PORTLAND, Maine — Musk ox, caribou and lobster are all on the menu inside a new, internationally award-winning cookbook developed by Maine college students, Wabanaki chefs and Inuit culinary scholars in Greenland.
The book, “Taste of Two Worlds,” was recently named the “Best Arctic Cookbook in the World” at the prestigious 29th annual Gourmand Awards held at the Saudi Feast Food Festival in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
“It was nominated for a total of five awards,” said University of Southern Maine Professor of Tourism and Hospitality Tracy Michaud, who led the project. “That’s more than any other cookbook has ever gotten.”
A year-and-a-half in the making and funded by the U.S. Department of State’s Arctic Education Alliance, the sumptuous tome is a collaboration between USM tourism and hospitality students, aspiring chefs at Inuili Food College in Narsaq, Greenland, and Wabanaki Public Health and Wellness in Bangor.
The cookbook is free to download and is meant to be more than just a how-to guide for cooking. It’s also meant to strengthen bonds between Maine and Greenland, as well as the Indigenous populations in both places. Written in three languages — English, Passamaquoddy and Greenlandic — it features modern takes on traditional recipes from all three cultures.
From Maine, there’s seafood chowder with monkfish and oysters. Also in the book is “three sister soup” featuring corn, pumpkin and beans from the Wabanaki tradition, as well as Greenlandic slow-cooked musk ox with root vegetables.
The cultural significance of each dish and its ingredients was as important to students putting the book together as the recipes themselves. They saw it as a way to immerse themselves in cultures other than their own.
“Food is the love language of the world,” said USM graduate student Caoline Paras. “This is a great way to bring people together.”
Paras helped research and write portions of the book about Maine blueberries.
“They’re one of the world’s top ten superfoods, as well as a symbol of Maine,” Paras said.
Many ingredients in the cookbook get whole pages, including Arctic thyme, a wild-growing ingredient known as tupaarnaq in Greenlandic. The tiny, purple flowering plant is used both fresh and dried.
“The herb’s taste develops best over high heat,” the book states, “and will retain its taste and aroma during long-term cooking.”
Arctic thyme’s floral, almost spicy flavor is common in Greenlandic meat, fish and soup dishes, as well as in desserts and on pizza.
As part of the cookbook project, a group of USM students spent 16 days in Greenland, getting to know the culture and cooking with their counterparts at the Inuili Food College.
“It was breathtaking. The Arctic was insane — pictures don’t describe the beauty,” said Johanna Piekart, a USM hospitality student originally from Farmington. “I never thought I would travel to a place like that.”
The Maine students hopped between towns using the only transportation connecting the far-flung hamlets: a helicopter.
“And we got stranded in one town for three days,” Piekart said. “But it was OK; the weather was beautiful.”
The helicopter was needed for a protracted search-and-rescue operation at a nearby fjord.
While on the tour, Piekart said she was able to try foods unheard of in Maine, including musk ox, which tastes a little like roast beef.
“We tried everything,” Piekart said, “Penguins, polar bear, seabirds — even narwhal.”
Because of the extreme weather, agriculture is limited in Greenland, and a strong, Indigenous hunting culture still exists.
After the experience, Piekart now dreams of someday opening her own Maine restaurant with a farm-to-table menu focused on local ingredients and culturally significant dishes.
When Michaud was first approached with the recipe-exchange project, she knew she wanted to include Indigenous peoples from Maine and contacted Wabanaki Public Health and Wellness in Bangor.
Saige Purser, director of the organization’s Our Future Generations Division, grew up in Maine and is a member of the Yakama Nation. She helped facilitate the inclusion of Wabanaki food traditions in the cookbook.
“I wanted to make sure our students knew all about the Indigenous cultures here before we went to Greenland, so we could all be equal partners,” Michaud said.
Purser was able to travel to Greenland with the group of USM students and said the experience of meeting Indigenous peoples there was an unexpectedly moving experience.
“To say it was life-changing would be an understatement,” she said. “We got to talk about heavy topics like colonization and making sure that we’re including our language in spaces where it’s not normally heard, how it really strengthens our identity.”
The cookbook project is over, but Maine’s connection to Greenland is just beginning, Michaud said.
This summer, USM will host a group of Greenlandic students studying how to strengthen their homeland’s fledgling ecotourism industry.
“They’ve almost got their international airports finished,” Michaud said. “So they’ll look at our best practices in sustainable tourism and work with our Indigenous partners about how to do it right — how to tell their story.”
