The seal oil lamp was also a cooking stove. When Milak and her mother
wanted to cook, they hung a soapstone pot over the flame. They melted
ice and snow for drinking water in a pot, too. Some of the ocean ice
was too salty for drinking water. But many Eskimos knew that when ice
was a year or more old it lost its saltiness, and that was the ice they
melted.
Milak didn't have to help with much cooking. Eskimo families on Baffin
Island liked meat and fish raw. In fact, that is where the word Eskimo
came from. It was the name that the Indians gave to their neighbors in
the north, and it meant "People-who-eat-their-food-raw."
[Illustration: ~fork~]
[Illustration: ~spoon~]
Before breakfast time, Milak went outside and got a chunk of frozen
fish. The whole outdoors in winter was a deep-freeze, so it was easy to
keep a good supply of food. Milak tossed the fish on the floor. When it
had thawed till it was about as soft as cream cheese, her mother cut
off the best chunks for the children. Grownups didn't start to eat till
the children had been served.
In winter it was breakfast time whenever anybody woke up and began
chattering to the others. Because it was so dark outside in the long
winter night, nobody kept track of time. Eskimo families just slept and
woke when they felt like it.