At one time or another, you've probably had the conversation with your friends: what's the weirdest thing you ever ate? Note that I always took the question to mean things that were eaten intentionally, not the menageries of bugs eaten mountain biking nor the healthy heaping of dirt and snow courtesy of high velocity face plants. I certainly don't hold the crown for the weirdest stuff, that would go to a journalist named David I met on a press trip who travelled the world specifically searching for odd things to eat. From turtle to frog, mouse to moose if it walked upon the earth with a heartbeat, chances are he's eaten it. Me? Well, I hate to say it (there may be serious repercussions from Raffi) but I've eaten Beluga whale. Sweet, cute, curious and edible Beluga whale. This isn't to be confused with Beluga caviar, which is an awful smear made from salmon eggs. Before you call Greenpeace and order a harpoon driven through my chest, let me explain! My Beluga snack was from a freshly killed whale being pulled behind a Toyota 4-Runner on a children's toboggan In Qaanaaq, Greenland. The locals had just made the kill and were dragging the enormous bloke back to town for butchering. Neat squares were carved out of the flesh, appetizers for those who just couldn't wait. As the bumbling white tourist (TM), a friendly fellow who had hunted the beast noticed I was very curios at what I was seeing. In heavily Canadian accented English, he said to me, "Beluga very good, a good treat for friends! Try some eh?" While he was saying this, he skillfully cubed a piece out of the Beluga and presented me with it. A lot of people were watching at this point, both locals and other folks from the icebreaker I was on.
And without thinking too much, I smiled and ate the cube. It was pretty bad, sort of like a coagulated bar of soap covered with a strip of duct tape (that skin is thick!) Much like lard, it is very dense and incredibly rich. Despite the fact it was raw blubber, it did have an appealing quality similar to eating a tub of Crisco.
So I admit it, I've sampled the sweet sea canary,though my penance is every time I bite into a Klondike bar I can visualize it being the aforementioned chunk. I promise it's the last endangered species I intend to eat. Oh, and that doesn't include my long dreamed about dodo-egg omelet, should the occasion ever arise.
