Reindeer Slaughter: Meat and Flavor Production in Chukotka
This work analyzes ethnographic materials on reindeer slaughter collected in the Iultinskii district of the Chukotka Autonomous Okrug between 2017 and 2019. Reindeer slaughter represents an essential moment in the transformation of a living creature into “dead” meat. Examining this process allows us to understand how such an important transformation occurs. This article shows that most of the flavor of the meat is determined by the relationship with the animal during the slaughter and butchering. In our demonstration, we compare reindeer slaughtering techniques in the tundra and in the Amguema district slaughterhouse. By comparing the relationship between humans and animals on different locations, we will first show how personal relations between humans and animals are created and maintained during traditional slaughter, but also how they transform the link between humans and food. Then, we will oppose reindeer and meat perception in the tundra and in the slaughterhouse, where neither animals nor animal products have a close personal connection with humans. It consequently becomes mere merchandise, deprived of both culinary and symbolic characteristics. Considered « improper » by the local population, human-reindeer relationships during the herd’s slaughter for commercial purpose leads to unnatural food production which changes the taste of the meat.