Tucking into a typical Greenlandic dish almost certainly means munching on fish, game, or fowl, as the glacial terrain precludes a vegetarian diet. In the capital city of Nuuk, where one-third of Greenlanders live, planes and ships bring luxuries from abroad, but outside of Nuuk, where frosty wilderness prevails, uninterrupted by so much as a road, hunting is essential and food comes from the sea, the sky, and the icy plains where the caribou roam. 

The ocean is the most prolific source of food; local marine animals such as whales, narwhals, redfish, capelin, halibut, and seals are the staples of a traditional Inuit diet, which heavily informs Greenlandic cuisine. The national dish is suaasat, a simple Inuit soup containing onions, potatoes, and seal, though caribou, seabird, or whale make for tasty substitutes. Whale is hunted for its blubber; rich in Vitamins C and D, mattak also known as muktuk, is prepared from whale blubber and skin, and eaten raw. When cooked and served with onions and potatoes, whale flesh makes for a delicious plate of arfivik. Unfortunately, the Greenlandic coast has not been spared from the effects of industrial pollution, and the problems of increasing methylmercury and PCBs in the flesh of whales has made the continued consumption of mattak and arfivik perilous for the Inuit community.

A somewhat less-popular ingredient is the Greenland shark, which appears in a dish called eqalussuaq. The reason for its lesser popularity is that the Greenland shark is poisonous and becomes safe for consumption only after an elaborate and tedious process of repeated boiling and fermentation. Moreover, its meat spoils very quickly and gives off a rancid stench. As a result, the Greenland shark is eaten less often than the whale, although it is also the basis for hákarl, a delicacy that is popular in Iceland.

Recipes for suaasat and arfivik call for onions and potatoes, the two most prevalent vegetables in Greenlandic cuisine, and easiest to grow in the harsh wilderness. The ocean delivers another plant: seaweed which is collected in warm weather and stored for the winter. Blueberries grow during the warmer periods of the year and often accompany meals in the form of compote. 

When the temperature rises from “freezing” to merely “very cold”, Greenlandic hunters turn their eyes from the sea to the sky. Laws on bird-hunting are relatively strict, and only twenty-one types of bird are fair game in open season. Seabirds, especially gulls, are the primary prey, but other varieties include small, winter-plumaged birds such as the dovekie (otherwise known as the “little auk”), the ptarmigan, the eider (common and king), and the thick-billed murre.

Once one has prepared a feast of seal-meat soup, cooked whale, raw whale, or roasted seabird, with a side of onions, potatoes, or berry compote, the question is: what does one wash it down with? The answer is ice-beer. Made from crowberries and brewed with 2,000-year-old Arctic ice harvested from nearby glaciers, ice-beer is an alcoholic concoction first introduced by the Greenland Brewhouse in Narsaq and now a frequent accompaniment to meals. Greenlandic coffee is perhaps the national drink of Greenland, and de rigueur after dinner. Not for the faint-hearted, it contains hot coffee, whiskey, Kahlúa, Grand Marnier, whipped cream, and last but not least: fire, as it is set alight before serving. Since none of the ingredients in Greenlandic coffee are naturally available in Greenland, this drink has become more popular in the era of increased supply chain diversity. With its mound of whipped cream, Greenlandic coffee also makes for a fine dessert when one has polished off a main course of suaasat.