Yupʼik cuisine

Yup'ik cuisine (Yupiit neqait in Yup'ik language, literally "Yup'iks' foods" or "Yup'iks' fishes") refers to the Inuit and Yup'ik style traditional subsistence food and cuisine of the Yup'ik people from western and southwestern Alaska. Also known as Cup'ik cuisine for the Chevak Cup'ik dialect speaking Eskimos of Chevak and Cup'ig cuisine for the Nunivak Cup'ig dialect speaking Eskimos of Nunivak Island. This cuisine is traditionally based on meat from fish, birds, sea and land mammals, and normally contains high levels of protein. Subsistence foods are generally considered by many to be nutritionally superior superfoods. Yup’ik diet is different from Alaskan Inupiat, Canadian Inuit, and Greenlandic diets. Fish as food (especially Salmonidae species, such as salmon and whitefish) are primary food for Yup'ik Eskimos. Both food and fish called neqa in Yup'ik. Food preparation techniques are fermentation and cooking, also uncooked raw. Cooking methods are baking, roasting, barbecuing, frying, smoking, boiling, and steaming. Food preservation methods are mostly drying and less often frozen. Dried fish is usually eaten with seal oil. The ulu or fan-shaped knife is used for cutting up fish, meat, food, and such.

The Yup'ik, like other Eskimo groups, were semi-nomadic hunter-fisher-gatherers who moved seasonally throughout the year within a reasonably well-defined territory to harvest fish, bird, sea and land mammal, berry and other renewable resources. Yup'ik cuisine is based on traditional subsistence food harvests (hunting, fishing and berry gathering) supplemented by seasonal subsistence activities. The Yup'ik region is rich with waterfowl, fish, and sea and land mammals. The coastal settlements rely more heavily on sea mammals (seals, walruses, beluga whales), many species of fish (Pacific salmon, herring, halibut, flounder, trout, burbot, Alaska blackfish), shellfish, crabs, and seaweed. The inland settlements rely more heavily on Pacific salmon and freshwater whitefish, land mammals (moose, caribou), migratory waterfowl, bird eggs, berries, greens, and roots help sustain people throughout the region.

Akutaq (Eskimo ice cream), tepa (stinkheads), and mangtak (muktuk) are some of the most well-known traditional Yup'ik delicacies.

Traditional subsistence foods are mixed with what is commercially available. Today about half the food is supplied by subsistence activities (subsistence foods), the other half is purchased from the commercial stores (market foods, store-bought foods).