John Martin is the associate publisher of Vice and a gourmand. He is also the raffish longhair on our recent Alaskan adventure who you see Heimo toss a shotgun during the bear attack in yesterday’s episode. This is his account of the food situation of the Alaskan Interior.

Our eating started in Fairbanks, where we decided it was prudent to only patronize restaurants making the geographic boast of “northernmost” something or other. First stop: the world’s northernmost Denny’s for breakfast with the Alaska militia guys. It was a Denny’s, not unlike Denny’s wherever you live–Slams and coffee and orange juice from concentrate. Standard.

For lunch we stumbled into Big Daddy’s BarB-Q–the Northernmost Southern Bar-B-Q. We had some nice heavy fried and smoked meats while observing the filming of Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives.

He of yellow-hair-and-sunglasses-on-backward fame wasn’t there, but his camera crew with their mountain of gear ground the pace of our ribfest down to a halt.

Dinner took us to the Pump House–home of the northernmost oyster bar. The Pump House is a Fairbanks institution that boasts taxidermy to rivals the L.L. Bean flagship store and a smokiness long since gone from NYC bars. Oddly enough, they served oysters from Washington.

Not knowing whether we were going to be fed by the Korths and figuring they might appreciate a re-up of town food, we purchased fresh veggies, eggs, dried camping food, Powerbars, and a gift of Limburger cheese for Heimo. Thankfully, the Korths had other plans in regards to our Arctic diet. Herein is my food journal of our stay in ANWR.

Sunday: Spaghetti with moose-neck sauce, salad. The Korths eased us in with a saucy take on chopped moose neck and spaghetti. Basically a bolognese. We had been marveling at the outdoor meat locker all afternoon, looking at the assorted noses, heads, haunches, ribs, and hearts. Crafty move going in with the pasta for the New Yorkers. Well played, Edna.

Monday: Feinberg, our filmer/editor, cooked omelettes and taught Heimo a few of his omelette tricks, as they are one of the few town foods he really likes. Eggs and vegetables are a luxury that only come with visitors out here, who are few and very far between.

After getting a tour of the meat locker, we told Heimo and Edna that we were ready for the big leagues, so for dinner they brought out an offal platter of caribou kidney and liver and moose heart, pan-seared with some Thai noodles–call it Arctic/Bangkok fusion. Sadly, that was all the organ meat we were to eat over our stay. I get the feeling that the organs are a bit of a prize–after all, when they bring down a moose, there’s several hundred pounds of muscle, but only a small amount of heart, brain, liver, and kidneys. The real jewel is the moose nose, which Heimo said he was saving for a special meal (aka not with us).

Tuesday: Oatmeal for breakfast. Heimo likes to say “Oatmeal or no meal.” We then spent the majority of the day fishing for Arctic Grayling in the Coleen. With the exception of Thomas, we were less than successful in pulling our weight though we did end up with 6 total, perfect for dinner. Gutting the fish became a real comedy of errors with Heimo getting a direct spray of Grayling shit in his mouth and Thomas letting his almost slip away. We then proceeded to freak out our hosts by eating the fresh Grayling eggs with our knives. These New Yorkers weren’t going to let fresh caviar go to waste.

Wednesday: Pancakes with almonds and banana for breakfast. When fresh fruit comes into the Arctic, it gets eaten quickly. For dinner we grilled some caribou ribs on the fire–we were thinking about going for the moose, but Heimo said we’d use those later in the week for something special. We also threw some Limberger cheese on a baked potato. Heimo loves Limberger cheese with a passion. Edna decidedly does not. We actually brought him Limburger cheese and some other Limburger-esque yuppie cheese from the Bedford Cheese Shop to see if Heimo could tell the difference. He found the imposter cheese easily. After all, he is from Wisconsin.

Thursday: Scrambled eggs and potatoes for breakfast. While as I said eggs are a luxury in ANWR, potatoes last a little longer, so they are more of a staple. In fact, along with wild berries, small, fingerling type potatoes are one of the only flora that the Korths forage for up in the Arctic. Dinner was Taco Night, one of Heimo’s (many) favorite nights. Moose neck tacos with seasoning and vegetables. Heimo scarfed down about eight of them. The guy can eat. He wasn’t buying my insistence that if we caught some more grayling we could whip up some killer fish tacos.

Friday: Oatmeal for breakfast. We went big for dinner and had the king salmon, cooked in one pot with some onions and potatoes and carrots. The Korths live in Fort Yukon during the summer to sell the winter’s furs and also because the flies in the Refuge are completely unbearable that time of year. While he’s in town Heimo pulls out a bunch of these huge king salmon out of the Yukon. Yes, these are the salmon that go for $30+ per pound everywhere from Pike’s Market in Seattle to Dean and Deluca in SoHo. When Rick Schikora flew in, he brought one of the salmon out for Heimo, and took a few racks of moose ribs in return for the favor.

Saturday: Omelettes for breakfast, running low on eggs. Dinner was moose neck again–cubed and sauteed with gravy, side of mashed potatoes. There’s a ton of meat in a moose neck. We barely made a dent in the thing.

Sunday: Pancakes for breakfast. For dinner, moose ribs braised in water from the Coleen and a classic mirepoix of onion, carrot, and maybe celery. Fatty, falling off the bone, as rich as rich can be. Made beef shortribs seem flavorless. Served with a baked potato, the veggies from the pot, and cornbread. In my mind, that’s what Arctic cuisine was all about. The best meat I had all year. Sorry, Peter Luger.

Monday: Breakfast hash with the final few eggs, onion, potato, and ham. Dinner stirfry made from the caribou backstrap and veggies. At this point I realized that Heimo and Edna shared an appreciation of the off-cuts of meat with the fancy chefs of NY and SF. Heimo sees nothing wrong with backstrap–caribou steak–but he hates the hunters who only want that and leave the rest to rot, which he rightfully considers a shame. Heimo knows that the tastiest parts are the weird parts.

Tuesday: Oatmeal. Then moose backstrap steaks on the grill. Heimo likes them a tad more well done than I do, probably medium well to my medium rare, but he said that’s a safeguard in the off-chance the meat would make him sick. Maybe a smart move considering the 300 miles between him and the nearest doctor. Gamey, chewy, tasty. Served with mac and cheese and corn, I felt like I was at the backyard cookout of my dreams.

Wednesday: Pancakes for breakfast then we hopped on the plane back to town. Heimo had been going on and on about this great “authentic New York-style” pizza place near the university in Fairbanks that we had to check out. We made our way there for some lunch only to discover that Heimo had tricked us! It was entirely decked out in Red Sox paraphernalia. Who the hell ever heard of Boston-style pizza?

For our first dinner back in town we headed for a very highly recommended (by pilots) steak house–the Turtle Club just out of Fairbanks, in Fox. Heimo had mentioned he’s not a huge fan of steak, because it doesn’t have much flavor for him after eating such a rich diet of wild game. Lamb is good, but beef doesn’t do it for him.

After 10 days on the Korth diet, it didn’t do anything for us either. We all got steaks, and damn fine steaks they were, but none of us found them very flavorful. Thomas I believe referred to his (way too loudly) as having the taste of “slightly damp sponge.”

The ANWR diet wins in more ways than one. I’m not sure about the other guys, but I went from one end of my belt notches to the other. Probably a combination of the cold, dehydration, not boozing, and being active outside all day, but I have to think the Korth’s supremely natural food was a big part of it.

There definitely is something to be said for eating locally and humanely-raised or no meat, and which you can read about in Edible Brooklyn or a poorly edited Jonathan Safran Foer book. The Korths render all those arguments pretentiously moot. They eat what’s available to survive and are healthy. Game over. Sure, they get some assistance and creature comforts from the sporadic bush plane, but they don’t need it. Want to talk local? Five minutes from your house you pull out a couple beaver from the river. Humanely raised? A caribou walks through your front yard, never hears the rifle shot, and now you get to butcher it yourself. Sustainable? It was one in a herd of over 100,000. After being up there it makes all the new-fangled locavore folks seem very, very trite. For the Korths, if they don’t get food, they don’t eat. That puts sourcing your food in a whole new perspective that’s very different than most Americans–eating to live, versus living to eat.

Despite not getting a fresh caribou, we had some amazing food. They even got beavers the day we left (and were too lazy to go check the traps in the morning). Boiled beaver tail is a delicacy only Heimo can handle. Recently, he’s been torturing us with these updates via satellite phone:

10/20 “CARIBOU STILL AROUND.6 INCHES OF SNOW AND STILL FALLING.”
11/4 “ALWAYS HAPPY 2 HERE PACKERS LOSE.-25 THIS A:M,-6 NOW.GLAD U DIDNT GET GIARDIA.DO U EVER DREAM OF BEAR? HEIMO”
1/14 “HOWS EVERYTHING GOING WITH MOVIE? BEEN -50 FOR 6 DAYS.NOT SUPPOSE TO WARM UP UNTIL MON OR TUES.HEIMO”
2/7 “BIG FAT DELICIOUS MOOSE RIBS 2NITE.WISH U WERE HERE 2 PARTAKE IN THIS MEAL.-20 ONLY.HOPE ALL IS GOING GOOD.HEIMO”
2/18 “SALMON OVER FIRE YESTERDAY,2DAY DUCK SOUP.WILL SEND U MENU EVERY NOW AND THEN.YUMMY.HEIMO”
2/23 “ROASTED LYNX WITH SHAKE N BAKE SPRINKLED ON IT.DELICIOUS.WE EVEN COMMENTED THAT WE WISHED U WERE HERE 2 HELP US EAT IT ALL.HOW IS MOVIE?HEIMO”

Over the holidays Heimo pitched us on doing a VBS eating show with him. I think we might have to do it. Anybody reading this work for Remington or Browning?

JOHN MARTIN

PS: Just got this from ANWR Satellite Service this morning:

WHO THE HECK IS BILL MURRAY? BEANS AND MOOSE HOCKS 2NITE.ITS GOOOOOOD.HEIMO