12.064
10 (Wed) March 2021
Eighty Furred Young
3.0
by me
at home
-Changgok, Sujeong, Seongnam, Gyeonggi, Republic of Korea-
with the Family
Newbery 100 Medals, 100 Meals (37) (see also NEWBERY)
While reading the 100 books that have been awarded the annual Newbery Medal since 1922, I will also attempt to create one dish for every book, a dish that is directly referenced in or indirectly inspired by the events of the book. The 100th Medal was recently announced: When You Trap a Tiger by Tae Keller – a Korean-themed book! Food plays a strong role in many of the stories; not surprising as the characters in most of the books are faced with adversity of some sort, including poverty, so they’re often very hungry and thus grateful whenever they get a bite to eat – as we all should be at every meal, give us this day our daily bread. The dishes will be featured as posts on Give Me This Day.
Julie of the Wolves (1973) by Jean Craighead George. The book is about 13-year-old Miyax, an Inuit girl who runs away from home, gets lost in the frozen tundra, and learns to survive while befriending a pack of wolves.
It was okayish. The book primarily focuses on the adventure and the events relating thereto, which are somewhat empowering for the heroine, although the story begins with her fleeing one male figure and ends with her being saved by another. Moreover, I was disappointed by the missed opportunities to highlight critical underlying issues, such as the struggle to preserve traditional Inuit culture amidst modernization and assimilation – “Julie” is the English name given to Miyax when she is enrolled in school. Not surprisingly, the author was a white woman, a nature writer who was inspired to write the novel after visiting Alaska on a research trip. Indeed, it’s telling that the title of book refers to Julie, not Miyax.
[paraphrased in part]
She went out to hunt lemmings. Since the end of summer the little rodents had doubled, tripled, even quadrupled their numbers. By following their runways she found seven nests and caught eighty furred young. She skinned and cooked them, and found them delicious.
The thought of eating furry baby lemmings reminded me of mini hairy rice balls. In contrast to my standard method of first frying the rice with lots of vegetable bits, I simply mixed plain rice with flying fish roe, seasoned with salt and pepper and sesame oil, then rolled them into extra mini balls – each exactly 6 grams – and then rolled them in crushed seaweed flakes. They were delicious.
(See also FOODS)
(See also PLACES)