ARCTIC HOUSEKEEPING

Dominion, Volume 32, Issue 66, 10 December 1938, Page 3 (Supplement)

ARCTIC HOUSEKEEPING

One tremendous advantage that the housekeeper in the Arctic has over those in civilised regions is that there is no danger of anything going bad, said an author who visited the Eskimos. Even bread and doughnuts remained absolutely fresh if put outside, and if the soup, for instance, was. unfinished all the cook had to do was to place it on the roof and leave it there until his next turn as cook came round a few weeks later. It was then only necessary to thaw it out again on the stove, and some perfectly good soup was ready. We had plenty of potatoes and onions which kept very well until the thaw the following June. The potatoes were left in the snowdrift outside the house, and after they had been brought in and boiling water poured over them, the skins could be scraped off with an absolutely blunt knife with the greatest of ease. We then used to put them in cold water to let them thaw out, and bring them slowly to the boil, so that the outside did not start to cook before the inside was thawed. This, of course, applied to all forms of frozen foods, such as frozen walrus and seal.