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Food Food is the connector to everything that surrounds our culture. Each celebration includes a huge feast. We believe food tastes better when it is shared with family, relatives, and many other people. In my grandfather Makivik's time, all types of food were cached on the land, ready for a celebration. Back then there were many ways to prepare the foods, including different types of sauces and dips. I know of three sauces that are very good: aalu, misiraq, and nirukkaq. Aalu is made from choice parts of caribou or seal. Here is the recipe. Make sure the meat is very lean and clean. Cut it up in tiny pieces and put it in a bowl. Add a few drops of melted fat. Then add a few drops of blood. Add uruniq (ptarmigan intestine) to taste. Stir everything very friskily with your fingers until the volume doubles and the mixture turns fluffy. This is one of the most popular dips for all kinds of meat. Misiraq is another dip that is made all over the North today. It is made from blubber. Cut up pieces of seal blubber, whale, or ujjuk (square flipper seal), making sure not to include any meat. Put the blubber in a safe container with a perforated top — for example, an old coffee tin container. Don't use plastic bags or containers with airtight lids. Store it in a cool place where it can be slowly aged away from heat. When it ages properly the liquid ends up clear, like a fine white wine. The aroma is delicious and never bitter. (If it smells bad, throw it out! The offensive smell means it hasn't aged properly.) All kinds of meats can be dipped in misiraq. The third dip is called nirukkaq. It requires special care. Nirukkaq is the contents of caribou stomach. Here is my Uncle Annowalk's recipe. The hunter, when butchering the caribou, carefully removes the stomach contents and puts them into a container. The contents are frozen until ready to be used. When the time comes, the contents are thawed and a process called siingijaijuq is begun. This involves cleaning the contents very carefully with kneading motions. Undesirables like pieces of grass, leaves, lichen or lumps are removed. When smooth, it is ready. Caribou meat is used for dipping. Our food is much more than just frozen or raw meats and sauces. We also enjoy different types of dried fish and meats, such as caribou.