CULINARY BIOGRAPHY: INHOTTAMINEN (LAPLAND)

           The hearty cuisine of Upper Lapland is little known outside the Arctic Circle. However, without delving into the details, I was able to spend three enchanted weeks there, thanks to a failed compass, a random wind, and a slab of driftwood hurled my way by the woman I came to know as Noni.

            Noni was of Irish descent, though one would never know it by her leathery complexion, taciturn demeanor, and unsociability. But her isolation had allowed her to become an expert in the preparation and presentation of the region’s exotic fare.

As we struggled toward her makeshift shelter, her greeting provided a hint of how she felt about this remote area. “Welcome to paradise,” she croaked.

For decades, Noni had lived alone in what to me seemed like utter desolation: a rocky spit of land, dotted with meager outcroppings of grass and nettles, surrounded by the endless and frigid sea. To Noni, though, it was paradise, because after marrying in her teens she had settled there with her sea captain husband.

            Lapland was supposed to be just “a stopping point,” she said wistfully. “A way station.” Instead, it had become her lovers Xanadu. “He told me we would settle in Dublin,” she chuckled, gazing toward the slate gray sea. “This is as close to Dublin as I'll ever see!” The statement amused me. This rugged, unforgiving wasteland was thousands of miles from the vibrant Irish capital.

            Where was her intrepid husband, I asked? 

             “Just missed him,” she said, sneering with disappointment. “He’s so busy with his important maritime career, don’t you know.” Terror and dread played across her face when she spoke of him. “Do you suppose it’s rough out there today?” she wondered aloud. “Do you suppose the waves are crashing over the bow even now? Smashing into the wheelhouse?”

            In Noni’s imagination, the sea was a frightful and perilous place; her thoughts always turned to the worst when considering her husband’s noble toils. She seemed to think if him constantly. During the brief summer, when the ice had receded, she spent her days traipsing along the rugged coast, waving excitedly to passing ships, hoping, perhaps, that one of them would be captained by her dear husband, in for a surprise visit. “Hello! Hello!” she would call over the icy water. “Do you see me? Please! Anyone?”

            I was there as winter approached, however, and was privileged to see how she came alive in that season, as her homemaking skills came to the fore. I see her now, sawing through the already thick sheets of ice with a dull handsaw, her sinewy muscles rippling, sweat pouring from her brow. Hefting the unwieldy ice blocks up the hill to the building site was a study in grace, strength, and balance. Turning to me, she joked, “What? Are you crippled or something? Lying there like a beached whale?”

No, I was not crippled, but enjoying the last few rays of sunshine. Occasionally as she trudged up the hill she would gaze bitterly out to the relentless sea, as though expecting her husband’s ship to appear over the horizon. Grumbling with disappointment, she would invariably turn back to the task at hand. There was work to be done, she knew, and romance would have to wait just a while longer.

            The abode she created would probably be called an igloo, but unlike the quaint structures popular in Western lore, round and even, like breasts, hers was a whimsical affair; all angles and mismatched seams, with gaps in the walls that she would fill with scraps of skin, fur, or dog droppings—which provided excellent insulation, she told me when pressed.

            To look at the structure she had built, all misshapen in the permafrost, one would think that it had been erected in great haste by someone who had absolutely no interest or aptitude for construction, but was desperate to escape the advancing hundred-degree-below zero winter, and had no help whatsoever.

            How wrong they would be! The design was of a theme: oblique angles, incongruence, and asymmetry composing their own lyric harmony. Inside, the fanciful chaos continued. Seal and walrus pelts were pegged “haphazardly” to the jagged walls. Weather-beaten scraps of lumber supported “collapsing” walls. The wind howled outside, but other than the occasional roaring blast of air and stinging ice-shards that would gust through one fissure or another, we were safe and cozy inside.

            Noni and I slept jammed into a corner, always keeping one eye open for her rambunctious mutts, who I still remember snarling in the dark, their yellow eyes glowing warmly as they leaped forward to tussle with the sharp stick that Noni always kept at her side.

            Their playful shenanigans occupied many hours of the day, but eventually her canines companions fell into exhausted slumber and Noni would turn to her most treasured pastime: preparing the traditional regional dishes that she loved so well.

            In the center of the igloo sat the whale blubber stove, fashioned of heavy-gage steel pocked with rust. When I told her it resembled a boat rudder, Noni smiled. “Took from me husband’s ship meself,” she recalled wistfully. “Four hours with a cold chisel the night before he left!”

            Perhaps more by coincidence than design, the treasured keepsake proved to be an ideal cooking surface, distributing heat evenly and holding it long into the night—providing heat in the frigid dwelling.

But its most important use was for cooking, of course, and in Noni’s eclectic repertoire no dish was more memorable than the one she referred to as Inhottaminen.

I still remember savoring its pungent—some would say cadaverous—redolence, and marveling at the planning required in its preparation. For weeks prior to my arrival, Noni had gathered the ingredients and set them aside, as some needed time to ripen.

            Now, as she stoked the fire, the powerful aroma of rancid whale blubber—the fuel source--wafted through the hut. Crouching over the smoky flames, her gaunt face glowed under her crude sealskin hood, and her single gold tooth sparkled in the flickering light. “Winter’s coming,” she rasped, “and hunger is cruel.”

“You mean hunger is the best sauce,” I corrected her.

“Suit yourself,” she said.

               She explained that Inhottaminen took hours, and sometimes days to prepare. Even at that, results were unpredictable.

         “Like a soufflé!” I said.

          “Like a shipwreck,” she responded cryptically. As she began to cook, she advised me not to watch.

          “Because a watched pot never boils,” I said.

           “Funny you’d mention boils,” she said, rubbing her skin for warmth. She gestured to the corner. “Just sit over there,” she said, handing the sharp stick to me and advising me to tend the pups. Then, she began to cook in earnest.

You will need:

• 1-galvanized bucket walrus blubber
• 2-kilos polar aged bear meat
• 1-length seal intestine, dried and shredded.
• 2-handfuls Malamute fur-to taste (preferably from the shoulder area).
• 1-harp seal, quartered.
• 1-pine bough.
• 1-quart kerosene or Type A Jet fuel (depending on what's washed ashore previous summer)
• 1-cup reindeer urine
• 3 dried lemmings, minced.

Mix kerosene and reindeer urine together, and soak shredded seal intestines while simmering.

Pound polar bear meat with stone until thicker fibers are broken down.

Remove bone fragments, spear tips, or shrapnel.

In large chafing dish or split fuel tank, evenly spread pounded polar bear meat over quartered harp seal carcass.

Melt the walrus blubber, then froth with pine bough until it reaches the consistency of frothed walrus blubber.

Add minced lemmings. Let sit until plump.

Pour frothed walrus blubber-lemming mixture over harp seal-polar bear meat mélange.

Wrap chafing dish in old unlined wool overcoat or canvas sail.

Cover with heavy rocks or section of fuselage from crashed airplane, and bury in snow for 48 hours, or until polar bears catch the scent.

Remove from snow, uncover. Garnish with shredded seal intestines.

Sprinkle with malamute fur, careful to remove fleas or other parasites.           

Serve on driftwood slab or airplane tray, whichever has washed up on shore previous summer.

            To the western palate, Inhottaminen, with a lumpy, gelatinous consistency, and laced with the stringy sinews of both polar bear and seal, is at once bland and repugnant. For me, its rich play of flavors overwhelms the senses. It's a filling dish, too. I was unable to eat more than a few bites.

            I would have been delighted to learn more about the cuisine of Upper Lapland, and Noni would have eagerly been my instructor, I know. But when I awoke the following morning—our sumptuous feast of the evening before like a fever dream--she had apparently gone off in search of ingredients for what I’m sure would have been a memorable breakfast.

A storm was rising, and I thought I must be hallucinating when I saw the men, attired in bright orange survival gear, alight from a launch that had pulled up on the rocky shore. “Let’s get you out of here!” one of them shouted against the rising gale.

Without time to say farewell, I was bundled aboard the boat and we were off. As we crashed across the waves, I was wrapped in a blanket, a steaming cup of coffee in my hand when Noni appeared over a barren hillock, waving gleefully.

“Come ba-a-a-ck!” she cried, her voice barely audible over the surf. “Come b-a-ack!”

Ah, with pleasure, of course I would. If only I knew the way.

The Neighborhood

One evening a couple of months ago I was walking to the neighborhood pub, and passing a doorway saw to my right a rather haunted-looking homeless guy. He had long gray hair, swept back, weathered skin, and clothes that had a patina of street grime on them.

Most notable about his appearance, though, were his eyes. They were a vivid blue, and against his ruddy skin they stood out like sapphires.

It was a cold evening and he was just standing there for shelter, and I felt sorry for him. I’d just gotten paid for something and was feeling flush. I thought how fortunate I am, and wondered what had happened to him. In harsh terms, alcohol probably happened to him, and alcohol brought along with it a host of  unsociable behaviors, and over time his life crumbled to the point it was now: alone in an empty doorway, gazing out like a ghost at the busy street.

Spinning back further in time, one would probably discover in this man’s abuse or neglect in childhood, as well as tragedies and losses of various sorts. All of it (whatever ‘it’ was) made booze seem like a desirable refuge. Mental illness might very well have played a role, or worked in concert with alcohol or drugs.  

It's an old story, and could be told about several others in this neighborhood. There’s a skinny black guy who holds out a baseball cap and runs at you, shaking it, then pointing to his ears to indicate that he’s deaf. There’s a woman—I think it’s a woman—who wears a woolen cap pulled over her ears and displays on a cart signs that exhort the reader to “Save for the future!” To everyone who passes by, she shouts out, “Thanks be to God! Serve the Lord!” Another homeless woman looks Asian, but she’s mostly bundled up in black from head to foot, and wearing dark glasses, so it’s hard to tell.  I see her from time to time on the covered bus bench, sitting behind her two shopping carts loaded with her possessions and neatly wrapped in plastic.

I don’t give money to them. They don’t ask, either, except for the deaf guy, and he’s obnoxious about it. But I made an exception for the guy with the laser-beam eyes because he looked, underneath the grime, sort of normal. Cleaned up, wearing some decent clothes, he could be Grandpa in a catalog photo. 

So I gave him $20 and said, “Good luck.” 

He looked at the money, said thanks, and tucked it into his pocket.

I wouldn’t exactly say I thought I’d done a good deed. If stereotypes are any guide, he’d probably just spend the money on wine, or maybe something better. What he did with it wasn’t my responsibility, though. At best, I thought, he felt a little recognized in his loneliness and misery. He might reflect on that for 30 seconds or so, then go and buy a hamburger and a bottle of booze. Or maybe just two bottles of booze. That was okay with me. 

On the same street where this happened is a pleasant little café, where I do much of my writing. I nurse a cup of coffee or tea for an hour or two while I work.

And lately, who have I been seeing here but Mr. Piercing Eyes himself. He’s got a weathered duffel bag and a sturdy leather jacket, along with a pretty nice laptop and an iPhone, too. He’s got the laptop open, and seems to be working on something. But he stays longer than I do—doesn’t have anywhere to go, I suppose—so instead of just buying coffee or tea, he gets lunch, which is pretty tasty, and comes in around $10.  

I guess he wasn’t quite so desperate as I imagined.

Unappreciated

I’ve been very patient, but she won't talk to me. This has been going on for years, and I should have accepted it by now. But it still hurts. It isn’t as though I’ve stopped talking to her. Maybe she hears the impatience in my voice, though, and decides to just twist the knife by remaining silent.

Yesterday, the sun shone through the bedroom window. “Hey! It’s a beautiful day! How about if I make you breakfast?”

No response. She lay there until breakfast was ready, then emerged from the bedroom—rumpled, making no effort at all to be more presentable. She ate without comment.

“Did you like it?”

Silence.

As I washed the dishes, she lay down on the couch.

“Yeah, you have had a hard morning.” Of course, she heard my mocking tone. But even a witty retort like, “After a breakfast like that, how do you expect me remain standing?” would have at least been something. 

I am aware of my tendency toward sarcasm, though. After she’d gotten her hair cut and her nails done, I said, “You look fantastic!” I was absolutely sincere. What do I get in return? Nothing but a bored sign.

Meanwhile, I pay for everything, and it’s never acknowledged. You know why? Because it’s all about her! She is pampered and thinks she has to do nothing in return, and I am sick of it!

One of these days, I’m going to get a new dog, and we’ll see who feels ignored then.

The Thoughts Are Alive

About a year ago, I went for my first long motorcycle ride with Bill, an old friend of mine who has been riding a Harley for thirty years or so. Having never gone on an extended ride, I was nervous. Beyond keeping distance between myself and other cars, assuming that to other drivers you are invisible, and paying attention, Bill said this:  "Look at the wall, go into the wall."

Here's what he meant: let's say you're in a tight turn. It's very easy, when you're inexperienced, to get nervous and look down, or look at whatever obstacle might be closest. I can't explain the physics or the psychology of it, but I know that when you do that... you're far more likely to fall. "Look at the wall, go into the wall."

I don't want to drive into a wall.

So, riding into a turn, I look ahead. The bike, in a sense, follows my thoughts.

I said I can't explain the physics or the psychology of this, but I have some ideas about the psychology. I have on occasion been advised by people with Qualifications and Credentials to avoid "negative self-talk." We probably all are prone to this from time to time: that familiar old rant we subject ourselves to about how x or y never works out for us, or how we're overlooked because we're too young or too old or didn't go to the right school or sucked at math. Why is it, we might ask, that I never catch a fucking break!? Or variations on that theme.

And if I'm alone in this, gee, am I embarrassed! But I don't think I am, so I will forge ahead.

Naturally, just as we're pulled into the wall when we look it while rounding a turn on a motorcycle, so are we pulled into whatever negative behavior or circumstance we focus on in our negative self talk.  I imagine that concept is familiar, even if from time to time it is very hard to use in order to avoid the negative self talk itself.

But I really have a larger point, which is playing out in Huttle on Fire, the 4th book in The Chronicles of Hurtle Trilogy. To illustrate that point, here's a brief excerpt, which is set in a lecture hall at Yale, where a professor of Neurobiology is speaking to a class of freshmen about the brain's use of energy. A student raises his hand.
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            "Professor Winkler smiled and gestured to him with the tip of his whiteboard marker. “Yes, Mr...?”

The boy smiled. “Uh, Twombly.”

“What have you got to add, Mr. Uhtwombly?”

The boy rolled his eyes, then lowered his hand. “I’m wondering where that energy goes.”

“Goes?”

The boy scooted forward. “After, say, some dude thinks some… thought. What happens to the energy?”

Winkler sat on the corner of the desk. “I’m afraid I don’t understand your question.”

Twombly bit his lower lip, then spoke. “Well, the law of conservation of energy states that energy can neither be created nor destroyed, so--”

“Ah! I see you’ve been taking physics, too!” A chuckle rippled through the class. “Well, in the case of bio-electrical processes, that energy—that twelve-point-five watts of electrical stimulus--transforms to heat. Body heat,” Winkler explained. “Now, I think we can--”

“But I don’t really mean, exactly, just that type of physical energy.”

“What other type of energy is there?” Reflexively, Winkler’s eyebrows rose with the question.

Twombly looked up, as though whatever thought he was searching for hovered overhead. “I mean… thought energy.”

“Which is…?” Beyond the firing of synapses, no one really knew what thoughts were anyway. But that went beyond the scope of this class. Still, the conversation had taken an interesting turn, even if it was off-topic. Some of the other students had set down their phones and were watching Twombly intently. This was a positive sign.

The boy clearly felt their attention, and sat up straighter in his chair. “Well, you know how sometimes, if you want some particular thing, you think about it… and then it happens?”

Winkler’s shoulders sank. He had hoped the boy had an interesting point somewhere in there, but this was sounding very squishy indeed. He glanced at the clock. Two minutes. Why not indulge the young man’s curiosity? He was just a freshman, after all, and it took a certain degree of courage to speak up in a large lecture hall. “Go on.”

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As everyone's sixth grade book reports ended, "To find out what happens next, read the book!" And when it's done... which is some time off... I hope you will. In the meantime, what was interesting to me was exactly Twombly's question: what happens to 'thought energy?' Those of us who engage in occasional negative self talk have probably concluded that it reinforces the negative emotion or behavior. I suppose the opposite is true of positive self talk. But what about all of the other thoughts that pass through out brains? What about, let's say, those lengthy dialogues we stage in our minds when grappling with some issue? Or those witty remarks that arise a couple of hours after they might have really effectively put another in his place? What about the imagined conversation you had with person who you had a fleeting moment of connection with and did not, in fact, approach? What about that fantastic scene you imagined for your novel, yet never wrote?

What Twombly and I are wondering is this: if thoughts about ourselves manifest themselves in behavior and reality, what happens to all the other thoughts? 

Enter, the Multiverse. People with Qualifications and Credentials--specifically, physicists of some renown--posit the existence of not just multiple dimensions, but of multiple universes. Trillions of them. I couldn't explain the physics of it to anymore than I could explain String Theory, but the idea is very intriguing just the same. It's my conceit in Huttle on Fire that all of those thoughts are manifested in other universes, some probably matching our own entirely, save for the addition of one person, or one event, or... maybe you just have a different favorite color.  In one universe, you might have gotten that job--or gotten fired from it--and everything would have been different. In another, you turned left instead of right. Or you voted Republican. Or were born in Somalia. 

In Huttle on Fire, Chris Westphal is an author who has written several books about a character named Tom Huttle. Tom Huttle is aware of the books, and they are very embarrassing to him.  Consequently, he detests Chris Westphal. Can't say I blame him, either. Chris Westphal has often really made Tom look like a fool. As a fictional creation of Chris Westphal, Tom Huttle was "born," if you will, of Chris Westphal's "thought energy." Because our thoughts manifest in reality, he does exist, albeit in another universe. Tom Huttle is a writer of cheesy espionage novels, and the characters in those also exist, in yet another universe. 

In Huttle on Fire, all of these universes crash together. I'm very curious about what will happen!