“Everyplace you go in different areas, the seal has a different flavor. They eat, some eat salmon and some eat herring, some will eat octopus, small octopus. A while back, I shot a seal with, he had three octopus inside it! We always check to see what they have. And we eat the stomach too. One of the older guys says, ‘When I see a stomach, I’m in heaven.’
Owen James
How to treat the lungs of a seal
“Yeah, the tube, you leave so much of the tube [trachea] on, maybe about four or five inches of the tube on it. Then you blow it up. When you blow it up, you got to blow it up until it all turns pink, the whole thing. Completely light pink, the whole thing’s got to turn just like pink. Then dice it up and cook it – if you don’t [blow it up] it will be real tough to chew. That’s a little trick to that one there. I teach kids in the culture camp every year, that one there, I show it to them. I blow it up and a lot of them are really amazed and say, “you can actually eat that?” I say, “yes.” When I get a chance I’ll fry some of it up, the meat and put the kidneys and the heart and the liver and lungs and all those other stuff in there. Just dice it all up and mix it all together, stir it up, cook it and fry it. We’ll use garlic salt…” Owen James
Dad has been filmed many times, butchering seals for educational purposes
Cleaning and braiding the seal intestines
“The intestines, that one there, when I clean the intestines, there maybe three feet apart, I cut a slot, maybe about a four-inch slot, the length of it [the intestines]. Then I’ll squeeze it, about four, about three or four times, squeeze it. Just pinch it and squeeze, the first time real light, the second time a little time a little harder. About the fourth time, I’ll kind of squeeze it real hard to clean it out real good. Then I’ll just dice them up into about maybe three or four foot lengths when you, they cook it there, half the size, half the length and everything and smaller.” Owen James