"Korean Soup"

“What is this?” I ask my grandma as I stir around this soup that I’m sure I’ve never eaten before. “Korean soup,” she replies in an attempt to get me to eat the unknown soup. I don’t know what Korean soup is, but I’m guessing she meant Chinese soup (aka egg drop soup). The consistency is like Chinese soup. It’s yellowish and salty like Chinese soup. It has cabbage like Chinese soup, so I decide to take a bite. I find that I like it so I finish my bowl of soup and go for seconds.

It wasn’t until later that I find out that I had just eaten crane soup for the very first time in my life. Growing up in the city, I was not exposed to traditional foods like fish, caribou, moose, crane, goose, seal, muktuk, and the likes so it took awhile for me to get used to my grandma’s cooking. She was constantly cooking foods that I had not eaten in the city. Many times she would offer to make me something else. Sometimes I just had Top Ramen instead.

If I were my grandma, I would be so irritated at how picky of an eater I was when I was younger. I would tell me, “Don’t eat anything if you don’t want to eat what I cook.” Well, at least that’s what I tell my sons now.

Even the thought of eating moose made my stomach cringe. In Anchorage, moose were practically like pets. They roamed the city freely and nobody hunted them. They reminded me of fat horses. I wondered what my grandma was thinking when she would make moose soup or moose roast. It tasted wild and different. She lied to me most times saying that it was beef because she knew I would not eat it if I knew it was moose.

Over the years, I grew accustomed to eating more traditional foods. Now I prefer caribou and moose over beef. I love fish and now enjoy eating crab. I still don’t have the taste buds for muktuk and seal. Foods that can’t get past my nose, cannot get past my lips.

It’s weird how different things are in the village compared to the city. My mom is accustomed to city foods and the lifestyle. My grandma is village to the core. I am in-between. I can visit the city, but I need to come back home after a week or so. I get tired of how busy city life is and the smell of fast food. It takes a few days for my body to expel city food when I get home.

I don’t think I will ever have to lie to my kids about what they are eating because they are so used to eating whatever I put on the table. I am constantly cooking fish and caribou and moose: well when I have them, which is most of the year. It took me awhile, but I have become more like my grandma. I learned to be thankful for what Mother Nature provides for us locally.

It still makes me giggle to think about how my grandma would lie to get me to eat healthier. I will always remember vividly the day that I ate “Korean soup”.