In Alaska, people eat breakfast. Pretty much every day. They eat cornflakes and smoothies and the odd sausage-and-egg McGriddle. I can verify this because I have woken up in Alaska more mornings than I’ve woken up anywhere else, and I have eaten all of those things for breakfast.
Charming restaurants all over the state have made the most of Alaska’s bounty. A Ship Creek Benedict from Snow City Café in Anchorage is two fresh salmon cakes (maybe pulled out of the actual Ship Creek, which is a mile down the road) served over English muffins with hollandaise sauce and poached eggs. At the Bake Shop in Girdwood, you can get pancakes made from a sourdough starter they’ve had going since 1963 (which they acquired from a gold miner). Most respectable places give you the option of adding a crab leg to go with your omelet, and it’s been a while since I’ve seen a place that didn’t have at least a passing notion of what to do with reindeer sausage.
But those are not my Alaskan breakfast. My Alaskan breakfast was made by only one man, eaten on one river (called the Alexander Creek, but don’t let the name fool you—in Alaska, even our creeks are rivers), and served only on Memorial Day weekend, the first morning after king-salmon fishing was opened to the public.
Here is how you make breakfast in Alaska. Start with a skillet, cast-iron and as big as you can find, seasoned for no less than a generation—more if you’re serious. The skillet that cooked the best of my Alaskan breakfasts was the size of a winter tire, passed from my grandfather to my uncle Kent. I don’t remember how long it had been in our family, but I do remember that, greased up for the fire, you could see your face in it.
Next, catch a fish—salmon, ideally. Kent was a marine biologist and a passionate, tireless fisherman. Employed by Fish & Game to make sure greedy hands didn’t overfish the rivers, he could never quite figure out how to spend his time off. So while the rest of the family slept off the trip into camp, Kent woke up early and spent his morning in a flat-bottomed boat with a pole in the water and an eye out for trouble. I spent twelve summers on that river with my uncle before he died, and I, too, was an early riser. These excursions, unknown to many of the other kids, made me feel naughty and chosen and lucky. I watched him take dozens of fish out of the water before anybody else was awake. He loved fishing as much as any human ever has, and nothing riled him more than a guy who took more than his share.
Once caught, the fish gets cleaned and the roe stored for the next expedition. Fillets are brought up to the fire. At that point the skillet is over the fire; it’s been there long enough to mean business. Onions first, then Yukon potatoes. (Mentioning that Kent chopped these things with a machete seems like a cheap shot for effect, but here’s the thing: Kent chopped these things with a machete.) Once the potatoes have taken on enough color to be called hash browns, they get pushed to the side, and a dozen eggs—maybe a dozen and a half, if my brother is around—get cracked into the open space, scrambled, and garnished with rogue ash from the fire. Lastly come the fillets, the third stripe in the Neapolitan, just long enough for a sear on each side.
Charming restaurants all over the state have made the most of Alaska’s bounty. A Ship Creek Benedict from Snow City Café in Anchorage is two fresh salmon cakes (maybe pulled out of the actual Ship Creek, which is a mile down the road) served over English muffins with hollandaise sauce and poached eggs. At the Bake Shop in Girdwood, you can get pancakes made from a sourdough starter they’ve had going since 1963 (which they acquired from a gold miner). Most respectable places give you the option of adding a crab leg to go with your omelet, and it’s been a while since I’ve seen a place that didn’t have at least a passing notion of what to do with reindeer sausage.
But those are not my Alaskan breakfast. My Alaskan breakfast was made by only one man, eaten on one river (called the Alexander Creek, but don’t let the name fool you—in Alaska, even our creeks are rivers), and served only on Memorial Day weekend, the first morning after king-salmon fishing was opened to the public.Here is how you make breakfast in Alaska. Start with a skillet, cast-iron and as big as you can find, seasoned for no less than a generation—more if you’re serious. The skillet that cooked the best of my Alaskan breakfasts was the size of a winter tire, passed from my grandfather to my uncle Kent. I don’t remember how long it had been in our family, but I do remember that, greased up for the fire, you could see your face in it.
Next, catch a fish—salmon, ideally. Kent was a marine biologist and a passionate, tireless fisherman. Employed by Fish & Game to make sure greedy hands didn’t overfish the rivers, he could never quite figure out how to spend his time off. So while the rest of the family slept off the trip into camp, Kent woke up early and spent his morning in a flat-bottomed boat with a pole in the water and an eye out for trouble. I spent twelve summers on that river with my uncle before he died, and I, too, was an early riser. These excursions, unknown to many of the other kids, made me feel naughty and chosen and lucky. I watched him take dozens of fish out of the water before anybody else was awake. He loved fishing as much as any human ever has, and nothing riled him more than a guy who took more than his share.
Once caught, the fish gets cleaned and the roe stored for the next expedition. Fillets are brought up to the fire. At that point the skillet is over the fire; it’s been there long enough to mean business. Onions first, then Yukon potatoes. (Mentioning that Kent chopped these things with a machete seems like a cheap shot for effect, but here’s the thing: Kent chopped these things with a machete.) Once the potatoes have taken on enough color to be called hash browns, they get pushed to the side, and a dozen eggs—maybe a dozen and a half, if my brother is around—get cracked into the open space, scrambled, and garnished with rogue ash from the fire. Lastly come the fillets, the third stripe in the Neapolitan, just long enough for a sear on each side.
by Genevieve Roth, Lucky Peach | Read more:
Image: uncredited
