon from. Before
you take back the skunk cabbage, you can make a cup out
of one to drink from the cool stream.
In this case, plastic forks, paper plates and cups will
do, and drink cool water from the faucet.
TO SERVE. After smelling smoke and fish and watching the
cooking, smelling the skunk cabbage and the berries mixed
with seal oil, when the salmon is done, put salmon on stakes
on the skunk cabbage and pour some seal oil over it and
watch the oil run into the nice cooked flakey flesh which
has now turned pink.
Shoo mosquitoes off the salmon, and shoo the ravens away,
but don't insult them, because mosquitoes
are known to be the ashes of the cannibal giant, and Raven
is known to take off with just about anything.
In this case, dish out on paper plates from fry pan. Serve
to all relatives and friends you have invited to the bar-b-q
and those who love it.
And think how good it is that we have good spirits that
still bring salmon and oil.
TO EAT
Everyone knows that you can eat
just about every part of the salmon,
so I don't have to tell you
that you start from the head,
because it's everyone's favorite.
You take it apart,
bone by bone,
but be sure you don't miss
the eyes,
the cheeks,
the nose,
and the very best part
the jawbone.
You start on the mandible with a glottalized alveolar fricative
action as expressed in the Tlingit verb als'oos'.
Chew on the tasty, crispy skins
before you start on the bones.
Eiiiiiiii!!!!!!
How delicious.
Then you start on the body
by sucking on the fins
with the same action.
Include the crispy skins,
and then the meat with grease oozing all over it.
Have some cool water from the stream
with the salmon.
In this case,
water from the faucet will do.
Enjoy how the water tastes sweeter with salmon.
When done, toss the bones to the ravens
and seagulls, and mosquitoes,
but don't throw them in the salmon stream
because the salmon have spirits
and don't like to see the remains
of their kin thrown in by us
among them in the stream.
In this case, put bones in plastic bag
to put in dumpster.
Now settle back to a story telling session
while someone feeds the fire.
In this case,
small talk and jokes with friends will do
while you drink beer.
If you shouldn't drink beer,
tea or coffee will do nicely.
Gunalcheesh for coming to my bar-b-q.
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