The Sami people of the Kola Peninsula had a limited number of kitchen utensils, which were all simple. They were mostly made of wood, chiseled from birch or pine.
The museum collection includes a deep, round-shaped dish for washing fish, carved from a single piece of birch.
The Sami fishing season traditionally lasted from spring to fall. During this period, they made large fish stocks for themselves and for sale: one family usually harvested more than 400 kilograms of fish. As a rule, Sami women were engaged in fishing on the lakes. They were skillful with seines or set nets for whitefish, pike, perch and burbot. This wooden bowl was used for gutting and cutting fish.
The Sami tried to salt or sun-dry their catch, which was not immediately available for eating, with no salt added. Salt was a rather rare product, so it was used very seldom. Salting was much less widespread among the Sami than among the neighboring Pomors and Russians. Fish was cut, gutted, washed, and then salt was poured inside it. After that, the fish was placed in barrels for storage.
In the late 19th and early 20th century, fish was sometimes buried in the ground for a while, thus becoming fermentied.
For drying, freshly caught fish were finned, gutted and hung on poles under a shelter that protected them from rain. Exposed to sunlight and wind, the fish dried and could be stored for years.
If the catch was eaten immediately, it was usually boiled or fried. In the traditional Sami fish soup, the head was put in first, then the body, and only then the tail. An old proverb explains, “So that the fish would go into the nets and not out of them”.
It was common for the Sami to eat pieces of boiled fish first and then drink the broth.
Fish was fried on an open fire as follows: the
catch was gutted, washed, cut into large pieces, and salted. Then whitefish or
perch were pounded onto a long, pointed birch stick — a nichpas. It was poked
obliquely in front of the hearth, so that the fish would fry but not burn. The
dish was called a zharnitsa.
