Hawaiian and other Polynesian cultures have an ancient relationship with Alaska, and today Pacific Islanders comprise the largest growing ethnic community in Alaska. Anchorage alone has a Polynesian florist, various Hawaiian restaurants, and a handful of Samoan churches. If you look a little harder in some convenience stores, you’ll find the piece of culinary heaven brought to us from the south Pacific, the Hawaiian delicacy known simply as “musubi.”
A Taste of Wild Alaska by Vivian Wagner One July a few years ago, my husband and I sailed and hiked with friends around Kodiak Island, and everywhere we looked we saw them: bright red and orange salmonberries, hanging from bushes, just waiting to be plucked and eaten. It was the first time I’d ever had these berries, and I fell in love with them. We picked handfuls, eating as many as we could right where they grew, and carrying overflowing containers back to the boat. Salmonberries (Rubus spectabilis) are members of the rose family, and they’re related to raspberries, cloudberries, and other brambles. In Alaska they grow predominantly in damp coastal areas in the southeast, southcentral, and southwest regions. Prized as food by indigenous peoples, salmonberries can be eaten raw or used for pies, tarts, pancakes, jam, or syrup. They’re also high in antioxidants and vitamins A and C.…
Chef Andrew Maxwell’s recipe for the famous dessert, baked Alaska.
Devil’s club often lives up to its ominous name, but if harvested early enough it can be a tasty morsel when included in dishes like pasta.
These toppings are better than ketchup and mustard at a barbecue. Recipes for pickled mustard seed, roasted onion relish, pear chutney.
Chef Andrew Maxwell can’t stop making – and eating – these simple sourdough crackers, which he regularly serves alongside a halibut spread.
Moose is normally thought of a lean meat, but Chef Andrew Maxwell suggests using the marbeled shank to make a rich osso buco.
Alaska deserves status among other American barbecue varieties, and to assist the process Andrew Maxwell created Mountain Goat Chili with Alaskan beets.
A northern spin on the famous Hawaiian musubi, a block of rice topped with protein, usually SPAM, and wrapped in nori.
A family recipe for cranberry bread, and an accompanying holiday tale of woe and redemption in the kitchen.
