Title: Boiled Sea-Slugs Part 1
Categories: Amerind Fish
Yield: 1 Servings

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Text file

This is a transcript of the George Hunt translation of the sea-slug recipe, as narrated in the Kwakuitl Language, by his wife Elie Hunt, circa 1913. Part 1, is the catching, Part 2 is the cooking & Part 3 is the serving.

(Catching sea-slugs)

When a man wants to take sea-slugs, he first goes for a thin shaft which is used by the salmon fishers. He takes two thin cedar sticks, each one a short span long and a little thinner than the little finger, flat on one side and he takes cedar-bark and splits it in narrow strips. The two cedar-sticks are to be hooks at the end of the sea-slug spear. He puts these near the end of the harpoon-shaft, and ties them on with split long strips of cedar-bark. When it is finished, it is this way: [A simple illustration is omitted, of spear with hook lashed on end].

Then he waits for it to be calm at low tide. When it is calm, he launches his sea-slug-gathering canoe. He takes his sea-slug-gathering paddle, and his knife for cutting off the heads of sea slugs, and also the stick for catching sea-slugs. Then he paddles to a place where he knows there are many sea-slugs. He looks down into the water; and when he sees a place where there are many of them together, he takes his stick for catching sea-slugs and pushes it down into the water. He pushes the hook-end under the sea-slugs. Then it comes up lying crosswise over his canoe.

He takes the sea-slug, takes his knife, and cuts off the neck. Then he squeezes out the insides, and he throws it down hard into his canoe, saying as he is throwing it down, "Now you will be as stiff as the wedge of your grandfather". He does this to each of them, and says so as he throws the sea-slugs into his canoe. When he has caught many of them, he goes home.

As soon as he arrives on the beach of his house, his wife takes a basket and goes to meet him and carry up what he has. She puts her basket into the small canoe; and the woman takes one of the sea-slugs, squeezes down the whole length of its body, holding it by the hind part, the head downward; and when what is left of the insides has come out, he throws it into the basket. He does this to all of them.

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