Local Dishes

1. suaasat

   Suaasat (Greenlandic meat soup)

   Usage

   A soup regarded as Greenland's national dish. It is a meat soup with vegetables and barley or rice, using whatever meat is at hand, such as seal, reindeer or seabird. Onion, potato and bay leaf are often added

2. qajulaat

   Qajulaat (seal soup with crowberries)

   Usage

   A soup of seal meat boiled with paarnaq (crowberry). A staple home dish. Seal products are generally banned from import into the EU, so they cannot be taken home

3. nerpilaat

   Nerpilaat (fish and groats soup)

   Usage

   A soup of fish meat with groats such as oatmeal. Where suaasat is the meat soup, this is the fish one

4. mikiaq

   Mikiaq (fermented meat)

   Usage

   Lightly fermented meat. In a land without refrigeration, fermenting both preserved and seasoned the catch; it is eaten as is or cooked

5. mikialaat

   Mikialaat (boiled lightly fermented fish)

   Usage

   A dish of lightly fermented fish, boiled. It has the same root as mikiaq (fermented meat) with -laat added, meaning "that dish". Making it is mikialaaliorpoq

6. mattak

   Mattak (whale skin with blubber; muktuk)

   Usage

   Cubes of narwhal or beluga skin with the blubber still on, traditionally eaten raw with salt — the best-known food in Greenland. Note: the hunt takes place under the IWC's aboriginal subsistence whaling framework but remains internationally contested, and the product cannot be carried into the EU and many other jurisdictions. Greenland's health authorities also advise limiting intake because mercury and persistent organic pollutants accumulate in marine mammals, with the strictest advice for those who are or may become pregnant

7. tingulaat

   Tingulaat (crowberries mashed with oil)

   Usage

   A dessert-like dish of crowberries worked together with fat. The fat is said to be either seal oil or cod liver

8. quaq

   Quaq (frozen raw meat or fish)

   Usage

   Frozen meat or fish sliced thin and eaten as it is, without cooking or thawing. A very ordinary way of eating in the Arctic. Eating it is quartorpoq

9. nikku

   Nikku (dried meat)

   Usage

   Wind-dried meat, put by for winter. The verb is nikkulivoq, "dries meat for storage"

10. panertuliaq

    Panertuliaq (dried meat or fish)

11. kussartitaq

    Kussartitaq (dried fish, stockfish)

12. qaqquaq

    Qaqquaq (dried boiled seal liver)

    Usage

    Seal liver boiled and then dried — a traditional preserve that wastes nothing of the animal. Note that seal products generally may not be brought into the EU

13. mamit

    Mamit (boiled jelly-like seal fat)

    Usage

    The fat from the inside of a sealskin, boiled into a jelly-like mass. Note that the similar-looking mamitarpoq means "capsizes (of a kayaker)" and is unrelated

14. igunaq

    Igunaq (fermented blubber)

    Usage

    Fermented marine-mammal fat with a strong smell, literally "rancid fat". Warning: as it comes from marine mammals, it is subject to the same import restrictions and contaminant-intake advisories as mattak

15. tunnoq uusuliaq

    Tunnoq uusuliaq (boiled reindeer tallow)

16. kinertut

    Kinertut (porridge, gruel)

    Usage

    Porridge or gruel; the verb for making it is kinertuliorpoq. Served at breakfast and to the unwell

17. qorlortitat

    Qorlortitat (oatmeal porridge)

18. immialaat

    Immialaat (beer soup, øllebrød)

    Usage

    A warm, sweet soup of dark bread cooked with beer. It is Denmark's øllebrød settled in Greenland, formed from immiaq (beer) plus -laat ("that dish"). Warning: it contains alcohol, so avoid it for children or before driving

19. pannakaaq

    Pannakaaq (pancake)

    Usage

    Danish pandekage borrowed and reshaped to Kalaallisut phonology. A fixture of the kaffemik, the coffee gathering

20. igaaq

    Igaaq (cooked or boiled food)

    Usage

    Food that has been cooked, or is being cooked. Kalaallisut names food more often by how it was prepared than by fixed dish names, and igaaq / siataq / pujuugaq / tarajortigaq / quaq are the axis of that

21. siataq

    Siataq (something fried or roasted)

22. pujuugaq

    Pujuugaq (something smoked)

    Usage

    Something smoked — smoked halibut and salmon are common. It shares a root with pujoq, "smoke"

23. tarajortigaq

    Tarajortigaq (salted food)

    Usage

    Food preserved by salting; the root is the same as taratsut, "salt". One of the preserving methods alongside drying, freezing and fermenting

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