Whale meat

Whale meat, broadly speaking, may include all cetaceans (whales, dolphins, porpoises) and all parts of the animal: muscle (meat), organs (offal), skin (muktuk), and fat (blubber). There is relatively little demand for whale meat, compared to farmed livestock. Commercial whaling, which has faced opposition for decades, continues today in very few countries (mainly Iceland, Japan and Norway), despite whale meat being previously eaten across Western Europe and colonial America. However, in areas where dolphin drive hunting and aboriginal whaling exist, marine mammals are eaten locally as part of a subsistence economy: the Faroe Islands, the circumpolar Arctic peoples (Inuit in Canada and Greenland, related native Alaskans, the Chukchi people of Siberia), other indigenous peoples of the United States (including the Makah of the Pacific Northwest), Saint Vincent and the Grenadines (mainly on the island of Bequia), some of villages in Indonesia and in certain South Pacific islands.

Like horse meat, for some cultures whale meat is taboo, or a food of last resort, e.g. in times of war, whereas in others it is a delicacy and a culinary centrepiece. Indigenous groups contend that whale meat represents their cultural survival. Its consumption has been denounced by detractors on wildlife conservation, toxicity (especially mercury), and animal rights grounds.

Whale meat can be prepared in various ways, including salt-curing, which means that consumption is not necessarily restricted to coastal communities.

Whales were hunted in European waters throughout the Middle Ages for their meat and oil. According to Catholic practice at the time, aquatic creatures were generally considered "fish", therefore whale was deemed suitable for eating during Lent and other "lean periods". An alternative explanation is that the Church considered "hot meat" to raise the libido, making it unfit for holy days. Parts submerged in water, such as whale or beaver tails, were considered "cold meat". These practices were due to the laws of fasting and abstinence in the Catholic Church.

Eating whale meat did not end with the Middle Ages in Europe, but rather, whale stock in nearby oceans collapsed due to overexploitation, especially the right whales around the Bay of Biscay. Thus European whalers (the Basques, especially, were known for their expertise) had to seek out the New World to catch whales. The Dutch and Flemish were also active in the whaling commerce during the Middle Ages, and a number of records regarding the trafficking of whale meat and taxation on it occur from historical Flanders (extending to cities like Arras or Calais in the département of Pas-de-Calais).

French surgeon Ambroise Paré (died 1590) wrote that "the flesh has no value, but the tongue is soft and delicious and therefore salted; likewise, the blubber, which is distributed across many provinces, and eaten with peas during Lent". This blubber, known as craspois or lard de carême, was food for the poorer strata on the continent. The whaling industry in Canada and the United States may have supplied rendered fat, partly for consumption in Europe.

In early America, sailors onboard whalers may have eaten blubber after rendering, which they termed "cracklings" or "fritters", said to be crunchy like toast; these were certainly reused as fuel chips to boil down the fat. Colonial America also more commonly consumed the meat and other portions of the "blackfish" (or pilot whale). However, by the beginning of large-scale commercial whaling, whale meat was not consumed by the general American public, as it was not seen as fit for consumption by so-called civilized peoples.

Minke whale is one of the most common species still hunted in substantial numbers. Baleen whales other than the minke are endangered, though they are taken in numbers by indigenous peoples who traditionally hunt them, and more lately, the whaling nations have resumed hunting larger baleen whales openly.^{[citation needed]}