Sitka’s traditional herring egg harvest tastes best with traditional cooking — in a bentwood box
Posted by Kari Sagel, for KCAW | Apr 14, 2023
There are many ways to prepare herring eggs in Sitka. Freshly spawned eggs on hemlock branches, dipped in hooligan (eulachon) or seal oil, is a classic method, as is lightly sauteed in a pan with sesame or olive oil and eaten straight up, or stirred into a green salad.
Another method is to blanch them in boiling water – and that’s done best when the tiny herring eggs thickly coat a blade of macrocystis kelp. And to really connect with Sitka’s subsistence tradition, you’ve got to boil the eggs in a bentwood box.
Sitka second graders recently watched the district’s cultural liaison Charlie Skultka heat up volcanic rocks in a fire, and then use them to boil water in the traditional way.
KCAW reporter-at-large Kari Sagel attended, and sent this audio postcard.