While in Bergen, Norway I tried minke whale steak (cooked medium) with a red wine reduction, celeriac purée and veggies. I was a bit hesitant given the well documented history of whaling.
After speaking with locals in the port and reading a number of conservation articles on minke whaling (with tracked data around their numbers), I learned that minke whales were historically too small and too fast to catch by Nordic fishermen. Due to this and the fact that their blubber was not conducive to producing coveted whale oil, they were far less hunted than other species and maintained sizeable populations throughout the centuries.
Today minke whale is neither endangered nor threatened and has an extremely low number of permitted hunts annually by only Norway, Iceland and Japan. Their population has remained stable and sustainable for at least the past two decades with numbers even increasing in the 80s and 90s.
As whales are mammals, it has red meat and is very lean. To me it tasted nearly indistinguishable from veal and there was no ‘fishiness’ whatsoever. If you had told me I was eating beef, I wouldn’t have questioned it. So while it was really tasty with the sauce, it’s likely not something I’d eat again, largely because it did taste so common.
The other items on the table were local Norwegian oysters, smoked salmon (best I’ve ever had), and traditional Bergen fish soup (which tasted like a cross between gumbo and clam chowder)!
Roger_-Thornhill
Thanks for this post. Very informative.
Snackdoc189
All of that sounds delicious
Oniriggers
I did not enjoy my minke whale steak in Iceland, different but they cook it medium rare, the more you cook it the fishier the taste. To chewy but the Minke whale sliders were delicious. Tasted like a beef steak cooked next to a piece of fish.
4 Comments
While in Bergen, Norway I tried minke whale steak (cooked medium) with a red wine reduction, celeriac purée and veggies. I was a bit hesitant given the well documented history of whaling.
After speaking with locals in the port and reading a number of conservation articles on minke whaling (with tracked data around their numbers), I learned that minke whales were historically too small and too fast to catch by Nordic fishermen. Due to this and the fact that their blubber was not conducive to producing coveted whale oil, they were far less hunted than other species and maintained sizeable populations throughout the centuries.
Today minke whale is neither endangered nor threatened and has an extremely low number of permitted hunts annually by only Norway, Iceland and Japan. Their population has remained stable and sustainable for at least the past two decades with numbers even increasing in the 80s and 90s.
As whales are mammals, it has red meat and is very lean. To me it tasted nearly indistinguishable from veal and there was no ‘fishiness’ whatsoever. If you had told me I was eating beef, I wouldn’t have questioned it. So while it was really tasty with the sauce, it’s likely not something I’d eat again, largely because it did taste so common.
The other items on the table were local Norwegian oysters, smoked salmon (best I’ve ever had), and traditional Bergen fish soup (which tasted like a cross between gumbo and clam chowder)!
Thanks for this post. Very informative.
All of that sounds delicious
I did not enjoy my minke whale steak in Iceland, different but they cook it medium rare, the more you cook it the fishier the taste. To chewy but the Minke whale sliders were delicious. Tasted like a beef steak cooked next to a piece of fish.