Blubber refers to the thick layer of fat between the skin and the muscle layers of whales and other marine mammals, from which an oil is obtained.
Arctic marine mammals, like whales, seals and walruses, are warm blooded but spend most or all of their lives in the cold water. Heat loss is much greater in water than in air, and without a way to keep heat from leaving their
bodies, they would freeze to death in
water that is usually just above the
freezing point.
To insulate them from the cold, these animals have a thick, dense layer of connective tissue and fat under their skin called blubber. The blubber of Arctic marine mammals both stores energy and provides insulation.
The thickness of the blubber can vary from a couple of inches in smaller whales and seals, to over 12 inches / 30 centimeter thick on larger whales.
Blubber is important to Arctic native people because it provided both high energy
food and oil for fuel, and this rich oil was the main reason for the whaling trade. Whale blubber was collected, then rendered down into oil in giant cauldrons. The whale oil was used as fuel in lamps, for making candles, and as lubricants for machinery.
Blubber which allowed these animals to live by providing them insuation and stroing their energy, is most of the time the reason why they are killed, because of their blubber.
In Faroe Islands, blubber is one of their foods. Blubber is put in the saucepan with
salt and boiled for an hour, together with some whale
meat and
potatoes. The
recipe for this nutritional meal, however, is not found in cookbooks and could not be found on the
menu of a
restaurant in Faroe Islands either.
Blubber is the common Inuit name for the 4 to 5 inches of fat taken from a whale. Easily rendered, it is valued for fuel and light, used in cooking or as is. Sometimes fresh chunks are secured with a string to a baby's toe and offered as a pacifier. The Inuit are the indigenous peoples inhabiting the Arctic regions of Canada, Greenland, and Alaska.
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