Seal Seals My Doom

Seal Seals My Doom

I’m always eager to tick another food off my unwritten checklist of all the many edibles available to omnivores such as myself.

In Quebec recently, I ate at La Traite, a restaurant on a Wendake (essentially Huron) reservation. Before lunch, we had some sausage, both formed and loose-tartare-like, made of seal.

Seal seems to be one of the few wild and undomesticated foods that can be served in Canadian restaurants; as in the US, there are government regs for meat harvesting that dictate that most meat must come from farms, but seal is an exception. I was told that it was harvested by Native Americans (or First Nations people – likely Inuit I’m thinking) and is available only during limited times of the year.

If I had to compare this meat to any commonly known meats, I’d say it’s closest to beef, though there is a slight gaminess (for lack of a better word, and there really are not enough words – at least at my disposal – to distinguish beef from bison from seal, etc.). I understand that seal also has a “brininess,” and this app did have a certain salinity, but I couldn’t determine if that was a natural flavor of the meat or salt added as part of the sausage making process. It was not fatty at all (which I’d kind of thought it would be), though that lack of fat could have something to do with the cut (if there even are “cuts” with seal).



I had thirds because, you know, I thought it might be the last time I ever eat this creature.

BUT…later, out for drinks with some other journalists at a most excellent 400-year-old bar in Old Quebec called La Pape Georges…



…a travel editor from Ontario mentioned that he didn’t partake of the seal for ethical reasons, reminding me of the whole debate about seals and seal harvesting…and the fact that seal meat is banned in US and EU. I wasn’t thinking; at the sight of sausage, I apparently have no conscience.

Political correctness means nothing, of course, but I do try to avoid eating species I know to be endangered (like Bluefin tuna) or that are harvested under inhumane conditions (so besides seal, I guess, that would include much corporate meat, which isn’t really that tasty anyway, so not actually a huge sacrifice).

Now, I feel like I’m going to hell for sure. Oh well. Phoque it.

To make myself feel better about my fiery fate, I splurged on a beaver hat. It’s very, very warm…much like my eternity.



David “Hellbound” Hammond

In Newfoundland a few years ago, I indulged in seal flipper pie, a local specialty, and also attended a university lecture on why it was okay to do controlled harvesting of seals. With all their natural enemies gone, the populations, at least on the East Coast, have exploded, and the environment simply can't support all the seals. So they are culled. The fat is rendered for Omega 3 oils and the flippers show up in those Newfie pies.

Seal flipper pies just use slices of the meat, not sausage. In this form, the taste and texture made me think of dark meat of a turkey that had been fed fish.

So according to wildlife experts, you don't need to sweat the seal you ate. (Plus how else are Inuit going to earn a living?) And just think, you have another seal-based application to look forward to, should you get to Newfoundland.

Hey, they'd probably be eating us if they could.

I'm just glad he wasn't talking about the guy who sang Kiss from a Rose.

I admit I didn't think about the ban first either.

Pie Lady wrote:I'm just glad he wasn't talking about the guy who sang Kiss from a Rose.

Yes, though I admit I can think of little else than his TRAGIC breakup with Heidi.

A few years ago AB lugged his No Reservations staff up to Canada (or maybe Alaska?) where they filmed a family hunkered down on the kitchen floor tearing into a fresh seal spread out on a plastic sheet. He seemed to like the raw flesh, and the family sure did.

Just got my first hate-email of the day (related to today's Sun-Times article about eating an animal that's only slightly more loveable and perhaps less common than seal) which seems to confirm suspicions about my fate. Apparently, not only am I going to hell; I'm bringing the whole world with me.

Mr. Hammond,

I just finished reading your article. It is SICK and DISGUSTING! It's just another example of why this world has gone to hell. Shame on you, sir!

[Name withheld]
Glenview, IL

Wow...nice first hate mail! An emotion trembled out there!

razbry wrote:Wow...nice first hate mail! An emotion trembled out there!

I should point out that it was merely my first hate mail of the day.

Hammond's article:
http://www.suntimes.com/lifestyles/food ... at-ya.html

Seemed a bit tongue in cheek to me.

Relatedly
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taboo_food ... ed_rodents
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guinea_pig#As_food
and
http://www.dnr.illinois.gov/adrules/doc ... 17-550.pdf
http://www.dnr.illinois.gov/adrules/doc ... 17-570.pdf
http://www.wildliferecipes.net/game_rec ... /index.asp

I'm hoping to be seated at Hammond's table when it's dinnertime in Hell.